Hello, Oregon Progressive Party members and supporters. Welcome to the latest of our monthly newsletters on what we are up to and other items of interest to the Oregon Progressive community.

Oregon Progressive Party issued this statement regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine.

In part it states: "NATO must lead on creating the path to a cease fire, de-escalation, long term security and peace by publishing a clear, unequivocal written assurance Ukraine will remain a free and neutral nation and that NATO will not absorb Ukraine. Ukraine should not be used as a pawn by NATO and should be free to remain neutral as Finland and Sweden have." Rest of the statement here."

While this war has been happening, President Biden released his proposed budget for FY 2023. He has budgeted a massive $813 billion, representing a 4% increase over what was just signed into law for FY22. That is $31 billion more than last year's budget. For the past several years, Congress has added $25 billion over what the President has requested. And it is highly likely that more will be added to cover costs of military assistance to Ukraine.

More details on the Biden proposed budget in this CNN article:

Biden administration proposed larger defense buget to counter China, Russia.

And the National Priorities Project (of Brown University) issued a statement:

Biden FY 2023 budget puts war before human needs.

Call our Oregon Senators and Representatives.

Tell them that their silence on war and the ever-increasing war budget is not OK; they need to support cutting the military budget and move the money to fulfill human needs.

Cut the "defense" budget, don't increase it.

Oregon voters clearly want effective limits on political campaign contributions and spending in Oregon elections.

WE WILL NEED YOUR HELP getting this on the Nov 2024 ballot. Sign up here to help the OR Progressive Party help with the campaign gathering signatures when the time comes.

The OR Secretary of State (SOS), Shemia Fagan, incorrectly declared that our initiatives ror November 2022 do not meet requirements regarding the inclusion of the full text of OR law which would be affected in the initiatives themselves. This has now indeed killed our initiatives for 2022. But we will continue our efforts to get Big Special Money Interests Out of Our Oregon Elections.

After SOS Fagan (D) erroneously declared that each of our petitions was defective because it did not contain all the current laws text which is being changed, we filed a writ with the OR Supreme Court to speed up the review process. But the Supreme Court said No, that we should just make the changes being demanded by the Secretary of State. We then petitioned them again, noting that refiling would not leave any time to gather signatures, due to Oregon's absurd system that requires jumping through procedural hoops for about 4 months before signatures can be obtained. Again the answer was NO.

So we will file new petition(s) soon and work to get them qualified for the November 2024 ballot. Whatever we file will still be based on our principles: No loopholes. No special interest money in the election process. Transparency as to who is giving what to who.

We need to now build a base of signature gatherers for this new effort. We also need to know who might help contribute funds for this new effort. So if you can do either, please sign up as a supporter of the initiatives we have already filed for the 2022 ballot below. You will be added to our growing list of supporters, funders and collectors of signatures.

Several initiative petition campaigns now allow individual supporters to sign their initiative petitions by printing them from their websites, signing them and then mailing them in. No reason to wait to find a signature gatherer at some event or on the street. You can do it yourself.

Three initiative petition campaigns which OR Progressive Party supports for the Nov 2022 ballot are among this group. Two are regarding end gun violence in Oregon and the third would rebate to every Oregon resident approximately $750 annually.

LEARN MORE HERE.

As an Oregon registered voter, you can give a tax refundable donation of up to $50 once a year and then get it all back as a credit on your Oregon income taxes. There is no reason to wait to the end of the year. Do it now.