Oregon kids threatened by parental consent initiatives
By ANDREA MEYER
The Constitution Party of Oregon—in the news lately for sponsoring the OCA’s Lon Mabon as its candidate for the U.S. Senate—has a more insidious agenda than simply nominating fringe candidates. As of this writing, they have filed local initiatives in seven counties to prohibit local governments or their contracting agencies from providing any services to minors without parental consent, except for health or counseling services in very limited "emergency" circumstances.
Along with a broad-based coalition, the ACLU of Oregon has organized to oppose these measures in court and at the ballot box wherever sponsors collect enough signatures.
In addition to minors’ access to health and counseling services, the initiatives would also bar access to parks and recreation, libraries, homeless and runaway youth programs, and even law enforcement services unless a parent consents. Bob Eckstrom, Constitution Party chair, confirmed to The Oregonian that the measures would require counties to "receive consents from parents before providing services ranging from lunches in the park to health services."
But it’s even worse than that! Because the initiatives don’t make an exception for crime prevention or police services, a child being assaulted by a family member wouldn’t be able to get help from the county Sheriff unless she or he had parental consent.
So far the measures have been filed in Columbia, Polk, Yamhill, Marion, Clackamas, Washington and Jackson counties, and the Columbia County measure has already qualified for the March, 2003 election. The Constitution Party has until December 11th to submit signatures in order to appear on the March ballot in other counties.
We filed ballot title challenges on behalf of local residents who are deeply concerned about these proposals in six counties, arguing that the titles prepared by local district attorneys were incorrect and misleading. We know from our extensive work on statewide initiative campaigns that it is very important for ballot titles to be clear and accurate—especially when initiative sponsors write their measures using ambiguous, undefined terms. We want to thank ACLU cooperating attorneys Darian Stanford and Scott Kaplan of the Stoel Rives law firm for countless hours spent preparing and litigating our challenges. We also want to thank cooperating attorneys Jossi Davidson in Marion County and Joe Penna in Polk County for handling court appearances, and Judy Uherbelau in Jackson County for her assistance.
We expect there will be local campaign committees working against each of these initiatives when they come up for a vote. ACLU is working closely with the statewide coalition that already includes many organizations opposed to the Constitution Party initiatives.