House

The Oregonian ran a piece in Tuesday's paper on U.S Rep. Earl Blumenauer's (D-Portland) ideas to deal with the current gas crunch.

One idea is to allow employers who have gas and parking benefits for their employees to extend similar benefits to workers who use public transportation. Blumenauer also proposed allowing residents to cash in their car benefits if they do not drive to work.

Blumenauer also proposed increasing federal subsidies for transit agencies and more funding for the Safe Routes to School Program to encourage kids to ride their bikes.

"This is all about choices for people and not trapping them in the practices and policies of the past," he said.

The clock is ticking for campaign fundraisers: Monday at midnight marks the close of financial reporting for the second quarter.

The reporting period, which spanned from April 1, 2008 to June 30, 2008, will be a marker of which candidates have added to their war chest, which candidates have enough money to maintain their run and which candidates may be falling behind in the money game.

The reports will help bring to light two of the state's most hotly contested races, the U.S. Senate race and the 5th Congressional District race.

A feature article in The Oregonian Monday analyzes how federal transportation budgets have become an earmark haven and how two Oregon congressmen are trying to steer it back toward functional.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Springfield), chairman of the House Subcommittee for surface transportation, will be in charge of finding solutions to the problem. He says possibilities include a solution called "least-cost transportation planning" which focuses less on how the money is spent, and more on overall improvements made to the system.

"It becomes more mode-neutral, instead of saying this money has to be spent on buses, or that money has to be spent on concrete," he told The Oregonian.

Striking down the Millionaire's Amendment by the Supreme Court is a good thing for Mike Erickson, but not just because it limits his opponent's fundraising capabilities.

After coming forward to the Oregonian with more concrete details of her intimate relationship with Erickson, Tawnya is now being sought out by Democratics for a potential television ad attacking Erickson for his hypocrisy when it come to the hot topic of abortion.

Related PolitickerOR.com coverage: Oregonian publishes interview with woman claiming Erickson paid for her abortion

If Mike Erickson thought the allegations of abortion that his opponent brought up in the primary were behind him, The Oregonian's Monday cover story will be a shock.

It is an in-depth interview with Tawnya, the woman who claims she had a relationship with Erickson (R-Lake Oswego) in 2001. Tawnya gives her version of the events that she says led to her pregnancy and later an abortion paid for by Erickson. Oregonian reporters Janie Har and Steve Mayes corroborated her story with a paper trail and two of Tawnya's friends during that time. The reporters flatly determined, "Their story conflicts directly with Erickson's version."

Erickson's former girlfriend, Tawnya, provided the Oregonian with medical records of her abortion and a bill showing the procedure cost exactly $300, the amount she claims Erickson retrieved from an ATM machine right before dropping her off at the abortion clinic.

U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley and David Wu are publicly criticizing what they feel are inaccuracies in one of U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith’s (R-Pendleton) new ads.

“After watching Gordon Smith's new television ad featuring Elizabeth Furse and Avel Gordly we feel compelled to respond and to help set the record straight,” wrote the four U.S. representatives in a joint statement.

The Republican party wants their voters back and have started their own voter registration (or re-registration in many cases) effort.  In a recent email to their constituents, they are calling all elephant friendly voters to "update their voting records."