Oregon Businesses Charged for Public Assistance Programs Utilized by Employees Initiative (2020)

Oregon Businesses Charged for Public Assistance Programs Utilized by Employees Initiative
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Business regulation and Welfare
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens
List of Oregon measuresOregon Measure 107Oregon Measure 108Oregon Measure 109Oregon Measure 110Submit

The Oregon Businesses Charged for Public Assistance Programs Utilized by Employees Initiative (#27-29) was not on the ballot in Oregon as an initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

This initiative would have established an annual assessment on all businesses with more than 100 employees equal to the estimated amount of public income-based assistance paid to its employees. Three versions of the initiative were submitted. They varied according to how the assessment is calculated and to what the revenue is allocated. Two versions were designed to remit the revenue to taxpayers. One version would have allocated the revenue to state funds for education, public health, and pension liability payments.

Text of measure

Ballot title

The certified ballot title for Initiative 28 would have been:

“

Certain businesses must pay assessments based on estimated public assistance cost for median-income employee

”

Full text

• The full text of Initiative Petition 27 is available here.
• The full text of Initiative Petition 28 is available here.
• The full text of Initiative Petition 29 is available here.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Oregon

The state process

In Oregon, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. Signatures for Oregon initiatives must be submitted four months prior to the next regular general election. State law also requires paid signature gatherers to submit any signatures they gather every month.

Moreover, Oregon is one of several states that require a certain number of signatures to accompany an initiative petition application. The signatures of at least 1,000 electors are required to trigger a review by state officials, a period of public commentary, and the drafting of a ballot title. Prior to gathering these initial 1,000 signatures, petitioners must submit the text of the measure, a form disclosing their planned use of paid circulators, and a form designating up to three chief petitioners. The 1,000 preliminary signatures count toward the final total required.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures: 112,020 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 2, 2020.

In Oregon, signatures are verified using a random sample method. If a first round of signatures is submitted at least 165 days before an election and contains raw, unverified signatures at least equal to the minimum requirement, but verification shows that not enough of the submitted signatures are valid, additional signatures can be submitted prior to the final deadline.

Details about this initiative

• Jeff Anderson filed the different versions of this initiative on May 14, 2019.
• The initiatives were not cleared for circulation.

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Business regulation on the ballot
• Welfare on the ballot
• 2020 petition deadlines

Oregon

• Oregon ballot measures
• Oregon initiative laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls
• Ballot measure signature costs

External links

• Oregon Initiatives, Referendums, and Referrals