Initiative filed to make Deschutes County commissioner seats non-partisan

If no successful challenge to measure, it'll need 6,700 signatures to make ballot

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- An initiative filed with the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office would ask voters to decide whether county commissioner seats should become non-partisan.  

Susan Cobb, the chief petitioner for the non-partisan county commissioners committee, says she believes commissioners hold judge-like powers meaning they should be non-partisan.

“So judges, as you know, are never partisan. And so it seemed to me that the position of being a judge, one should not be partisan,” Cobb said Tuesday.

County Commissioner Tony DeBone says he' not opposed to having non-partisan commission seats. He says the current committee can even make the switch if they wanted to.

“The board has the authority to switch to non-partisan seats. We could do it at a board meeting with 3 people and it could be a 2 to 1 vote even, but that would be 3 people making the decision, which is kind of a big decision,” Debone said.

Debone says that switching over to non-partisan seats has been discussed among board members.

They did consider placing the initiative on a ballot earlier this year, but learned that doing so in the upcoming election would come with a big cost.

“We found out that it would be the only county-wide election in November, which means there would be a $140,000 price tag for it, since there aren’t any general election items on there. So that’s really the reason we backed off, as a board, the three of us,” DeBone said.

Cobb says that if that level of cost is needed to place the initiative on a ballot this year, then she will wait.

“What we’re planning to do is shoot for the November election, but if there is nothing else on the ballot for the November 2021 election, we will hold off on submitting the total signatures we need to get in,” Cobb said.

The proposed non-partisan initiative first goes through a legal notice and challenge period for the next seven days, to see if there are any challenges to the initiative's state requirement that it cover just one subject, and the proposed text "is legislative in nature."

If there are no challenges, at least 6,700 valid Deschutes County voter signatures would be needed in order to get the initiative on a ballot. 

Cobb says she plans on collecting at least 9,000 signatures, to ensure the initiative clear that hurdle and makes the ballot.