Portland, OR

I returned from my vacation to San Diego, California on Tuesday night after two almost missed and quite adventurous flights there, one delayed flight home next to a crazy German lady who plucked her eyebrows for the last 15 minutes of the flight, a bus stalled on my MAX tracks, 40 degree winds through China Town and two more MAX switches. It was fun though. I took lots of pictures and drank many margaritas. I returned on election day - special election day. I am glad that I had my ballot turned in before I left, and actually had it filled out the day that I received it in the mail.

I’m not normally a very political person, and this election wasn’t much different for me, although I did have some feelings towards things. There were two main Multnomah County ballot measures on my piece of paper:

Measure 49 - passed (yes: 78.56% (as of 11/7) … no: 21.44% (as of 11/7))
This measure protects the property rights of small and individual landowners. If you were allowed to when you purchased your land, you are immediately allowed to put three houses on your property. This right will now carry over to surviving spouses (God forbid you pass away) as well as those who buy the land from current owners. This measure was essentially a clarification of an old measure (measure 37).

Measure 50 - failed in Oregon overall, but “passed” in Multnomah county (as of 10:45am today - yes: 56.01% … no: 43.09%)
Meausre 50 was dubbed the “Healthy Kids Plan” and was set to raise cigarette taxes by almost a dollar ($0.85) per pack in order to use the proceeds to provide health coverage “for more than one hundred thousand” uninsured children. It was set to amend the Oregon constitution, and Oregonians apparently didn’t like that.

And for the record, my votes were for the “winning” sides!

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