In Brief

Kulongoski on Oregon

Gov. Ted Kulongoski delivered his State of the State address Friday, March 5, and detailed his optimism for Oregon’s economy in addition to addressing the fight for more jobs, better education and environmental aid.

For higher ed, Kulongoski demanded schools that are “affordable, accessible and academically first rate.”

“I’m taking higher education off the back-burner where it has sat for at least a decade and making it a major priority,” he said. “In recent years, the higher education tank in Oregon has been running close to empty. Programs have been cut. Faculty has been lost. Tuition has skyrocketed. We need to get higher education off this downward spiral and start moving forward again.”

The governor pointed out that he has already set Oregon’s postsecondary education down this path, having recently appointed a new State Board of Higher Education. His charge to the board, he said, is “Bigger, better, faster.”

A full transcript of the governor’s speech can be found at governor.oregon.gov.

Same-sex marriages garner support and dissent

In the midst of city- and state-wide dispute over Multnomah County’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples last Wednesday, Portland Mayor Vera Katz has come out strongly in support of everyone’s right to wed.

“In a world where we worry that promiscuity is rampant, why would we not embrace those who are pledging fidelity?” she said in a statement on Wednesday, March 3.

The mayor does not have any say over the issuance of marriage, which is currently a county decision. Multnomah County is the fourth community in the nation to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, after Massachusetts, New Paltz, New York, and San Francisco, Calif.

Meanwhile, Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis (R-Wood Village) demanded on the same day that Gov. Kulongoski and Attorney General Hardy Myers defend the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Minnis sited Oregon law in her argument, specifically ORS 106.150, which says that two parties entering into a marriage agree to “take each other to be husband and wife.”

Student vote time

The national elections are a few months off, but the race for Portland State student officials is here. Student government elections are being held this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – that’s March 10-12.

Candidates are competing for the position of president and vice president, Student Fee Committee Chair, senators and Student Fee Committee members.

Voting is done online through students’ banweb accounts. Log onto your account through banweb.pdx.edu. For more information about student government elections or the candidates, visit www.aspsu.pdx.edu/elections.

– Sara Gundell