Documenting political history

Portland State Professor Joshua Binus has surrounded himself with ballot measure paraphernalia dating back to 1962. A pair of fuzzy bear suits from a 1984 Citizens Utility Board initiative and numerous graphic banners and bumper stickers are among the highlights of the collection.

Binus and his students are trying to preserve history by collecting and organizing materials from private sources related to past Oregon political campaigns. These materials will be given to the Oregon Historical Society’s research library when the project is finished, where the public can view them.

Binus created the Ballot Measure Initiative Project in 2004 with a colleague, Peter Kopp, as a senior capstone class at Portland State.

Oregon was the first state to utilize the ballot measure process in 1904 and has since held elections on hotly contested issues such as social justice and equal rights, the environment, taxes, criminal justice and school reform.

The state of Oregon archive keeps a number of documents related to the initiative and referendum process, but Binus said that there is a need for a more complete historical record.

“Students are salvaging a wealth of historical evidence from countless basements, garages, attics, warehouses, and worse, landfills and burning piles,” Binus said. “This kind of stuff never would have been accepted into the state archive. It’s just not the place for it.”

Eighty-seven students have participated in the project, documenting 47 ballot measures dating back to 1962. Donors have given physical evidence such as posters, t-shirts, yard signs, recordings of radio and television ads, and campaign correspondence-including hate mail.

Students have also found official documentation and paperwork related to campaigns that the state did not keep.

The state archive keeps some of its records permanently if a measure qualifies for the ballot. Petition files and a summary of the contribution and expenditure report are kept indefinitely, but the rest is destroyed in four to six years.

“For some campaigns,” Binus said, “those run prior to 2000, we have the only publicly available contribution and expenditure reports still in existence because the treasurers of those political action committees gave us their copies. The state no longer has theirs.”

Mary Beth Herkert, the archivist for the state of Oregon, said that the retention schedule for this kind of documentation is carefully considered.

“We’ve gone through a lot of this, and we try to determine the best source of information when determining how long we keep a document,” Herkert said. “The pertinent information is there in the summary.”

Summary reports, Binus said, do not include any of the campaign funds received or spent during the pre-qualification phase for each of the initiatives, and can often exceed $250,000.

Mary Ann Campbell, the director of the Oregon Historical Society, said she is impressed by Binus’ work, and said that the materials being collected will fill a void in the historical record that the state’s documentation cannot fill.

“Once these issues become law,” Campbell said, “then the state begins to collect its materials. The state can’t document the background–like how the initiative got on the ballot and who made it happen.”

“Joshua Binus is making an effort to save this valuable material,” Campbell said, “and it will be a very important collection, wherever it goes.”

The students taking the capstone course prepare the materials for the Historical Society, streamlining the intake process so that the public can view the collection shortly after it is received.

“It is through the student’s research and subsequent contacts that (the project) has found its success,” Binus said.

Initially, Timothy Wallace, a senior studying geography, took the capstone in the fall of 2006 because it was the only one that met at night. Soon, he found it to be a very rewarding experience.

“I signed up for the capstone because it was the only capstone offered in the evening,” Wallace said. “The entire class went into it with the mindset of just getting through it, and as it turned out, we all ended up just as excited as Joshua about what we had been a part of.”

Binus plans to give the archive to the Historical Society in two to three years, and will soon begin raising funds for a web interface and a series of oral history interviews.