Salem Legislators Oppose Honest Pints

Rep. Vicki Berger (R-Salem), Rep. Kevin Cameron (R-Salem), and Rep. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) joined a vote mainly along party lines to oppose the Honest Pint Act when it passed the House yesterday.

Funny thing about Rep. Berger...Her legislative biography leads with this:

Vicki Berger is part of Oregon’s story. Vicki’s father, Richard Chambers, was the author of Oregon’s landmark Bottle Bill. In 1969, Richard Chambers sought to reduce the amount of litter left on Oregon’s highways and beaches. He launched a lobbying effort that lawmakers found impossible to ignore.

Among other things he'd accumulated lots of odd-ball stationary and stamps, and hand-wrote wonderful letters that got attention - and would be some of the best legislative ephemera ever! (Do any lawmakers or historians have any in a collection?)

I'd like to get Rep. Berger's opinion on the bill - reasonable people can differ over a solution (or indeed whether, like a "cup" of coffee, a "pint" of beer is nominal - though personally I find them different and treat the former as nominal, but not the latter) - but with her particular perspective on the bottle bill, I think she'd have interesting things to say. Emily at DSS and Jared at the Weekly Brew aren't big fans of the particulars of the bill.

In any event, the next time you see Reps. Berger, Cameron, or Thatcher out - buy 'em a short pint, would you?

The full list of nay-sayers:

Nays, 26--Barker, Bentz, Berger, Bruun, Cameron, Edwards C., Esquivel, Freeman, Garrard, Gilliam, Gilman, Hanna, Harker, Huffman, Jenson, Krieger, Maurer, Olson, Richardson, Smith G., Sprenger, Thatcher, Thompson, Weidner, Whisnant, Wingard.