By Randall O’Toole Native Oregonian & Senior CATO Fellow All over the country, cities from Seattle to St. Petersburg are planning or building light-rail lines that are wasteful and inefficient. Thanks to lobbying by government contractors and local politicians hungry for “free” federal dollars, more cost-effective alternatives are forgone in […]

State GDP 2013 By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Blog The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released preliminary State GDP figures for 2013 along with comprehensive revisions for data from 1997-2012, following the major National Income and Product Account revisions at the national level a year ago or […]

Mark F Herbert New Paradigms LLC Eugene, Oregon I have to admit that I was very disappointed to see the Eugene City Council decide to pass an ordinance that will require the vast majority of Eugene based employers and businesses outside of the city whose employees work in the city […]

Mark D’Alessio U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Center for Education and Workforce. Ok, I’ll admit it—I jumped on the World Cup bandwagon. Who knew that such a low-scoring sport could be so exciting to watch? Which brings me to today’s marquee matchup—the United States vs. Belgium. Some columnists and commentators […]

By Jan Meekcoms Oregon NFIB Ignore the hot-now “Kimye” wedding shots. Leave banning genetically modified crops out in the field. A real, and much more serious, issue is before every candidate and elected official in America, and we all have a duty as citizens to make sure they are at […]

Ater Wynne LLP NW Law frim The focus of the NLRB and the EEOC has been primarily on invalidating employment policies that might have a tendency to chill employee rights under Section 7 of the NLRA and Title VII, such as broadly-worded confidentiality and social media policies.  Section 7 entitles […]

By Oregon Small Business Association The Supreme Court made a ruling that will have a big impact on unions — including Oregon. Today the Court ruled that an Illinois health care union could not force in-home health care workers to pay fees for the union’s collective bargaining costs. Oregon and […]

Patrick Emerson PhD , OSU Economist Oregon Economics Blog Once again The Economist comes through with a fun chart: Note the MLS is the sixth highest average attendance soccer league in the world.  I would, however, argue that this should be normalized by population to make a rank comparison. Oh […]

By Bullard Law, Portland law firm On June 19, 2014, in Lane v Franks, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the First Amendment protects a public employee who provides truthful sworn testimony, compelled by subpoena, outside the scope of his/her ordinary job duties. Sworn testimony in a judicial […]

by Betsy Earls Associated Oregon Industries Oregon’s largest business advocate On, June 18, the Eugene City Council voted to draft an ordinance requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to workers. The ordinance is expected to be ready for a hearing July 21, and a vote July 28. The council […]