Hopes for health-care reform ran high among a crowd that gathered Tuesday afternoon for a town-hall meeting with Sen. Jeff Merkley at the RCC/SOU Higher Education Center in downtown Medford. Organizers from Health Care for America Now! passed out stickers to the roughly 100 people who came to meet Oregon’s
The U.S. Senate passed by 90-to-5 Tuesday the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act. It will help end to deceptive practices and hidden fees by credit card companies and protect families here in Oregon and around the U.S.. Our Sen. Jeff Merkley, a co-sponsor, urged the White House to
WASHINGTON — Legislation the Senate is considering to regulate tobacco products under the Food and Drug Administration includes a measure that would mandate the study of a new product: tobacco candy. Made by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the lozenge-like Camel Orb is being test-marketed in Portland, Ore., Indianapolis
When Jeff Merkley went down to Salem, as a junior member of the Oregon House minority, he found there was one subject he couldn’t touch even if he someday happened to become House speaker. “I tried to write a bill in Oregon,” he remembers, “and was told that states could
WASHINGTON — Renters living in foreclosed homes will get more time to find new places to live under a bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday. A provision that lets renters remain in a foreclosed property for the life of their leases, or 90 days for tenants on monthly leases,
The Willamette Valley was a hot spot for subprime mortgages four years ago — much to the enduring misery of valley homeowners, according to an investigation published Wednesday. Many of the nation’s top 25 subprime lenders were highly active in Lane County until the market meltdown in late 2007. The
If you’ve been reading the letters to the editor lately, you know that a good many Mid-Valley residents are irate about their credit cards. They’re angry about their interest rates skyrocketing and fees being opposed for seemingly flimsy reasons. The good news is that legislation moving through Congress would provide
For his first bill, Sen. Jeff Merkley called in reinforcements. Fulfilling a campaign promise to introduce legislation aimed at solving the perpetual revenue challenges of Oregon’s timber-dependent counties, Merkley proposed creating a task force of 15 members that would take nine months to develop two sustainable revenue proposals. Merkley introduced
WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced his first piece of legislation Monday — a measure to create a 15-member task force to study ways to help timber-dependent counties in Oregon. Merkley, who took office in January, had promised during last year’s campaign to address the timber issue in his
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced two bills on Tuesday to target deceptive lending practices, a few days before the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a housing bill. Since taking office in January, Merkley has spent much of his energy on the housing crisis, lobbying in
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