Steve Novick's campaign for the U.S. Senate has attempted to strike a ridiculous blow against Jeff Merkley. It might just end up backfiring. Over the past few days, an attack mailer has been landing in our mailboxes; it criticizes Jeff's leadership in being unable to muster a three-fifths majority to pass last year's Healthy Kids initiative.

Some background: Oregon's Democrats, working hard to give all Oregon children healthcare, put a measure on the fall ballot to increase the cigarette tax 84.5 cents per pack to fund healthcare. The tobacco lobby spent record sums, over $12 million, defeating it at the ballot box. The measure only came up for a vote because Oregon's Republican legislators fought against it and our kids' healthcare.

So what does Steve do? He releases a hit piece going after Jeff for being unable to bring people together. He also mockingly dumped on Jeff's supporters, saying, "My God, he actually raised a substantive issue, you're not supposed to do that... It's supposed to be pure character assassination."

It's okay to bring up issues of substance, sure. But it's unfair to characterize Jeff's efforts as anything less than total. He's claiming to raise an issue of substance, but he's really just making a false attack that Jeff didn't do all he was capable of. And, to boot, Novick's people released this little whimsy at the last minute, trying to sneak it in there right before people turn in their ballots.

But that doesn't make Novick's charge any less of bullshit. I'm saddened that he'd try to take all of Jeff's hard work and make false attacks against him and everyone involved in Healthy Kids. He's really insulting the hard work of a lot of good organizations and people by doing this, and it's downright disappointing. We only got as far as we did because of Jeff Merkley's leadership in turning the state house from red to blue and in shepherding so many great progressive pieces of legislation into law.

For example, on education, Jeff increased public school funding by almost 20 percent, reduced class sizes, and increased access to Head Start programs. Don't tell me those would have passed under Republican control, because it's not true. When it counted, Jeff Merkley came through for the kids. Just like he tried to do on Healthy Kids, getting closer than we ever dreamed by putting a measure to the voters that the Republicans repeatedly tried to kill.

People are pissed. State legislators, the working families of many unions, and healthcare activists alike are expressing their shock and disappointment. The Oregon SEIU released a statement expressing its outrage:

Working families and supporters of Measure 50 expressed outrage today at recent mailings from Steve Novick suggesting Jeff Merkley didn't do enough to pass the "Healthy Kids" measure.

"Jeff Merkley has been tireless advocate for providing all Oregon children access to quality, affordable health care," said Alice Dale, president of SEIU Local 49. "To suggest that Jeff didn't do enough to support Healthy Kids is ridiculous."

As Speaker of the Oregon House, Rep. Merkley championed legislation to extend health coverage to over 1000,000 uninsured Oregon kids. He worked tirelessly to gather support for the legislation in the closing hours of the 2007 session. Merkley vowed that Democrats where "not prepared to leave here
without a plan to guarantee health insurance for all Oregon kids."

House Republicans, however, doomed the measure to failure by refusing to provide the votes needed to pass the legislation outright or refer it to voters as a statute. Merkley joined with groups like the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, The Oregon Nurses Association,
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and SEIU to pass the measure as a constitutional amendment, but were unable to overcome $12 million in misleading adverting by tobacco companies.

"Steve Novick knows better," said Dale. "Jeff Merkely took on do-nothing legislators as well as the goliath tobacco industry and did everything possible to expand health care coverage for our children. The defeat of Measure 50 was a tragic setback for thousands of families with nowhere to turn when their children are ill. To use that defeat as an attack on Jeff Merkley is shameful."

So did the AFL-CIO:

US Senate candidate Steve Novick has launched a desperate and outrageous last minute attempt to capitalize on the tobacco industry's successful lobbying and $12 million campaign effort to defeat the 2007 Healthy Kids Plan (Ballot Measure 50).

"It's truth time," said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain. "Days out from the election, Novick has made yet another outrageous claim. The fact is that no one fought more doggedly for children's health care and the Healthy Kids Plan than Speaker Merkley."

"I testified in favor of Healthy Kids at the legislature, and Novick was nowhere to be found," added Chamberlain. "He offered no plan or alternatives. The very idea that now he wants to blame the House Speaker - and not the tobacco industry - for children lacking health care is absurd."

The SEIU and AFL-CIO are right, and the above emphasis is mine. The defeat of measure 50 was a travesty for healthcare, and that it was doomed by do-nothing Republicans who are deep in the pockets of special interests. Healthcare is an important cause, and at least Jeff and our Democratic and working family allies tried to get the measure passed. On the flip side, Tom Chamberlain asks an important question: where was Steve Novick when all this was happening?

I'm throughly disappointed in the Novick campaign's baseless attack. He's been a good progressive Democrat in the past, so he should know better than to insult the hard work and accomplishments of his peers who scratched and clawed to get Oregon where it is today. Challenging on issues is fine; insulting with baseless attacks is not, and the tactic of our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle.