Progressive Salem

Progressive Salem Progressive Salem’s mission is to elect progressive candidates to local offices in Salem, Oregon We value fairness and opportunity for everyone.

Electing Progressive Democrats to Local Offices in Salem, Oregon

Progressive Salem is a group of like minded citizens in Salem united in our commitment to see Salem prosper in ways that benefit all who live and work here. We value honesty, transparency, equity, and integrity in government. We see a Salem where progress means choices for future generations. We are working for local government that

represents the public interests, enhances economic opportunities, environmental health, respects everyone and treats everyone fairly. We want a community that works together to promote public health and reduce poverty, understands and engages with wider justice, and sustainability. We value a transportation network that is safe and accessible to everyone; to have options to power our homes and business with clean and sustainable energy. We want education that prepares all youth for meaningful lives as participating citizens and that values our cultural diversity.

Salem is in the fight of the decade: a $5.1 billion California data center wants 75 acres, our water, and our power, and...
08/05/2026

Salem is in the fight of the decade: a $5.1 billion California data center wants 75 acres, our water, and our power, and it spent 16 months hidden behind a nondisclosure agreement before the public got let in on the secret.

Everybody in this town has an opinion. The neighbors packing council chambers have an opinion. Your barista has an opinion. And Ward 6's councilor-elect, Betsy Vega?

Crickets.

Here's what the silence tells you: Betsy doesn't have a position on Oakline because nobody's handed her one yet. She's waiting for the script. Waiting for her slate to circle up and tell her what she thinks. When the marching orders come down, she'll know exactly what to say. But not one second sooner.

Salem's water crisis and the biggest development decision this city has faced in a generation. And the person elected to represent East Salem just two miles away is standing in the corner, waiting to be told what her own opinion is.

If Betsy can't find her voice on the biggest issue in town before she's even sworn in, what happens on every hard vote after?

The chambers are full, Betsy. The mic is on. We're waiting, but nobody's holding their breath.

This November, WRITE IN MAI VANG!

08/04/2026

Watch closely. This is the Marion County Board of Commissioners on August 27, 2025. The people at the podium are from SEDCOR, the economic development agency that Marion County pays $160,000 a year. SEDCOR President Erik Andersson is briefing commissioners on "Project Gridline," a data center that had already optioned roughly 80 acres at Mill Creek and held a pre-application meeting.

Salem's city councilors weren't told about this project until July 13, 2026, almost a year later. By the time it reached Salem City Council, a tax abatement for this project came from the Marion County Assessor, approved just days before Oregon's new law would have blocked it.

08/04/2026

Go Mai! 👊💥

08/01/2026

Join Progressive Salem for First Tuesday

Taproot Lounge and Cafe
356 State Street, Salem
4:30 to 6:30
Tuesday, August 4

Our Special Guest will be Chris Hoy, who will discuss plans for November.

Join like-minded progressive friends for stimulating conversation and fellowship.

Be ready! Check your voter registration. Find your birth certificate and marriage license to show your name change. Get ...
07/31/2026

Be ready! Check your voter registration. Find your birth certificate and marriage license to show your name change. Get a passport for ID. Be ready for whatever they try to pull.

Check your voter registration, find your birth certificate and marriage license, get a passport. Be ready for whatever t...
07/31/2026

Check your voter registration, find your birth certificate and marriage license, get a passport. Be ready for whatever they pull.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
07/31/2026

EVERY VOTE COUNTS!

07/14/2026

All of this. 🔥🔥🔥

Section 25 of the Salem City Charter is short. A councilor "shall have resided in the ward the councilor represents duri...
07/08/2026

Section 25 of the Salem City Charter is short. A councilor "shall have resided in the ward the councilor represents during the 12 months immediately before being elected." That's it. No definitions, no exceptions, no cross-reference to state election statutes.

This week, outside counsel advised the City Recorder that Betsy Vega satisfies Section 25 despite having no fixed address in Ward 6 from November 2025 through March 2026 — roughly a third of the qualifying year.

Getting there required work. Counsel had to read "resided in" as domicile, a term the charter never uses. Domicile is a doctrine built for questions of inheritance, taxation, and college tuition. The case counsel leaned on most heavily, Polaski v. Clark, is about in-state tuition rates. Under that doctrine, you keep your residency until you deliberately establish one somewhere else, and physical presence in the ward is optional.

Read Section 25 again. It says "resided in the ward." A reasonable Salem voter reading that sentence would understand it to require living in the ward. Not intending to. Not storing belongings there. Not eventually returning.

The city's own lawyers conceded the harder question is unsettled. Their memo says the matter is "not free from doubt." Notably, Vega's attorney argued the charter imposes no continuity requirement whatsoever — that a councilor could reside in the ward for a single month and qualify. Counsel rejected that reading. So the city agrees Section 25 requires something continuous. What it decided this week is that a continuous intention is enough, without continuous presence.

Section 25 should mean what it says. Salem deserves a rule that a voter can read and understand without a legal memo.

07/03/2026

As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is a good time to pause and reflect on the words that were signed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un...

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585 Liberty St SE
Salem, OR
97301

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