2016 Oregon CIR panel, with facilitators Mike and Mary in top-right corner, and Gracie the Dog front-center. The 2016 iteration of the CIR is the fourth cycle of this process in Oregon, which began with the 2010 election. The result was a balanced statement (with an 11-9 split in the panelists’ vote) on Measure 97, which proposed a dramatic rise in gross receipts tax to boost the state’s general fund, which principally goes to...

A new article co-authored by three CIR researchers (Genevieve Fuji-Johnson, Laura Black, and Katherine Knobloch)  shows how citizens try to balance emotion and reason during their CIR deliberations. The article is now available in the journal Politics and Policy, which published a blog post on the article. The authors combined direct experience observing CIRs with careful examination of transcripts to reach a number of conclusions about citizen...