Great initiative! Thank you for your work! 🙏🏽
Initiative Petition 28 is a proposed ballot initiative that would remove exemptions from Oregon’s animal cruelty laws, which currently allow animals to be injured, killed, and impregnated if done for purposes such as slaughter, hunting, fishing, experimentation, and entertainment. Removing these exemptions criminalizes injuring, killing, and breeding animals statewide. More detailed information can be found on our website: https://www.yesonip28.org/.
The project's primary goal is to qualify for the ballot for the 2026 general election. We will achieve this goal by collecting the required number of signatures by the July 2nd, 2026 deadline.
Taking our inspiration from the Women’s Suffrage Movement, which used the ballot initiative process to force the public to vote on suffrage, as well as the Slavery Abolition Movement, during which William Lloyd Garrison’s advocacy for the immediate emancipation of enslaved people helped to achieve the end of slavery in his lifetime, our position is that a ballot initiative calling for the immediate end to animal exploitation will help accelerate the animal liberation movement.
In addition to the 3 million voters who’d be asked directly to vote on animal liberation, getting on the ballot will generate conversations far beyond Oregon’s borders. While setting a bold new precedent for what is possible in the minds of the public, this initiative can also motivate current and aspiring activists to be bold and honest in their advocacy.
Funding will be used largely for hourly wages and taxes for paid petitioners, which comprise a large part of our operating costs. Because administrative duties of the campaign have been supported entirely by volunteers, all funds go towards hourly wages and taxes for paid petitioners, and the marginal costs associated with petitioning supplies (paper, clipboards, ink, etc.). We have quickly become one of the largest employers of animal rights advocates in Oregon, with nearly 30 paid petitioners interacting daily with Oregonians about our initiative, and funding will allow us to continue these efforts.
The Yes On IP28 team has grown to over 80 activists including 30 paid petitioners, and among these members we have a wealth of prior experience in animal advocacy, petition circulating, and research methods.
As a predecessor to this campaign, two similar initiatives were launched. The first was launched in 2020, known as IP13, which was resubmitted in 2022 and became IP3. These initiatives had largely the same intentions, but did not qualify for the ballot. The initial campaign started with a single activist, and over the two campaigns we have continued to grow our team. With the help of a larger team and funding for paid petitioners, we resubmitted our initiative in 2024 for the 2026 election cycle, so that we could have two years to collect signatures. Since beginning signature collection in July of 2024, we have collected over 20,000 signatures and have until July of 2026 to collect over 117,000.
Possible causes of failure would include insufficient funding to continue to pay petitioners. Another possible cause of failure could be having too few volunteers who are able to help reduce the operating costs of our campaign. If the project fails, we will still have valuable data to inform future ballot initiatives and will have cultivated a stronger network of animal advocates in Oregon.
Yes On IP28 has been able to cover current operating costs by using funding retained from our 2024 cycle, which originated from donations given by the Karuna Foundation, Direct Action Everywhere, and private individuals, as well as additional donations since our 2026 campaign launch. We have so far received $135,000 in donations.
Amit Dhuleshia
about 2 months ago
I strongly believe in the team that is leading this effort and the chance to start a conversation about the world we want to see for animals is revolutionary! We the team almost 20% of the way there in 2 months and with 22 months left, the only thing that can derail this is lack of funding!
Yes On IP28
about 2 months ago
Thank you @adhulesh! We're grateful for your support of the campaign and for all the work you are putting into the Del Mar ballot to ban retail pet sales & San Diego rodeo ban!
Yes On IP28
about 2 months ago
Thank you @Tomohaire! We appreciate the support and agree that I think it can help attract others to the cause. :)
Sasha Cooper
about 2 months ago
My partner and I made notes on all of the projects in the EACC initiative, and thought this was one a good one some really strong competition. It wasn't top tier for either of us, but we wanted to give a token of support - there were so many projects we would have liked to support on here that I hope you take this as a strong emotional positive support, even if it might not help much materially. Our quick and dirty notes:
He: Very high variance, unclear track record of participants with no examples of success :( I understand the goal, though. Maybe at least this will highlight the bizarre 'entertainment' subcategory of exceptions
They: Concrete policy proposal, well-thought out, volunteer supported. Wish there was more detail about funding use
<3
Yes On IP28
about 2 months ago
Thank you both @Arepo! We do feel excited seeing the show of support :)
To address the funding use question, since we began petitioning for our current election cycle in early July of this year, 88.1% of the $40k spent has been for Wages & Taxes for paid petitioners. Our second-highest expense has been 4.8% covering Hiring (like job posts, required background checks, and a one-off training event). The third-highest is Printing (1.8%), then Payroll Fees (1.6%), and after that it is a bunch of smaller items (e.g. Postage, Vendor Fees, Software, Website Hosting).
Our cost-per-signature (we pay hourly, but still estimate what it roughly costs per signature) is $1.69/sig which is far lower than other campaigns in Oregon we have talked to. We've been able to be so cost-effective thanks to volunteers both helping with administrative work as well as volunteer petitioners supplementing our signature collection (and of course to our petitioners maintaining signature rates close to 15 signatures/hr.). This has allowed us to still pay at $25/hr., which is just above the MIT Living Wage for Oregon, while maintaining a strong cost-per-signature.
Lucie Philippon
2 months ago
I just read the about page on yesonip28.org, and I am skeptical such an initiative could pass, as it would effectively ban the production of any animal based food in Oregon. Even if it did pass, I expect the main effect would be to move the meat production to another state.
I understand that the goal is actually to force the start of a conversation on animal cruelty through putting this on the ballot even if it won't pass, but I'm not sure what is the rationale for this being helpful.
@yesonip28 Could you give more details on how you expect the initiative to "help accelerate the animal liberation movement"?
Yes On IP28
2 months ago
Hi @Lucie, I am grateful for your question and the opportunity to share more about our theory of change.
The confidence we have in our initiative's ability to accelerate the animal liberation movement largely comes from two historical precedents that inspire the campaign, which we briefly touched on above but would benefit from going into in more depth.
The Women's Suffrage Movement used as a strategy the ballot initiative process to win the right to vote. Importantly, they forced the vote despite the low chances of initially passing. In Oregon in particular, it took six successive ballot initiatives before it finally passed, and in the first instance only received 28% of the Yes vote. Despite this result they again put it to the ballot in 1900, 1906, 1908, 1910, and finally won in 1912. Nationally, between 1867 and 1920, 54 ballot measures for Women's suffrage were on the ballot, yet only 15 of those were passed. Those statewide initiatives were a core political activity during the movement, just as we hope initiatives like ours become a core political activity of the animal liberation movement. Women's suffrage initiatives forced regional and national conversations about suffrage, and also normalized the desire for suffrage among women themselves, many of whom were not initially supportive of suffrage. In a somewhat parallel way, we hope our initiative not only will generate conversations about animal rights (in an expressly political and systemic way rather than one tied predominantly to consumption habits) but will normalize asking for immediate liberation among animal rights advocates.
As for the Abolitionist Movement, we see parallels between how our initiative calls for the immediate liberation of animals and how the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) called for the immediate abolition of slavery. The approach of the AASS was controversial at the time because it conflicted with the gradual and compensated emancipation being advocated for by the American Colonization Society. The AASS was widely considered to be an influential contributor towards emancipation, as were their individual members who advocated for immediate emancipation. In our current movement for animal liberation, we see some examples of organizations advocating for gradual and compensated liberation, but we don't see organizations—at least not with expressly political tactics—advocating for immediate legal liberation. Speaking personally, I feel quite confident that asking for immediate liberation is more effective because it is both more authentic with respect to asking for the world we want, and is more consistent with respect to the suffering we claim is being caused by animal exploitation. (If witnessing the actions of others is a means of acquiring perceptual information and determining our own views, I worry that seeing others asking for gradual change implies to us that the suffering is not that great, whereas if others witness advocates asking for the immediate end to exploitation, others will start to view the suffering with similar seriousness and urgency.) Aside from my own preference, however, if someone at least accepts the view that a diversity of tactics is beneficial, then this deficit (having more gradualists approaches than immediate approaches) would be a cause for concern.
We are aware our initiative is unlikely to pass in 2026, but like the suffragettes we believe the act of being on the ballot itself will help the movement. Once we do finally pass, we also realize this does not prohibit animals from being killed in other states. Yet just like many of the first northern states to abolish slavery had a far smaller enslaved population than in the southern states, those free states contributed to the conditions necessary for national emancipation.