AP: "Macpherson to run for Ore. attorney general"

From the Associated Press, August 23, 2007:

State Rep. Greg Macpherson said Wednesday he will run for Oregon attorney general in 2008 and he vowed to use the office to defend Oregon's land use laws that protect farm and forestland from unbridled development.

The Lake Oswego Democrat's announcement, which came a day after Attorney General Hardy Myers said he wouldn't seek re-election, sets the stage for what could be one of the most heated attorney general's races in recent years.

Macpherson was one of the chief architects of a referral measure the 2007 Legislature placed on the Nov. 6 ballot to curb development allowed under a property compensation law adopted by voters in 2004.

At a news conference, Macpherson said as attorney general he would be a "people's advocate" who defends laws protecting freedom of choice, personal privacy, the right to die with dignity and Oregon's open spaces.

"Advocacy is in my blood," said Macpherson, a three-term state representative whose father and grandfather were Oregon legislators. Macpherson's father, Hector Macpherson, was the author of the 1973 legislation that established Oregon's land use planning program.

Macpherson's entry into the race drew a negative review from Dave Hunnicutt, whose Oregonians in Action property rights group has been at odds with Macpherson and others who have been advocating a rewrite of the 2004 property compensation law known as Measure 37. ...

"I make no apology for my determination to defend the landscape of Oregon against overdevelopment," Macpherson said.