SALEM – The radio ads say changing the way judges are elected in Oregon will take the special interests and big bucks out of court races.

Not so fast.

The ads are for Measure 40, the ballot initiative that would do away with statewide election of judges and replace it with a provincial system.

If passed, Measure 40 would divvy up the state into seven voting regions for Oregon Supreme Court justices and five for Court of Appeals judges. Each region, then, would vote for one Supreme Court justice and two Court of Appeals judges. Yet the measure itself is the product of special interest politics – crafted by conservative ballot measure authors who are frustrated by a court system that has overturned their handiwork.

Measure 40 would ensure that not all of the state’s top 17 judges come from ZIP codes in the Willamette Valley, most of whom have been appointed by Demo-cratic governors. The proposed new system also would make it easier to unseat sitting judges because campaigns would not need to be waged statewide.

The initiative is backed by property rights activists, anti-tax groups and some of Oregon’s deep-pocketed and Republican-leaning business leaders. It’s opposed by labor unions and most of the state’s current judicial structure.

The No on Constitutional Amendment 40 Committee reported this month raising $58,600 for the campaign to defeat it. Most of the money came from attorneys or law firms. Some of the notable donors include gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton’s firm, AterWynne, and sitting members of the Supreme Court.

The source of the recent Yes on 40 radio ads is the Oregon Family Farm Political Action Committee. That organization is an offshoot of Oregonians in Action, the property rights group that put Measure 7 on the ballot in 2000 and Measure 37 on the ballot in 2004.

The Family Farm PAC financed negative ads against current Court of Appeals Judge David Schumann in 2002, according to the Oregon Money in Politics Research Action Project in Portland.

Schuman’s opponent in that race: David Hunnicutt, the director of Oregonians in Action and the treasurer for the Oregon Family Farm Association PAC, according to state filings.

The biggest recent donors to the Oregon Family Farm PAC read like a ”Who’s Who” of Oregon’s conservative financiers: Former Aloha medical products maker Loren Parks gave $100,000; Eugene-based Seneca Jones sawmill gave $71,750; and retirement company executive Norman Brenden, of Salem, and Glendale-based Swanson Lumber gave $58,750 each.

The board of directors for the PAC is made up of four anti-tax and anti-land use activists: Hunnicutt; Larry George, the former director of OIA and now a candidate for the state Senate; Jason Williams, of the Tigard-based Taxpayers Association of Oregon; and Ross Day, the legal counsel for OIA, who in May waged his own court challenge.

Day unsuccessfully tried to unseat Marion County Presiding Judge Paul Lipscomb, who was targeted by conservative activists who accused the judge of trying to torpedo Measure 37.

Lipscomb owns property near Sisters and challenged the Measure 37 claim of neighbor Matt Cyrus, who wants to put a subdivision on a farm next door.