The Progressive Party Oregon, the state's newest political party, has endorsed State Senator Rick Metsger for the office of State Treasurer.

The endorsement was based on Senator Metsger's long history of standing up to powerful interests and looking out for the average person.

Rick Metsger was the chief co-sponsor (along with Senator Vicki Walker) of SB 408 (2005), which stopped the private utilities from charging Oregon ratepayers for "income taxes" that the utilities actually never paid. These charges had amounted to over $1 billion since 1997. "The result was a rate reduction of $37 million for PGE customers due to their tax overpayments to PGE in 2006 and additional reductions since then," said Dan Meek, press secretary for the Progressive Party.