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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1976)
Letters— Can’t say Regarding the opening state ment of Bob Welch s January 9. 1976. write-up on the UCLA Oregon game I really don t think that Bob Welch can say that Ric key Lee would have made that same shot that Mike Drummond missed I feel that a shot like that is mostly luck, and the statement made Drummond appear to be lacking m the skill to have made the shot. Mi«e Drummond is an all out casket player and I would like to see an apology to Mike for that statement. Also. I d like to say Great game Ducks' Shirley K. Trimble Staff. Ecology Dept. Desperate poet My name is Butch Bailey. I am presently incarcerated at the U S. pnson on McNeil Island in the state of Washington. I am 28 years old. Black and bom under the sign of Aquarius. In addition. I am five foot, ten inches tall. 169 pounds. My eyes are brown and my hair is black. I also wear a beard I hail from Washington DC. I am writing this tetter in hopes that your paper will publish my name stating that l am a prisoner desmng correspondence with any young lady at the University of Oregon. I am a lonely dude from the east coast I am desperate for outside female communication. Since my imprisonment (over four years). I have been totally rejected by all whom I once considered friends, loved ones and family So in my desperation. I am appealing to you to assist and help me hold fast to the reality of the outside life If it bears any significance, I am a poet. I have been writing for the past ten years. If any female would like to read some of my many poems. I am willing to share them. Butch Bailey #36982 Box 100 Steilacoom, Wa 98388 Support needed The future of student-faculty in fluence over policy determining the usage of Mac Court w»H be decided this Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in 150 Science Our proposal for a Mac Court Board deserves and needs your support A student-faculty board would be representative of the desires of the University Community. It would allow students to be rep resented in policy decisions about how Mac Court should be used and for whom If our proposal is to succeed we will need the help of concerned students and the sup port and votes of faculty mem bers. We need students to speak to faculty about the proposal. This effort Is being organized at the ASUO Offices Earlier this year I assembled many interesting documents and a history of Mac Court. I encour age interested individuals to visit Don Chalmers or myself at the In cidental Fee Committee office in Suite 5 of the EMU and look at these materials Dave Donley Co-sponsor Mac Court Board proposal --opinion Change advocated Editor's note: The following opinion by State Representative David Frohnmayer, Republican, District 40, advocating a proposed primary election registration change, was solicted by the EmeraldJbe Emerald also solicted an opinion opposing the proposed change from James Klonoski, chairman, Democratic Party of Oregon. Mr. Klonoski s opinion will be pub lished in tomorrow s Emerald. The 1975 legislative majority—under the last minute pressures of state Democratic party leaders—narrowly defeated a popular open primary bill. In such a proposed prim ary, all voters, regardless of partisan regist ration, could participate in nominating the full range of public officials who govern us. Today, you can vote only for nominees in one party. If you are an Independent there is no opportunity at all to select final con tenders for the November ballot. If you live in a one-party legislative district, you have no alternative to the person nominated by the dominant party. Over 11 per cent of all members of the I975 legislature were elected without op position in the general election. The prim ary, in effect, became the general election. Members of the minority party, as well as independents, were not able to participate in the election process that chose their pub lic official. In theory (and in some cases in reality) a bare plurality within one party con trolled the outcome. Primaries should serve all the people, not just a few politicians or one party. That is why I support the recent initiative proposal to establish an open primary for Oregon. The reasons are compelling. Participation in the political process is at an historic low. We should encourage rather than discourage avenues for citizen involvement. The straight-jacket of major party allegiance should not be required for access to the franchise. In Oregon, over 62,000 Independents today are denied participation in a vital part of our system unless they register—against their will—in one of two political parties. In the most fundamental sense, that is unfair. Oregonians, more than other modern Americans, have a tradition of indepen dence in voting. But even national polls in dicate that 40 per cent of the electorate would prefer to register “Independent” if given a choice. More revealing, a clear ma jority of today s youth (54 per cent in a na tional survey) would prefer to register Inde pendent. Regrettably, the unresponsive conduct of botn major parties has supplied them ampie justification. Oregon s two major parties do not pay the cost of our present primary elections—all the taxpayers do. Oregon Secretary of State Clay Myers, longtime advocate of election law reform and a prin cipal architect of the open pnmary proposal, put it accurately: State laws and taxpayers dollars should serve aJI the atizens—the individual voters and their preferences—rather than being the tool of politicians or political managers As former Gov. Tom McCall said, since pnmaries are not the property of the parties, why, then, should they be allowed to keep it as sort of a dosed corporation ?' Public support for the open pnmary proposal is hardly partisan The open pnm ary is supported by nearly nine out of ten of all Oregon dtizens and by Democrats even more strongly than Republicans. A Bardsley poll in the spring of 1975 showed 86 per cent of all Oregonians wanted an open pnmary—only 10 per cent were op posed and a very small four per cent were undecided This strong support comes from 88 per cent of the Democrats, 83 per cent of the Republicans and nearly 100 per cent of the presently disenfranchised ‘‘Indepen dent and miscellaneous” registered vot ers. The poll was no phony. Its results were confirmed by an independent poll of the respeded Oregon Research Institute re leased in December, I975. The ORI poll also revealed an overwhelming 83 pier cent endorsement for the open primary. The “Open Primary" initiative has en thusiastic Republican supiport, to be sure, lad by Tom McCall. But among other spon sors are the respected Independent, Senator Chuck Hanlon, and the young Democratic State Senator from Ashland, Len Hannon. In a recent apipoarance at the University of Oregon law school, Oregon’s articulate and versatile State Treasurer Jim Redden also endorsed the concept. As a leading contender for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General, Redden has hardly forged a political reputation as an apologist for the GOP. He nonetheless endorsed the open primary in which voters could cross party lines “to increase voter interest and participation in the primaries.” Veteran Democratic State Representative Al Densmore, a thoughtful and principled leader currently seeking his party’s nomina tion for Secretary of State fought repeatedly during the I975 legislature fora more limited version of the open primary. Regrettably, opposition from a few leaders of his own party successfully thwarted Densmore s nonpartisan reforms A few voices have urged opposition to the open pnmary. The arguments are clothed in political theones of high principle with ex aggerated rhetoncal flourishes about party government and political responsibility But what are the realities7 Most revealing was the candid statement made to me just prior to debate on this subject in the 1975 legislature A Democra tic legislator described his off-the-record opposition to the open pnmary in this way: I learned it in the armed services. When they re down, keep your foot on their neck As a statement of tactics to ensure one party domination, the observation is astute But I suspect admirers of Oregon s tradition of representation in the public interest will judge it harshly Apologists for party government must establish that party government even exists in the form contemplated by their theones And it does not. The villain in the piece, if any, is not the open primary, but the primary itself—which long since has prevented elite party bosses from selecting candidates for the organization Consider, too, what in reality happens to party platforms. The most volatile issue in the 1975 legislature was whether the ban on open field burning—a major source of air pollution—should be postponed Both the Democratic pre-primary and Democratic general election party platforms contained public planks explicitly opposing extension. And a legislature controlled in both houses by the heaviest margin of Democratic legis lators in decades thereupon voted for a three year extension. Party government? Adherence to platform? The facts speak for themselves. Opponents argue—in a speculatively cynical view of the electorate—that the open primary will encourage raiding' or sabotage by members of the opposite party. There is little, if any, empirical evi dence for this spectre. The late eminent political scientist V. O. Key candidly admit ted how little is known empirically about the real effects of a blanket open primary. Ob servers of the State of Washington, which has operated happily under an open prim ary for years, feel that the party system is stronger in that state than in Oregon. Two decades ago, political scientist Daniel Ogden surveyed the Washington experi ence. Contrary to the then-prevailing "con ventional wisdom” among political scien tists, he observed in most races a "striking pattern of party regularity In fact, he ar gued that by permitting voters to leave their uwn party for one office only, instead of obliging them to cross over for the entire slate, the blanket primary actually contn buted to party regularity! Clearly, he ar gued. a new evaluation is needed, since Washington s experience does not sub stantiate the criticisms that have been made Party organization and consistent party support have not been destroyed Other studies of political sociology also tend to discredit the speculative raiding argument. The cross over voters (as is evi denced in the case of Alaska Gov. Jay Hammond) vote for the candidate of their choice, whom they continue to support m the general election. If you harbor questions about our political system, ask how often our party system, as presently constituted, has really recruited and put forward the best leaders for our government Compare—in a bicentennial year—the brilliant creativity of the leaders of the American Revolutionary era and ask why their colonial society of two and a half million (almost precisely the population of present day Oregon) was so much more successful in advancing leaders of talent and vision. Heed again the warning against the dangers of faction penned in the Federalist Papers by that perceptive ar chitect of the American Constitution, James Madison. Consider too, Tom McCall, a governor whom I once heard Jim Klonoski himself wistfully describe as the uncanny embodi ment of Rousseau's general will." McCall possesses his extraordinary appeal and credibility in major part because he does not hesitate to cross a party line for a good idea and because he genuinely detests what he aptly terms sniveling partisan ship.” No reform is without its risks. But any political system which insists on locking out increasing numbers of independent minded citizens, and which frustrates the traditional and justified instincts of Orego nians to vote for persons rather than parties is in need of reform. The open primary initiative does not lock that concept into the Oregon Constitution. If it fails to live up to expectations it can be altered by legislative action. The time has come to put the public interest above parti sanship. In the interests of citizen participa tion and involvement in our governmental process, the experiment is worth our en dorsement.
