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.