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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 2000)
Friday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P-O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com Three measures present voters with choices about political involvement In order tor the American system of representative democracy to work ef fectively, people must participate. How is the system working now? Ac cording to the magazine Mother Jones, the National Republican Con gressional Committee has established a program where, for $25,000, you can dine with Republican leaders in Con gress. The Democratic National Com mittee has a similar program, where for $100,000, donors get weekend re treats with party leaders and dinner with the president. Who do you think is buying this political involvement? It isn’t college students. Support for Ralph Nader’s inclu sion in the presidential debates and the popularity of John McCain’s cam paign finance reform efforts is evi dence that Americans want more voices to be heard in the political process. And a few of the legislative candidates the Emerald interviewed in the past week have mentioned their desire and their efforts to have more citizen involvement. With that in mind, we look to Mea sures 92, 98 and 6. Measures 92 and 98 would limit citizen involvement by making it more difficult for specif ic groups of citizens to be involved in both politics and charities. Measure 6 is a welcome attempt to expand in volvement by offering candidates for state offices the choice to limit indi vidual contributions and then receive taxpayer funding for their campaigns. Measure 92 would amend the Ore gon Constitution to prohibit organiza tions from collecting payroll deduc tions for political purposes without the employee signing an authoriza tion form every year. This sounds in nocuous at first, but upon closer in spection, it hampers the ability of organizations to collect funds and the ability of employees to give funds. The measure’s supporters say that r unions are using employees’ money to further a political agenda against employees’ wishes. This isn’t true. Union members can opt out of politi cal expenditures and pay union dues for only non-political purposes. And if union employees don’t like their or ganization’s political activities, there are ways to be more involved in the process and have their voices heard. They can go to union meetings, be come union leaders, rally support from other employees and fight to change the system. That’s involve ment. To stifle involvement would be un-American. Measure 92 gets onto dangerous ground, as does Measure 98, with charities. First, all employees already have to authorize payroll deductions. No one is taking money without em ployees’ permission. Organizations such as the Muscular Dystrophy As sociation and the American Red Cross collect funds through payroll deduc tions; some charities occasionally lob by legislators on behalf of their caus es. Even if the lobbying is a tiny portion of the good work these organi zations do, the money is “used for po litical purposes” and would have to be authorized with a specific form used solely for that purpose every year. Charities don’t have the time to collect permission slips from thou sands of employees on a yearly basis. This is why the employee can choose whether to sign up for payroll deduc tion or not. Measure 98 takes the silencing of employee voices a step further. This measure would single out public em ployees and tell them they cannot have money deducted for political purposes because to do so would use the state’s payroll department (and thus taxpayer money) to deduct the funds. So one group of people is de nied this avenue of political involve ment because of where they work. The state, similar to any other em ployer, should have the right to allow payroll deductions. State employees should have that right. It’s that sim ple. There is a voice of sanity crying out in all of this. Measure 6 offers the chance for more voices to be heard. If candidates for state office voluntarily limit their campaign fundraising to $100 donations from individuals or political action committees, and if they raise enough $5 donations from individuals, then Measure 6 would give them money from a special cam paign finance fund that the state l\as established. The money for the cam paign finance fund comes from elim inating the tax deduction that people now use to deduct massive contribu tions to candidates from their state tax bill. Measure 6 would limit the influ ence of big money donors on candi dates and require that they raise funds from ordinary citizens — a candidate for governor, for instance, would have to raise 8,000 $5 dona tions from electors. This demon strates support and levels the playing field of influence on our politicians. If a representative democracy is go ing to work, everyone needs to be represented equally by the elected of ficials. Measures 92 and 98 work to limit that influence of ordinary citi zens. We urge you to vote no on 92 and 98. Measure 6, by contrast, is a novel idea for a system of equal influ ence and taxpayer-funded campaign finance. We recommend you vote yes on 6. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. MUST MAKE NEXT &EAt>\JINE.. Ast&vv) Letters to the editor We the people Mr. Payne’s “A Historical Interpretation of the Second Amendment” (ODE, Oct. 16) really misses the target — he even misquotes the Second Amendment, which actually reads: “Amendment II. A well regulated Militia, being nec essary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Founding Fathers un derstood who “the people” were. The word “people” is used once in the Preamble to the Constitution, once again in Article I, Section 2, and five times in the Bill of Rights: once each in Amend ments I, II, IV, IX, and X. If the word “people” is universal ly accepted to be the mean ing described in a standard dictionary, that meaning must be applied consistently across all uses of the word as it appears in the Constitu tion, including the Second Amendment. According to Merriam Webster Online, “people” are defined as “the body of enfranchised citizens of a state.” If the definition of people is consistently ap plied, the Second Amend ment cannot be interpreted in any way except as a funda mental right retained by in dividual citizens. No com pelling reason can be offered why the Second Amend ment should not be held on an equal footing to the other uses in the Constitution of the word people. Sean Walston graduateassistant physics What you don’t know can hurt you Measure 9 doesn’t protect children; it puts them at risk. HIV Alliance exists be cause we believe that HIV is preventable. Our mission is to provide HIV education to all levels of the community, including our middle-school and high-school-age citizens. HIV Alliance believes that people make healthier be havioral choices with access to accurate information in a setting allowing for ques tions and responsible discus sion. HIV Alliance believes that programs like our Speakers in the Schools protect the lifelong health of our young people by arming them with facts about how HIV is con tracted and transmitted. Re search shows that the infor mation and discussion the nationally recognized Speakers in the Schools pro gram provides helps stu dents make better choices about their behavior. HIV Alliance believes that Measure 9, called the “Stu dent Protection Act,” will have a chilling effect on our children’s ability to receive objective information about the transmission of HIV or any aspect of sexual health. We believe that Measure 9 may interpret health educa tion as promoting sexual ac tivity. HIV Alliance believes that open discussion, coupled with responsible, factual in formation about the nature of HIV and the behaviors that can lead to infection, is the right of every citizen. HIV Alliance believes that denying information and discussion to young people who are making decisions daily about their social be havior threatens the future health of the entire commu nity. Therefore, the Board and Staff of HIV Alliance strong ly oppose Measure 9 as it protects no one - unless keeping people ignorant is considered protection. Leslie Habetler community relations coordinator HIV Alliance Right to bear arms I was appalled at Pat Payne's recent column re garding the Second Amend ment. Our country was founded for freedoms he seems eager to relinquish. Why? Following his logic, we have the right to free speech so long as it’s not over a telephone, on the radio or via a computer because these hadn't been invented when the Constitution was written. Will more gun laws deter criminals? Hello? They don't follow laws. That's why they're criminals. More laws will only stop law-abiding citizens from protecting their lives. Does he think self de fense is only justified with fists or words? Heaven forbid that a woman (or any of us) should be allowed to defend her life effectively against a larger, more physical attacker. "The police can protect her." Right. "She can talk her way out of it." Right. "She shouldn't have been there." Right. Like it or not, a gun is one of the few things that can equalize a 110-pound woman in a fight with a 225 pound man. Rape happens. In Eugene. If I were his friend, I wouldn't want to depend on the self-proclaimed Captain Sensible's pleadings for mer cy as help in a crisis. While CS will, no doubt, count me among the “tanked-up red necks,” as far as I’m con cerned, if a woman is physi cally attacked, she should have the right to defend her self effectively and put a large hole through the [per son] anywhere she chooses. I, for one, will applaud her when she does. Mick Briscoe graduate student fine art
