Tuesday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 3*46-5511
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
Council
counsels morality
|he Eugene City Council sent
a message of control to the
JL. day night by passing the par
ty response fee and smoking ban or
dinances. The council told
party-goers to control themselves:
Don’t gather in groups of more than
25, don’t be too loud and don’t allow
underage people to drink. If students
go to bars instead of risking an out-of
control party, the council voted, they
must control themselves there, too,
and not smoke.
All of this control has the editorial
board concerned. We don’t see how
the council’s actions will better the
community. In fact, these ordinances
run counter to the freedom that
America values and the limited po
lice powers that keep us safe, and
they should not have been passed.
First, let’s look at the party re
sponse fee. The response fee is need
ed, police say, to prevent underage
drinking and to recoup funds spent
on policing parties. We find it impos
sible to believe that empowering po
lice to collect funding by knocking
on doors and looking for crime will
actually cut down on underage
drinking.
Underage drinking is certainly a
real threat to young people. Alcohol
consumption poses grave health haz
ards even to adults, and people under
the age of 21 should wait to drink. But
if America wants to stop underage
drinking, we need a society-wide ef
fort.
Children should be educated
about alcohol in required classes in
middle school, high school and col
lege. The media should stop portray
ing drunkenness as the ultimate joy
in TV shows, movies and advertis
campus community Mon
ing. By watching ads on TV, students
would think that drinking solves all
their problems and brings hordes of
attractive people to their feet. If alco
hol isn’t treated as a forbidden deli
cacy, kids will stop wanting it.
The police also say the response
fee is needed to pay for enforcement,
but society doesn’t fund law enforce
ment in that manner. Criminals don’t
pay police salaries. Laws provide
fines and jail time in order to deter
criminal behavior. We do not then
charge for the policing costs, as well
as for the fines for the crime. That
sounds like double jeopardy.
As a society, we pool our money to
pay for public safety. If Eugene wants
to fund police differently, why stop
at students? The city could save even
more tax money if we got rid of pub
licly funded police altogether. In
stead, let’s have bounty hunters.
They could capture criminals, and
the criminals would pay the costs.
We make the point broadly, but
policing is supposed to be a communi
ty caretaking function, which every
one pays to protect the whole commu
nity. The response fee singles out
students—despite what councilors at
Monday’s meeting said—and encour
ages police to cite them in order to col
lect a paycheck. This ordinance turns
police into bounty hunters, and that’s
scary.
If they can’t host parties, what are
over-21 students to do? Head to the
bars, of course. Unfortunately, stu
dents’ lives are being controlled in
bars, as well. The smoking ban also
poses a threat to the liberty our coun
try was founded on.
Generally in America, we allow
businesses some autonomy in how
they operate. We certainly have regu
lations in place to protect greater so
cietal goods, such as environmental
regulations to lessen the poisoning of
the planet, and labor laws to prevent
wholesale greed and grievously un
safe working conditions. But the
planet still gets poisoned, and some
jobs are more or less safe than others.
Workers choose the level of risk
they’re willing to accept for the bene -
fits of employment. Higher risk jobs
pay more, and alcohol service jobs
follow this trend. Bartending and
cocktail service pay a lot of money
and require little or no education. If
the risk isn’t worth it to an individ
ual, fast food restaurants are always
hiring, and no smoking is allowed in
those establishments.
The smoking ban takes freedom
away from businesses and con
sumers, with only the health risks of
smoking as justification. True, smok
ing is unhealthy. But then, so is
drinking. Adult consumers and busi
ness owners should have the choice
to sell, purchase and consume legal
products, unhealthy or not. Let the
free market decide how many non
smoking bars exist based on de
mand, and employees can decide
where to work.
Overall, the City Council needed
to be controlled Monday night. Prob
lems may exist with partying on
campus and with the health risks of
smoking, but society will never be
able to legislate problems out of exis
tence. The council should look for
preventative solutions to these prob
lems, instead of penalizing students
and taking consumer choices away.
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
Constitutional crisis a scary possibility, but unlikely
Guest Commentary
James V
DeLong
■ASHINGTON — If A1
Gore takes Oregon
and New Mexico’s
electoral votes, which
appears possible, then he would
have 267 electoral votes to George
W. Bush’s 246.
And if Florida does not appoint its
25 electors, then a candidate would
need only 257 votes to win, because
neither the Constitution (Article II,
Sec. 1 & Amends. XII & XX) nor the
applicable statute (U.S.C. Title 3, Ch.
1) says that a majority of all possible
electoral votes is necessary to elect a
president.
The Constitution says that whoev
er gets the “majority of the whole
number of electors appointed” wins.
The statute on the vote-counting
process contains elaborate provi
sions for settling disputes over com
peting slates of electors or over the
legitimacy of challenged votes, but it
does not say that a state must have
countable electoral votes.
'The* l'ah^ddg’e’of the* l&<v*c'ohtem
plates that a situation could arise in
which both houses of Congress
agree that a state’s votes are illegiti
mate and should be thrown out and
replaced with nothing. Indeed, in
1864,11 states failed to send elec
toral votes, and the election was
held without them.
So what happens if Gore loses in
Florida and challenges the result in
court, with a view toward prevent
ing Florida from casting any elec
toral votes? And what if no judicial
decision has been rendered by Jan
uary?
Under tire statute, both houses of
Congress assemble on Jan. 6. The
certificates and papers from each
state are opened in alphabetical or
der (’’beginning with the letter A,”
says the law—Congress can speak
clearly when it wants to). As the cer
tificates from each state are read, the
president of the U.S. Senate (named
Al Gore) calls for objections.
If any are made, then the houses
separate and resolve them before
continuing on to the next state. If
no proper objections are registered,
the tally continues. The law makes
no provision for an objection if
there is no paper from a state that
purports to be a certificate of elec
toral votes.
So the tally might simply skip
Florida and move on. The final to
tal of 267 to 246 would be an
nounced and Gore would declare
himself the winner. When the tally
skipped Florida (or at the end, or in
both instances) then surely all hell
would break loose on the floor. The
proceedings might be suspended
and legal decision sought.
But the decision would appear to
be legally correct. In any event,
even if it is dubious, suppose the
president of the Senate (Gore)
ruled objections out of order, since
there was no certificate from Flori
da before the body and the statute
provides only for objections to cer
tificates and papers?
Then he could continue and certi
fy the count over the objections of
the dissenting members. And de
clare the winner: Al Gore. Arguably,
by the way, the statute also says that
this announcement is conclusive,
not subject to judicial review.
It is difficult to imagine the Re
publicans playing out this sce
nario, and several responses would
be available. The governor of Flori
da, looking into this abyss, might
certify electors regardless of the
state of play in the courts.
Under the federal law, this certi
fication would be final unless over
turned by both houses of Congress.
Of course, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
might decline, given the uproar
this would cause. If jeb Bush re
cused himself, a Democratic secre
tary of state could certify Al Gore.
The U.S. House might reject this
effort, but what happens if the Sen
ate is tied, 50-50, and ties are broken
by the vote of its president, Vice
President Al Gore? Then the certifi
cation would stand. Or a state offi
cial other than Jeb might certify
George W. Bush rather than Gore.
This would be upheld in the
House (the Senate is not needed to
uphold, only to reject). But the up
roar would ring for centuries.
So imagine Florida is indeed
paralyzed and no certificate is is
sued by anyone. Then the Republi
cans could play tit-for-tat. If Gore
stalls Florida's vote, Republicans
could move to knock out states that
gave the edge to Gore.
Even a Republican governor
might be reluctant to go along with
a ploy that denigrated the legitima
cy of his state's procedures, but the
situation is unusual. The Democ
rats would counter, of course, and
the race would be on. A final re
sponse to a failure of certification
by Florida would be a quick new
law resolving the situation. Fat
chance.
And if the situation is not re
solved by Jan. 20, then meet Presi
dent Dennis Hastert, who takes of
fice if neither a president nor a vice
president is selected.
At that point, of course, new
laws become possible. There are
other possibilities, including ac
tions by the Florida Legislature,
competing slates of electors, faith
less electors, further complexities
in the federal review process and
so on. But surely there is no point
in continuing.
All this must be only a nightmare
— it’s inconceivable that either of
our major parties would even think
about bringing this on the nation.
Surely both will agree to abide by
the Florida recount, and will reject
the option of a broad challenge that
ties things up in the courts past the
vote counting on Jan. 6.
James V. DeLong is a senior fellow at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute in Wash
ington, where he works on the Project on
Technology & Innovation. -