Opinion
A4
Thursday, March 10, 2022
OUR VIEW
Pump your
own is out
of gas
C
alifornia may have its Silicon Valley
and Hollywood. Ohio gets all those new
high-paying computer chip manufac-
turing jobs for Intel. Washington state may have
no income tax. But here in Oregon we don’t have
to pump our own gas.
Those aren’t fair comparisons. We are not of a
mind to be fair, hearing that once again a bill to
let Oregonians pump their own gas is dead.
We get it if you don’t want to pump your own.
If you appreciate the bond Oregon has with the
only other no self-service state, New Jersey, so
be it. If you worry about people who would fi nd
pumping their own diffi cult, if you worry about
safety, if you want another opportunity for jobs
in Oregon, those are all real concerns.
But remember the bill as it was written, House
Bill 4151, would not have removed the require-
ment to have attendants ready to pump gas. It
would have made it optional for people who want
to pump their own gas.
Is that so bad? We don’t think so.
The undoing of HB 4151 was the need for
some $543,000 for the Oregon Fire Marshal to
regulate consumer pumping. Time became too
short to come up with that in this session.
We think the fi re marshal may need even more
money, if we understand the concerns. The wor-
ries about people pumping their own transfer to
people plugging in their own electric cars, right?
Especially those higher voltage charging ports.
In the 2023 Legislature shouldn’t there be a
bill to require Oregonians to be assisted with a
paid professional when plugging in their electric
vehicles?
We can’t claim it as our idea. It would, though,
create jobs. It would be very helpful for whom
such eff ort can be diffi cult. It would be safer.
And just because Oregon would be the only state
to make this requirement shouldn’t be a reason to
stop us. Maybe New Jersey would join in.
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Legislature honors Courtney’s longevity
DICK
HUGHES
OTHER VIEWS
I
f ever there was an issue that is
neither Democrat nor Republican,
urban nor rural, it is the issue of
preventing animal abuse.
So said state Senate Presi-
dent Peter Courtney, D-Salem, on
Wednesday, March 2, as he urged
his colleagues to pass his Senate Bill
1504 banning any greyhound racing
in Oregon.
He received unanimous support.
The “debate” mostly was senators
showering praise upon Courtney,
the longest-serving legislator in state
history.
Courtney, 78, will retire in
January.
“I guess we’re here doing a reverse
Shakespeare. We’re not here to bury
the Senate president; we’re here to
praise him,” said Sen. Michael Dem-
brow, D-Portland.
“The state’s a heckuva lot better
because Peter Courtney has been
here,” said Sen. Fred Girod, R-Lyons.
“He has deep respect for our dif-
ferences and deep respect for our
similarities,” said Sen. Kate Lieber,
D-Beaverton.
Yet if ever there was an issue that
was almost wholly Democrats vs.
Republicans, urban vs. rural, it came
the next day. Again, Courtney was at
the center. The Senate passed House
Bill 4002, phasing in overtime for
agricultural workers, on a near-par-
ty-line vote and sent the measure to
Gov. Kate Brown.
Courtney presided over a lengthy,
intense, back-and-forth debate in
which he heard himself criticized by
Republicans for not ensuring a more
collaborative outcome. Then he was
the wrap-up speaker for the advo-
cates, all of whom were Democrats.
Courtney found himself on the
opposite side from senators who
the previous morning had extolled
his leadership — Girod; Sen. Lee
Beyer, D-Springfi eld; Sen. Bill
Hansell, R-Athena; Republican
leader Tim Knopp, of Bend, and
others.
Legislators, Courtney said, gen-
erally don’t like to make decisions.
And for him, this at least was a
start on agricultural overtime, even
though he doesn’t know how it ulti-
mately will play out for workers or
the industry. He defended the bill
as “a very good beginning,” full of
checks and balances, and “not an
irresponsible piece of legislation.”
Senate Republicans had insisted
that the overtime bill be read
word-by-word before the debate,
as they had for the greyhound leg-
islation and other bills as a way
of slowing the Democratic behe-
moth that controls the Legislature.
But later Thursday, the Senate and
House Republicans dropped the
bill-reading requirement, easing the
path toward adjournment on Friday.
The week’s back-and-forth illus-
trated the swings and trade-off s of
politics.
Courtney is Oregon’s lon-
gest-serving Senate president, fi rst
elected in 2003 when the chamber
was evenly split between Demo-
crats and Republicans. The late
Sen. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, con-
vinced her fellow Republicans that
they could trust Courtney in a pow-
er-sharing arrangement. He’s been
the presiding offi cer ever since — a
moderating infl uence against the
more liberal House to the chagrin of
liberal Democrats in both chambers.
This is his 38th year in the Leg-
islature, having started in the
House when Democrats were in the
minority.
In contrast to Courtney’s long
tenure, three Democratic women in
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the House announced they could not
aff ord to seek reelection due to the
low pay for a job that supposedly is
part time but really isn’t.
Karin Power, of Milwaukie,
Rachel Prusak, of Tualatin, and
Anna Williams, of Hood River, col-
lectively have served 14 years in the
Legislature.
In a joint statement, they wrote:
“Balancing our work, multiple day
jobs, families and our service has
become unsustainable. How much
of a check on power can we be if
we earn a base salary of less than
$33,000 a year? How can we ade-
quately oversee a state budget of
more than $25 billion, with dozens
of diff erent state agencies?”
Among the bills dying in the ses-
sion’s fi nal days was one that would
have raised the pay to more than
$63,000 and added a monthly child
care stipend for eligible parents.
This is a challenge for the Leg-
islature’s future. Increased pay
would attract more candidates of
low and moderate incomes, instead
of having to rely on other jobs or
family fi nances. Yet legislators’
awareness of issues is enhanced
by their fi rsthand knowledge of the
working world, as well as other
community issues.
There likely would be less divi-
siveness within the Legislature if
there were more Democrats with
retail, manufacturing and other
business experience and more
Republicans with backgrounds in
social services and the public sector.
As with any organization, the Leg-
islature needs enough turnover to
stay fresh instead of insular, but
not so much turnover that it loses
touch with itself and repeats past
missteps.
———
Dick Hughes has been covering
the Oregon political scene since
1976.
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