Local
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HOT AIR SOCIETY BY TONY CORCORAN
Of Grand Bargains
and Granfalloons
PERS, POLITICS AND THE GRAND BARGAIN IN SALEM
R
emember back in 2013 when then Gov.
John Kitzhaber, House Speaker Tina
Kotek and Senate President Peter
Courtney held a three-day special
session of the Legislature?
Me neither. I’m so old I’ve com-
mitted to remembering only future
events from now on. Learned that from Yogi Berra: t
cuts down a lot on my short-term memory loss.
Anyway, the three of them were praised and criti-
cized when they concocted a convoluted clusterfuck
of five unrelated bills known as the “Grand Bargain,”
dubbed that because of the disparate elements of the
bills — from PERS reform to genetically modified plants
and everything in between.
The 2013 bargain included PERS reform on the
backs of workers (sound familiar?) and cuts to Oregon
seniors’ medical deduction. There were minor tax in-
creases for C-corporations, and a 13-cents-per-pack
boost in cigarette taxes. But the bills also cut taxes
for partnerships, limited liability companies, S-corpo-
rations and some export businesses. And there was a
bill to limit local government regulation of genetically
modified plants. (That bill even contained an emergen-
cy clause: seriously!)
The unions called it “Grand Theft.” There’s always
a grand bargain of one type or another. But that deal
engineered by Democrat leaders managed to piss off
large segments of historic party supporters. It wasn’t
just the teachers and other public employees, it was
also seniors and advocates for tax fairness, and envi-
ronmentalists.
On the one hand you could say: The grand bargain
was a bipartisan deal that sent the Legislature home
and kept the state going.
On the other hand you could say: What were Demo-
crat leaders thinking while attacking their own constit-
uents? Is there a difference between Democrat and Re-
publican parties? Kurt Vonnegut would’ve described
each as a granfalloon: “a proud and meaningless asso-
ciation of human beings.” Like a Hoosier.
For the record, the Oregon Supreme Court threw
out the 2013 PERS reforms two years later in Moro v.
Oregon. The Legislature’s 2013 reforms slashed PERS
liability for future pension payments by $5.3 billion by
trimming the cost of living adjustment (COLA) ben-
efits. In 2015 the court’s decision eliminated about $5
billion of those anticipated savings as unconstitutional.
In 2019, our current Democrat leaders, Gov. Kate
Brown, Kotek and Courtney, negotiated a suspect PERS
bill that stuck public employees in the neck again.
Democrats provided the votes in both the House
and the Senate for the 2019 reforms. And they nego-
tiated away state Sen. Floyd Prozanski omnibus gun
safety bill and the vaccination bill. After its passage,
Brown issued a statement saying she “will not look to
public employees for further contributions” to the un-
funded liability.
Really? Didn’t we hear the same bullshit six years
ago?
There will be political consequences for Democrat
legislators in the 2020 primaries because of their sup-
port for PERS reform. Someone will get “MacPherson-
ed.” That’s an Oregon political neologism for being tak-
en out in a Democrat primary from the left for making
decisions based on good public policy and not personal
political expediency — just like Oregon Republican leg-
islators who made heroic votes on tax measures over
the years got “Tea Party-ed” from the right.
State Rep. Rob Nosse, a Portland progressive and for-
mer union co-worker and friend of mine, has already drawn
an opponent for 2020. Locally, I’m worried that state Rep.
Marty Wilde may get attacked in the primary as well.
When we did our PERS reforms in 2003, state Rep.
(and pension attorney) Greg MacPherson was an up-
and-coming Democrat with his eye on a future political
career — maybe attorney general or even the governor-
ship someday. After all, he was the son of legendary
Hector MacPherson, former state senator from Albany
and the “father of land-use planning” in Oregon almost
50 years ago.
Greg subsequently was a candidate for Oregon at-
torney general in 2008, but lost in the Democratic pri-
mary to John Kroger, the worst attorney general in re-
cent Oregon history. Kroger subsequently resigned in
2012. Labor forgives; but never forgets? Nope. They did
neither in that race. Oregon lost, too.
I left the Legislature in November of 2003. Greg and
I lived in different worlds. He was an attorney for Stoel-
Rives, one of Portland’s largest law
firms. I worked for SEIU
Local 503 at the time.
My job went south in
a hurry. I enjoyed my
five sessions in the
Legislature. I loved
being a state senator.
Fortunately, no one
got “Corcoran-ed” in my
case. Prozanski was cho-
sen as my successor and
Paul Holvey as Floyd’s
successor in the House.
They’re
still
there,
thank god. Kate can’t
run again, Courtney will
retire soon; thank god.
But Tina? Hmmm.
Stay tuned.
Former state Sen. Tony Corco-
ran of Cottage Grove is former
legislator and a retired state
employee.
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