PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 17, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Obama throws open
46 cell doors at last
By DEBRA J.
SAUNDERS
President Barack Obama
commuted the sentences
of 46 federal drug offend-
ers last Monday. In his fi rst
term, Obama issued one
meager commutation; he
was arguably the stingiest
modern president when it came to
the exercise of his pardon authority.
Now, White House spokesman Josh
Earnest noted, the president has is-
sued 89 commutations—more than
the previous four presidents com-
bined.
Among the 46 commutation re-
cipients, 14 were serving life sen-
tences for nonviolent crimes. That’s
why the president had to act. The
war on drugs distorted the criminal
justice system so completely over the
past few decades that, according to
the U.S. Sentencing Commission, 42
percent of life sentences imposed in
federal courts in 2013 were for drug
offenses—as opposed to 12 percent
for murder.
As a younger candidate, Obama
had been highly critical of federal
mandatory minimum sentences. Crit-
ics of the war on drugs had expected
Obama to use his unfettered pardon
power granted in the U.S. Consti-
tution to commute the sentences of
nonviolent offenders serving decades
for their small-fi sh roles in the drug
trade. After all, Congress could not
stop him.
Instead, the president signed the
Fair Sentencing Act, a compromise
bill to reduce the disparity of crack
cocaine to powder cocaine sentences
in 2010—and asked Congress to pass
further reforms.
In 2014, then-Deputy Attorney
General James Cole announced an
initiative to grant commutations to
nonviolent inmates who had served
more than a decade in prison, had
good conduct records and would not
have received such long
prison terms under today’s
sentencing terms. This big
batch of commutations es-
tablishes that the adminis-
tration can do more than
just talk.
PardonPower blogger P.S.
Ruckman is disappointed
that it took six and a half years for
Obama to act. He sees all the commu-
tations that could have been. Obama
to Blaze Past Franklin Pierce, read his
blog’s headline on Obama’s moving
from eighth place to ninth on his list
of the 10 least merciful presidents.
Still, Ruckman is impressed with
how it is being done. So many presi-
dential pardons and commutations
in the past two decades, he told me,
refl ected what looked like “random
acts of mercy;” they were “idiosyn-
cratic.” Monday’s commutations, on
the other hand, are generally in sync
with pronounced policy positions.
They’re smart. Ruckman expects to
see regular commutations now.
Will one of these 46 turn into a
Willie Horton—the convicted mur-
derer who raped a woman while
wrongly furloughed from a Massa-
chusetts prison, thereby undermin-
ing the 1988 presidential hopes of
then-Gov. Michael Dukakis? There
is no reason to believe it, said Julie
Stewart of Families Against Manda-
tory Minimums, who noted, “Most
people who go to federal prison are
not violent.” The presidential com-
mutation recipients to whom Stewart
has talked are eager to prove that the
trust the president put in them was
well-placed.
The White House likes to point
out that criminal justice reform has
become a bipartisan cause. It should
be. There is no justice in sending peo-
ple to prison for decades, even life, for
nonviolent offenses.
Ed Dougherty
he fell ill back in
February, I spent
quite a bit of
time with him
and heard many
of his incred-
ible life stories.
What was reaffi rmed was just how
big his heart was. He was one of the
kindest men I have ever known and
was always helping others. The love
he had for his wife and family was
immeasurable. Ed taught me a lot
about the music industry, concerts
and events. I admired and respected
him so much and he will be incred-
ibly missed.
Clint Holland
Keizer
other
views
To the Editor:
Ed Dougherty was an icon. For
years in the Salem-Keizer area and
beyond, Ed touched many lives
through EJD Enterprises. Ed along
with his wife, Jan, worked togeth-
er for years to bring concerts and
events to the people of our com-
munity.
Some of the greatest musicians
from the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s
were brought here thanks to Ed’s
dedication, passion and connec-
tions. Just a few of the many great
musicians he brought to our area
included; Johnny Cash, Donnie and
Marie Osmond, Sonny and Cher,
The Kingsmen (Louie, Louie) Paul
Revere and the Raiders, Elvis Pre-
sley, The Beach Boys and the Man-
drell Sisters.
Although I had known Ed for
40 years, I recently had the chance
to get to know Ed much more in
depth in the last six months. After
(Creators Syndicate)
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I fought the good fi ght this year
The legislative session just came
to a close and as your state represen-
tative, I wanted to take a moment
to fi ll you in on some of the high-
lights from the past months. You may
remember that this is my fi rst time
representing you in Salem, and it has
been an incredible experience. There
is one thing that has stood out to me
most: the power of building relation-
ships. Relationships are how good
things get accomplished for our state.
Keep in mind, the majority party
didn’t need the minority party votes
for any bill this session, they had all
the numbers, yet they killed many
of their own bills including a trans-
portation package that would have
made a real difference for Oregon’s
roads and bridges. The partisan bick-
ering you often hear about was not as
prevalent this session as was the bick-
ering between the House Democrats
and the Senate Democrats.
Before coming to the Capitol I
made a couple of promises: I would
do nothing to hurt Oregonians and
I would try to make a positive dif-
ference. I introduced very few bills.
One bill made life easier for small
businesses. I was honored to be there
from the
capitol
By BILL POST
as Governor Kate Brown signed the
bill into law (HB 2969).
I was privileged to serve on the
Judiciary Committee and as such was
pleased to support bills that would
increase the statute of limitation for
rape victims and make it easier to
prosecute sex traffi ckers (HB 2317
and HB3040).
By far, the issue I heard from you
most about, though, was SB941, the
universal background check bill. I
want you to know I tried to do ev-
erything I could to protect your Sec-
ond Amendment rights. I introduced
a HB3528, a workable alternative to
SB941. I also championed HB3093,
a concealed handgun license reci-
procity bill that passed on a strong bi-
partisan vote out of the House 57-1,
only to die in the Senate Judiciary
Committee without letting the Sen-
ate vote on it (this speaks to the in-
terparty bickering).
There were more than 4,000 bills
introduced this session. I voted no
285 times (more than every repre-
sentative except one) because that
is not good government. Some of
those no votes included the contro-
versial “Clean Fuels” bill, the manda-
tory paid sick leave bill and the bill
that would require small businesses
to provide a retirement plan—all of
these laws will hurt small business
and agriculture.
The legislature will not convene
again until February 2016, but that
doesn’t mean I won’t keep working
for you. Our committees have quar-
terly meetings to prepare for the next
session, and my offi ce is always here
to serve you.
Don’t ever forget that I work for
you. We may not agree on every is-
sue, but I always appreciate hearing
from you and you’ll always know
where I stand. Hopefully I’ll see you
at a summer event or just around
town in our community.
(Bill Post represents House District
25. He can be reached at 503-986-
1425 or via email at rep.billpost@
state.or.us.)
The fl ag that still divides the nation
A USA Today/Suffolk University
poll of 1,000 adults conducted in
June revealed that 42 percent of those
polled view the “Stars and Bars,” the
most popular among the fl ags of the
Confederacy, as a racist symbol of hate
that should be removed from state fl ags
and other offi cial locations. Another
42 percent among those polled see
it as representative of Southern his-
tory and heritage and not racist. Do
these percentages stand to represent all
Americans? We don’t know.
In the wake of the Charleston
massacre, Amazon and Walmart have
announced they will no longer sell
Confederate fl ag merchandise, Ebay
says it will stop offering Confeder-
ate items on electric auction, Missis-
sippi’s GOP speaker of the house calls
his state fl ag “a point of offense” and
even Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell,
majority leader of the U.S. Senate be-
lieves the statue of Jefferson Davis, the
Confederacy’s president, now in the
state capitol, belongs in a museum.
However, there is no doubt that
the battle fl ag of the northern Virginia
army will—until we decide unani-
mously to put it away—survive any
inclusive effort to send them to mu-
seum locations. Why? Because it is
so entrenched a symbol of yester-
year’s glorifi cations of manhood, even
though it was short-lived over fi ve
years of efforts to protect and preserve
a 300-year history of slavery that the
northern states’ fought to end.
Looking for its appearance in post-
Civil War times fi nds examples of the
fl ag’s survival from its raising by Ma-
rines on Okinawa during World War
II to more recent appearances in Iraq
and Afghanistan. The Pentagon has
never tried to do anything about its
ubiquitous appearance in fi elds of bat-
tle overseas and on U.S. bases subse-
quent to the Pentagon’s dedication on
January 15, 1943.
The Confederate fl ag regularly
fl ew over the barracks of the U.S.
base in Cam Ranh Bay. in Vietnam.
Then, too, not only did the Confeder-
ate fl ag fl y in Vietnam but the burn-
ing cross, the Klan robe and hood and
racist slurs were common there. On
Christmas Day, 1965, during a Bob
Hope troop performance, a number of
white soldiers in a mixed audience pa-
raded in front of the attendees with a
Confederate fl ag to an apparent Hope
approval. It’s been reported that Con-
federate
fl ags
were common-
ly sold on the
streets of Saigon.
After the sur-
render at Appo-
mattox, former
Confederacy
soldiers who became Union soldiers
fl ew it when they fought Native
Americans throughout the West. The
war with Spain in 1898 saw vindica-
tion of the “Old Cause” when troops
from the South reveled in the exploits
of former Confederate generals as
they attacked with rebel fl ags in hand.
With Spain defeated, President Wil-
liam McKinley took a victory tour
of the South, hailing the valor and
the heroism that the men from the
South showed in Cuba, Puerto Rico,
the Philippines and China. Congress
soon thereafter authorized the return
to United Confederate Veterans the
Confederate fl ags captured by Union
forces during the Civil War.
World War I brought more good-
will by North to South. Before
American troops were sent overseas,
they marched in Washington, D.C.
Some 10,000 in number wore the
gray and were reviewed by President
Woodrow Wilson—the Stars and Bars
fl ag of the Confederacy was carried
at the head of the parade. When in
1917, Wilson fi nally got the U.S. into
the war he segregated Washington and
purged African Americans from feder-
al jobs in order to generate support for
entry among Southern men he want-
ed to serve. Incidentally, it was Wilson
who started the presidential tradition
of laying a Memorial Day wreath at
gene h.
mcintyre
Arlington Cemetery’s Confeder-
ate War Memorial. President Barack
Obama continues the tradition.
The Confederate fl ag has contin-
ued to fl y overseas. It was carried into
Iraq in 2003. In Afghanistan, at the
infamous Bagram Theater Internment
Facility, a platoon implicated in the
torture of detainees, known as “The
Testosterone Gang,” hung a Confed-
erate fl ag in their tent. Many Ameri-
cans have wanted for years to have the
fl ag disappear due to the desegrega-
tion of American troops that took
place 67 years ago during President
Harry S. Truman’s administration.
The U.S. could be so much bet-
ter and safer than it is. A major
part of what holds it back is that so
many American citizens of darker
skin color are reduced in status due
to prejudicial attitudes towards them.
This fact persists in American life even
though African American and His-
panic population numbers are slowly
taking over as the majority of persons
living in the U.S.
The location of Confederate fl ags
makes no difference whatsoever when
we do not change our outlook on
others who differ only in appearance
while under the skin are the same in
every way. It is high time Ameri-
cans work much harder at a one na-
tion union which is the only way we
can truly represent ourselves to the
world as a country that walks like it
talks and displays only the Ameri-
can fl ag in all public places, here and
abroad.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)