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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 3, 2017)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2017 Founded in 1873 DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager OUR VIEW E ach week we recognize those people and organizations in the community deserving of public praise for the good things they do to make the North Coast a better place to live, and also those who should be called out for their actions. SHOUTOUTS Revolt of the attorneys general By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group W Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian FisherPoets organizers Jay Speakman, left, and Jon Broderick per- form at the Astoria Event Center during the 20th annual FisherPo- ets Gathering last week. This week’s Shoutouts go to: • Jon Broderick, Jay Speakman and other organizers of the 20th annual FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria last week- end. About 100 people with connections to the fishing indus- try presented songs, stories and poems at venues around town throughout the weekend. Each of the venues, the Voodoo Room bar, Wet Dog Cafe, Liberty Theater, Columbian Theater, Fort George Lovell Showroom and Kala art center were packed during the fisher-themed events. • Longtime Seaside Jazz Festival directors Ruth Johnson and Judy Shook, along with volunteers, sponsors and music venue hosts of the 34th annual event last weekend. Sponsored by the Lighthouse Jazz Society, the Jazz Festival provided concerts at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center, the Elks Lodge and the Best Western Ocean View Resort. Convention center officials said the festival attracted about 2,000 visi- tors and musicians to Seaside to hear what they call “OKOM” — “Our kind of music” — with a distinct New Orleans Dixieland flavor. • Julie Yuill and Sherri Williams, two longtime Astoria employees who retired this week. Yuill, executive assistant to City Manager Brett Estes, joined the city more than 31 years ago, which spans a period of three mayors and six city man- agers. Williams, administrative assistant to the Community Development Department, has served the city for more than 24 years and has worked under four community development directors. • The Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, which has received an Oregon Heritage Tradition designa- tion by the Oregon Heritage Commission as it prepares to mark its 50th anniversary. Other Oregon Heritage Traditions include the Oregon State Fair, the Pendleton Round-Up, the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana, and the Portland Greek Festival. The all-volunteer, three-day festival started in 1968 as a cel- ebration of the summer solstice and all things Scandinavian on Oregon’s North Coast. It is organized by the Astoria Scandinavian Heritage Association and according to Eric Martin, chairman of the Oregon Heritage Commission, “The designation recognizes those traditions that have helped define the state.” • Seaside High School seniors Jackson Januik and Maddi Utti, who were each named Cowapa League Player of the Year in boys and girls basketball. Seaside’s boy’s and girl’s coaches, Bill Westerholm and Mike Hawes, also shared hon- ors as co-Coaches of the Year with their counterparts at Valley Catholic and Banks high schools. Both the boys and girls teams are in action this weekend in the state playoffs. CALLOUTS This week’s Callouts go to: • Skipanon Water Control District board members who decided this week not to pursue mediation with Warrenton in a dispute over control of the Eighth Street Dam. The water district and city have been squabbling about the jurisdic- tion of the dam for months and the two sides had discussed the possibility of negotiations to help settle the conflict. Mediation, even if conducted informally, could help avoid a costly legal battle. Suggestions? Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look. ASHINGTON — Among the many unintended legacies of Barack Obama, one has gone largely unnoticed: the emergence of a novel form of resis- tance to executive overreach, a check- and-balance impro- vised in reaction to his various presi- dential power grabs. It’s the revolt of the state attor- AP Photo/Elaine Thompson neys general, banding together to Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson speaks at a news sue and curb the executive. And it conference in Seattle in February. Washington state’s top lawyer has outlived Obama. stopped President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order by Normally one would expect Con- filing a lawsuit. gress to be the instrument of resis- tance to presidential trespass. But tive order and got it upheld by the duces the best policy outcomes. It Congress has been supine. The Dem- 9th Circuit. Where the ban died. often doesn’t. A singular victory. Democrat- ocrats in particular, approving of Not because judicial grants of Obama’s policy preferences, allowed ic-run states will be emboldened standing are always correct. The 9th him free rein over Congress’ consti- to join together in opposing Trump Circuit, in effect, granted Minnesota tutional prerogatives. and Washington Into that vacuum It is a reassuring sign of the standing to repre- stepped the states. Flor- sent the due process ida and 12 others filed creativity and suppleness of rights of Yemeni suit against Obamacare nationals who’ve the American Constitution, never set foot in the the day it was signed. They were later joined United States — an by 13 others, making of its amphibian capacity to imaginary harm to their challenge the first in states that presup- grow a new limb when an which a majority of states poses imaginary banded together to try to rights for Yemenis. old one atrophies. stop anything. And not because They did not always succeed, administration measures issuing it’s necessarily good for the judicial but they succeeded a lot. They from both the agency rulings (espe- system to acquire, through this pro- got Obamacare’s forced Medic- cially EPA and the Department of cess, yet more power. This really aid expansion struck down, though Education) and presidential execu- should be adjudicated by the elected Obamacare as a whole was upheld. tive orders. branches. Problem is: Congress has Is this a good thing? Regardless abdicated. Later, a majority of states secured stays for two egregious Environ- of your party or policy preferences, Nonetheless, the revolt of the AGs mental Protection Agency measures. you must admit we are witness- is to be celebrated. It is a reassuring One had given the feds sovereignty ing a remarkable phenomenon: the sign of the creativity and suppleness over the generation and distribution organic response of a constitutional of the American Constitution, of its of electricity (the Clean Power Plan), system in which the traditional bar- amphibian capacity to grow a new the other over practically every ditch riers to overreach have atrophied and limb when an old one atrophies. and pond in America (the Waters of a new check-and-balance emerges This is, of course, not the first time almost ex nihilo. the United States rule). the states have asserted themselves Congress has allowed itself to against federal power. There was Fort Their most notable success was blocking Obama’s executive order become an increasingly subordi- Sumter, 1861, when the instruments that essentially would have legal- nate branch. Look at how reluctant employed were rather more blunt ized 4 million illegal immigrants. Congress has been to even consider than the multistate lawsuit. All the “If Congress will not do their job, at a new authorization for the use of more reason to celebrate this mod- least we can do ours,” said Obama. force abroad, an area in which, con- ern device. stitutionally, it should be dominant. Not your job, said the courts. I’m sure conservatives won’t Democrats noticed. And now Look at today’s GOP Congress, hav- like many of the outcomes over the with a Republican in the White ing had years to prepare to govern, next four years, just as many lib- House, they’ve adopted the tech- now appearing so tentative, almost erals deeply disapproved of the nique. Having lost control of Con- paralyzed. “Many Republican mem- Obama-blocking outcomes of the gress, they realize that one way to bers,” reports the Washington Post, recent past. curb presidential power is to go “are eager for Trump to provide clear The point, however, is not out- through the states. They just did on marching orders.” The president come but process. Remarkably, we Trump’s immigration ban. Taking orders, Congress marches — that is have spontaneously developed a new advantage of the courts’ increased not how the Founders drew it up. one — to counter executive willful- Hence the state attorneys general ness. There’s a reason that after two willingness to grant “standing” to the states, Washington state and Minne- rise to check the president and his and a half centuries the French are on sota got a district court to issue an functionaries. This is good. their Fifth Republic and we are still Not because it necessarily pro- on our first. injunction against Trump’s execu- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Means the world D on’t stone me for saying what goes unsaid in the usual off-the- rack church sermon. For example: whether or not you believe in God, you are … (drum roll please) right. In plain speak, there is no God, if that’s what you believe, believe being the operative word. And, by the same token. God is alive and working over- time for those who do believe in him. Go figure. Or, better yet, since God’s logic is illegible to the pea- brains of humankind, save time and trouble by suspending your intellect. “If you want what only I can do for you, you’ve first got to believe that I’m already on it.” This is how God might put it to his curiosity seekers today. Who woulda thunk it? Seemingly, the very idea is irrational. Ostensi- bly, it’s too preschool. Irrefutably, it stands the adult intellect on its head, confounding the wise and favoring the fool. I know. Yet, belief in God, in the absence of flashing signs, is the sin- gle element that demystifies, i.e. throws light on God’s proof of life. Belief is acquired by default, when there’s nothing left to try; out of desperation, when you want out of your misery at all costs, and God won’t grant your wish to die; by faith, i.e. all are given a measure; or via a decision — a mind-set one adopts on purpose. However belief comes about, you are blessed. And, specific to those who don’t believe in God: you, too, are right; and your opinion means the world. ANNA RYAN Seaside Stirring quotes T wo quotes are stirring me. One quote is “Injustice any- where is a threat to justice every- where.” by Martin Luther King Jr. February was Black History Month. The other quote is by Edmund Burke: “The only thing neces- sary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.” Ah, complacency and denial. Also, Edward Snowden’s clar- ity about our U.S. Constitution in a Jan. 28 interview is inspiring to me (“Everything about Donald Trump”). It gives me hope to hear from his heart. MONICA TAYLOR Astoria