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