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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, JuNE 1, 2021
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
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WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
Let’s relearn how to live together
I
t is a curse to live in an era you do
not understand. It is a fair bet that
many Oregonians, across the politi-
cal spectrum, harbor that anxiety.
In the recent Oregon election, five
Eastern Oregon counties voted in favor
of joining Idaho. This is a movement
that’s been around for a while. Although
differing from the concept of the State
of Jefferson, conceived in 1941, to form
a new state from coun-
ties in southern Oregon
and Northern California,
it flows from the same
sense of marginalization.
Oregon is not unique
in how its economic and
political cultures are fre-
STEVE
quently divided. Joel
FORRESTER
Garreau gave the most
complete explanation
of this reality in his 1981 book, “The
Nine Nations of North America.” State
borders are artificial lines that group
together populations with discordant pri-
orities. If we were starting from scratch,
all state lines might bear little resem-
blance to what they are.
As with the State of Jefferson, Idaho
annexing elements of Eastern Oregon is
unlikely to occur. It would take agree-
ment within the Salem and Boise state-
houses, as well as in Congress. Approval
of such a reconfiguration would give
license to an avalanche of similar efforts
around the country, setting a precedent
few state and national leaders would
welcome.
While I don’t think the Idaho plan is
good for Oregon, I understand the emo-
tional motivation among Eastern Ore-
gon voters. An author of the separation
concept, Mike McCarter, of La Pine,
has said: “Rural Oregon is in an abusive
relationship with Willamette Valley.”
McCarter is the former president of the
Oregon Agribusiness Council and the
Oregon Association of Nurserymen.
Much of what chafes at rural people
is Salem’s and Portland’s ignorance of
what lies east of Hood River. That even-
tually comes down to natural resources
management.
Some conservatives want to move parts of Oregon into Idaho.
THE dIVISIVENESS ILLuSTRATEd By THE
GREATER IdAHO IdEA IS PART OF A LARGER
NOSTALGIA FOR THE dECAdES IMMEdIATELy
FOLLOWING WORLd WAR II, WHEN OREGON
VIEWEd ITSELF AS OVERCOMING PETTy
dIFFERENCES IN THE PuRSuIT OF SENSIBLE
ACCOMMOdATIONS THAT GENERATEd MuTuAL
SuCCESS. LIKE MOST NOSTALGIA, THIS ROSy
VIEW MINIMIZES THE HARd NEGOTIATIONS
— ANd OCCASIONAL HARd FEELINGS — THAT
SET THE STAGE FOR A PROSPEROuS ANd
EGALITARIAN PERIOd OF PROGRESS.
Animosity toward Salem revolves
around how land uses are prioritized. In
the broadest terms, Oregonians who live
beyond the state’s northwest urban cen-
ter too often are made to feel like bump-
kins for pursuing the economic opportu-
nities at hand, which despite impressive
diversification, still often revolve around
agriculture and wood products.
Conversely, the state’s urban zeit-
geist is to see other Oregonians as mired
in an outmoded attachment to traditional
extractive industries — and under the
sway of Trumpist grievances.
One does not have to live in the
broad dry expanse of Eastern Oregon
to feel the brunt of Salem’s ignorance.
Here at the mouth of the Columbia
River, Salem’s myopia was apparent in
2012 with former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s
needless, scientifically baseless and
boneheaded attack on gillnet fishermen.
Gov. Kate Brown has lacked the guts to
undo Kitzhaber’s stupid policy.
Meanwhile, Portland’s largest city
has become a place that many of us no
longer recognize. For me, the transfor-
mation began years ago when The Ore-
gonian debased its product. Like it or
not, a metropolitan area is a media cen-
ter. But that is no longer the case with
Portland.
The riots and vandalism have given
downtown Portland, sheathed in ply-
wood, an ugly and bereft look. The
city’s weak political leadership has
enabled a catastrophe that has gone on
about a year, perpetuating a sense of a
place not in control of itself, and cer-
tainly in no position to lecture or dictate
to others.
The divisiveness illustrated by the
Greater Idaho idea is part of a larger
nostalgia for the decades immediately
following World War II, when Oregon
viewed itself as overcoming petty differ-
ences in the pursuit of sensible accom-
modations that generated mutual suc-
cess. Like most nostalgia, this rosy view
minimizes the hard negotiations — and
occasional hard feelings — that set the
stage for a prosperous and egalitarian
period of progress.
Rekindling these conditions requires
a deliberate and well-executed pro-
cess. Respectful discussions coupled
with concrete follow through are what
it will take to bridge Oregon’s urban-ru-
ral divide.
While each of the 36 counties can’t
go its own way, or find greener politi-
cal grass across the Idaho border, Orego-
nians can and must do a better job of lis-
tening to one another.
Steve Forrester, the former editor and
publisher of The Astorian, is the presi-
dent and CEO of EO Media Group.
GUEST COLUMN
The longest of longshots
W
hen Oregon made national
news in late May, “it wasn’t
because of riots in Portland,
and it wasn’t because of other issues from
our most populated city,” said state Rep.
David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford.
“It was because an overwhelming
majority of constituents in five counties
said, ‘I don’t feel represented by the urban
politicians of this state, and I would like
my county commissioners to look at join-
ing Idaho.’”
Union and Jefferson
counties voted last year, so
seven counties have now
voted to pursue leaving
Oregon.
A New York Times
article gave this summa-
DICK
tion of the May 18 elec-
HUGHES
tion results: “Grant, Baker,
Lake, Sherman and Mal-
heur Counties, the five currently in revolt,
are huge in area but minuscule in popu-
lation and thus political clout at the capi-
tal in Salem. The counties contain 63,000
people over about 26,000 square miles,
an area about the same size as Massachu-
setts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode
Island and Delaware combined.”
Floyd McKay, a retired journalism pro-
fessor and longtime observer of North-
west politics, put the election results
— and the national overreaction — in
perspective.
“This is a serious voice for rural vot-
ers in Eastern Oregon, but it is far from
a rebellion, let alone a likely rejiggering
of the map. Approval of the legislatures
in Idaho and Oregon would be required,
and Congress would also need to assent,”
McKay wrote on Post Alley. “Don’t rip up
your OSU Beavers jersey in favor of an
Idaho Vandals shirt, dad, ain’t happening
very soon.”
As McKay noted previously, Washing-
ton state at least has one major city on its
east side, Spokane, to provide a bit of bal-
ance with liberal Seattle. Not so, Oregon.
The Portland metro area dominates
Oregon, but Portland and rural Oregon are
inextricably linked. Or at least we thought
so. Indeed, the secessionist desire to form
the State of Jefferson out of southern
Oregon and Northern California always
seemed more a state of mind than a polit-
ical possibility. It would be the longest of
THE PORTLANd METRO AREA dOMINATES
OREGON, BuT PORTLANd ANd RuRAL OREGON
ARE INEXTRICABLy LINKEd. OR AT LEAST WE
THOuGHT SO. INdEEd, THE SECESSIONIST dESIRE
TO FORM THE STATE OF JEFFERSON OuT OF
SOuTHERN OREGON ANd NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
ALWAyS SEEMEd MORE A STATE OF MINd THAN
A POLITICAL POSSIBILITy. IT WOuLd BE THE
LONGEST OF LONGSHOTS FOR THE GREATER
IdAHO MOVEMENT TO SuCCEEd.
longshots for the Greater Idaho movement
to succeed.
Most rural residents are geographically
removed from the Portland violence, but
the city’s well-documented problems feed
the rural-urban divide.
With the dramatic increase in Port-
land-area shootings, rural legislators and
their constituents wonder why Demo-
crats don’t focus on that violence instead
of statewide gun control legislation that
restricts law-abiding rural residents.
The protest-related violence in Port-
land also seems incomprehensible to rural
Oregonians, though House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, said it has not been a
major topic within the Oregon State Cap-
itol this year. Police reform has been, fol-
lowing the national soul-searching and
Oregon protests that stemmed from the
murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis a
year ago.
Kotek said the Legislature is on track
to pass 16 police reform bills this year,
most of them with solid bipartisan sup-
port, on top of six passed during last
year’s special sessions.
Outside the Capitol, there is palpable
concern about the destructive protests.
“I receive daily emails from southern
Oregon citizens that are distressed by the
ongoing civil unrest in Portland. Many
citizens demand that we do something,”
Rep. Gary Leif, R-Roseburg, wrote in his
constituent newsletter last week.
“My heart breaks for the people of
Portland and I know the national news is
not looking favorable on our state. But the
reality is, that the state Legislature has no
role in solving the problem.”
Leif said that is the responsibility of
local leadership.
New York Times columnist Nicholas
Kristof, who grew up on a farm outside
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Yamhill, cites a lack of that leadership in
progressive Portland, a resilient city he
dearly loves.
“Last summer President Donald Trump
inflamed the crisis in Portland by send-
ing in unneeded federal troops to deal
with mostly peaceful protests. That aggra-
vated the upheaval, provoked months of
rioting and empowered fringe groups, and
perhaps it also obscured the need to stand
resolutely against violence by local trou-
blemakers on both left and right. There
was too much deference to people sowing
chaos under the banner of social justice,
perhaps for fear of seeming unprogres-
sive, and after the feds left, the city never
tried hard enough to pivot to reestablish
order,” Kristof wrote.
Portland’s inability to solve its urban
problems provides a national lesson:
“Grand gestures for justice are fine, but
they can’t substitute for quiet competence
in keeping people safe, getting people
housed or picking up the garbage.”
When will it end?: The 2021 Legisla-
ture is unlikely to adjourn much before its
June 27 constitutional deadline. “We’re
going to have to go to the very end,”
Speaker Kotek told journalists last week.
Conducting business online, with vir-
tual committee hearings, takes longer. So
do House floor debates and votes, because
some lawmakers must be summoned from
their offices due to the COVID-19 proto-
cols. Kotek also said state budget work
was affected by receiving late guidance
from the federal government on allow-
able uses of this year’s coronavirus relief
money.
Key legislators and staff have weekly
conversations about reopening the Capi-
tol to the public, Kotek said, but Marion
County would need to be in the lower-risk
category. Marion currently is high risk.
Disclosures: I have longtime connec-
tions to two people I mentioned. Floyd
McKay, then a commentator and news
analyst at KGW-TV, was my journalism
instructor and newspaper adviser at Lin-
field College. Nicholas Kristof, then a
student at Yamhill-Carlton High School
and a leader in Future Farmers of Amer-
ica, was a reporter at the McMinnville
News-Register when I was starting my
journalism career there.
dick Hughes has been covering the
Oregon political scene since 1976.