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■* < » V »*■»*» w * Page 10... The Portland Observer ...April 29, 1992 Honorable Margaret L. Carter Margaret L. Carter, State Representative of District 18 BY JOHN DUDLEY LEFTRIDGE, III The Portland Observer had a won derful opportunity to have a personal interview with our State Representa tive concerning her recent visit to South Africa. However, before we get into that, this writer would like to take time out to really introduce our readers to M s. M argaret L. Carter, and give you a little background information, so that you will truly understand just who this m arvelous African-American woman is. W hen we search the sands o f time for the everlasting footprints that are engraved upon the minds o f the m em bers o f the first family o f civilization and their descendants, we will find that the cornerstone of our existence can be traced from the footprints of the Queen o f Sheba, and the burning passion she brought forth to King Solomon, right to the never-ending beauty of Cleopatra, Queen o f the Nile, who put Rome in a tailspin. These same footprints lead to the struggles during slavery where an other queen, Ms. Harriett Tubman, car ried on the quest for freedom from physical bondage. And, like the three queens before her, Ms. Mary M cCloud Bethume stood tall in the fight for edu cational freedom for her people. Each o f these women came to us at different times on the wings o f change, until now. All the above mentioned charac teristics are all rolled into one when we speak of our Honorable State Represen tative M argaret L. Carter. Bom in Decem ber 1935 in Shreve port, Louisiana, she was one o f eight children, with four sisters and three brothers; tw o o f her sisters live in Port land and two live in Shreveport; one brother lives in Tacom a, W A, and one lives in Portland. One brother passed away in the service some time ago. Ms. C arter arrived in Portland, Oregon in 1967. W hile raising her fam ily she taught school at the Albina Youth Opportunity School. This was a real tough school; these kids were the at-risk youth o f that day. Y et, she stayed and taught there for about five years. Then in 1972 she started working at Portland Com m unity College, Cascade Campus, up until about 1975, when she m oved on to Sylvania. During the early 80’s she becam e a strong community activist, tackling such issues as safety in the community, bet ter public education for the poor, and even w ent head on with the tough Pa role A dvisory C om m ission to help change some of the disparities within the rules o f the State Board of parole that had an adverse affect on the high number o f minorities it was dealing with. By the mid 80’s she became the first African-American woman ever to be elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly. W hile in the House of R ep resentatives, she has successfully spon sored and walked through the legisla ture the state holiday com m em orating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Another bill she cham pioned was the divestiture o f state investm ents in com panies doing business in South Africa. Yes, this is the State Representa tive o f D istrict 18 that The Portland Observer had the privilege o f inter viewing during the 1991 Kwanzaa. O ur first contact to set up this interview occurred on the 4 th day o f the Kwanzaa, Ujamaa and the actual interview took place on Kuumba. D istrict 18 Representative Carter began her trip to South Africa by first stopping in Johannesburg. Here she had a first-hand look at the real life, every day problems that the Black South A f rican people are forced to endure. As Ms. Carter w ent on to explain, “These people are attem pting for the first time to sit down at the table of brotherhood with their former oppressors and work toward a National Congress which will reflect a fair cross section o f the popu lation. H ow ever, the world already knows, as you and I, that the pressure o f breaking down apartheid is one thing, changing the governm ental structure and the set legislative activities that Johannesburg, South African has func tioned under for so long is another story. W hite South A fricans are still very unwilling to totally give up the reins o f power.” “T he next stop on our agenda was in Pretoria. This is where you can find a high population of Indians, Coloreds, W hites and Asians, with only a small num ber of blacks. During our trips in Continued on page 8 A Few Economic insights in the coming elections The m ost obvious and viable con centration o f African American politi cal pow er in the state is in legislative districts 8 and 18 represented by slate senator Bill McCoy and representative M argaret C arter respectively. Its a shame neither of these multiple term Black incumbents can be lifted up as star players in the contest to gain eco nomic capacity for Blacks in the state. Its hard to understand what the real deal is with McCoy. One can only speculate that this soft spoken nice guy has been brutally used to deceive folks into thinking Oregon has progressive notions about Black people. Because McCoy continues to get elected w ith out any connect to significant achieve ments, one can only conclude that the d e c e p tio n c o n tin u e s (p a rtic u la rly among blacks) to work. The Oregonian news paper not withstanding, the Black community should be the first to can didly fill out the scope card on the performance of our state representa tives as did the Black Leadership Con ference when it decided not to endorse the state senator. Its not enough to just have black faces. W e must also have powerful black actions to accompany the faces. Surely we must know that if Black representatives w on’t to the right thing we can hardly expect white repre sentatives to act substantially on our This is particularly true o f state representative M argaret Carter. L et me just say something. As a long time sup porter and adm irer o f Margaret it is regrettable that I must conclude that she just ain’t cutting it. First of all, after going to the state legislature with the most popular consensus o f Black votes maybe in the history of the state, there is no way she should now after a second term be receiving any opposition, cred itable or otherwise. As I see it, here are a few o f the major economic issue blun ders of her terms in office. •O ver the objections of most of the African American Contractors, spon soring the Emerging Small Business Legislation and Creating the Office of Minority Business. This office has no statutory authority to enforce anything on behalf o f the minority businesses and in fact the office has done significant harm. The office is a real joke. • Ignoring the counsel o f Black EEO/AA professionals by not follow ing through on developing the resources to com plete a disparity study in after- math o f the Crosion decision which did away with minority contracting goals for local m unicipalities. • Sponsoring weak Enterprize Zones legislation which to date has been very ineffective, yielding little capacity for working people in Northeast Commu- I have been working hard in W ash ington the past few months to convince the Bush Administration to allow us to go ahead with the Oregon Health Plan. We need the Administration to grant a waiver of the federal Medicaid rules so that we can implement our innovative program. The Oregon Health Plan is a com prehensive approac h to our state ’ s heal th care crisis. It w on’t fix everything, but it does address the major problems in a way that we in Oregon can afford. Our plan would offer basic health insurance coverage to 120,000 low-income and unemployed Oregonians by expanding the Medicaid program. It would pro vide coverage to working poor and medically uninsurable Oregonians who have no access to health care at all. The prioritized list c f services that Oregon came up with has been the subject o f much of the national debate on our plan. I think we did a good job in designing that list, and in making the tough choices that must be made in order to make progress toward health care reform. Right now 450,000 Orego nians are without health care insurance - that’s 19% o f our citizens, many o f them children. O ur plan would offer basic coverage to most o f those people either through the Medicaid program or through employer-based coverage that will be required as soon as the plan goes into effect. The national debate on health care has focused new attention on O regon’s bold plan. The O ffice o f Technology Assessment (OTA), which is a research arm of Congress, was asked to study the Oregon plan and give an objective as sessment of it. OTA issued a report recently that both praises and criticizes the plan. On balance, the OTA report was positive and I am encouraged that it will help the Administration decide favorably on the waiver. The OTA report is very positive about O regon’s attem pt to extend cov erage to the uninsured. It is equally positive about the legislature’s w illing ness to put additional funding into the plan. The report is critical of the list of prioritized services because it w asn’t done “ scientifically” enough. However, OTA does point out that there is no scientifically accepted way of putting together such a list. OTA is primarily concerned that Oregon could run out o f money and cut the list o f services cov ered to a very low level that would be harmful to the people this program is designed to benefit. There are mechanisms in place to prevent it. The G overnor or the Secre tary o f Health and Human Services could withdraw the waiver if the benefit package drops to an inadequate level. W e ranked services on the priori tized list according to effectiveness and cost. The list might not work for New York or Texas but it will work for Oregon. The plan will reflect a clear sense of what Oregonians want in health care. I keep telling the Administration that we in Oregon are ready to go forward with our plan, as soon as we get a green light from W ashington. It may not be a perfect solution, but it is much more equitable and more effective than the current system. It’s time for the Administration to act. It’s time to end the delays and to give Oregon the waiver. Our state has tackled one o f the m ost difficult prob lems o f the day, and come up with a reasonable solution that offers service and c o m p a ssio n to o u r c itiz e n s . O regon’s innovation deserves a chance and I plan to continue the fight for it. area. •Sponsoring a very weak contractor mentor protegee legislation which is basically a joke. • While she claim s credit for the Northeast Work Force Center, the con cept is under funded and lacks the capac ity to place people in real jobs after they supposedly have been trained. • Influence cliques (clicks) among close cohorts rather using her legislative influence for the greater good o f the majority o f her district constituents. M argaret’s performance can be ba sically characterized as more show than substance. Maybe that is why she re ceived only a luke warm in endorsement for the Black Leadership Conference which she has been a long time member. And may be that’s why other routine endorsement have evaded her campaign sofar. If she does get reelected for a third term perhaps she has gotten the wake up call to listen and follow through with the charge from the majority o f her constitu ents. The reported whispering about her being out o f touch with her constituent is really more like a roar. Maybe she and Bill will both fully come to realize that there are a lot o f desperate folks hopes riding on their representation and the stakes are too high for either of them to Secretary Of State Phil Keisling Secretary of State, Phil Keising makes a " Surprise Visit” to B rooklyn School April 28th. Principal R ose mary Daniels and the Brooklyn students gave K eisling a "Warm Welcome!." Update On The Oregon Health Plan BY SENATOR BOB PACKWOOD completely ignores the capacity and potential o f small business already in the MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND PLAN TO ATTEND THE OPEN HOUSE Sau*'» District Map MARGARET CARTER’S CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS House D is tr ic t 7 10 n a il 13414 15419 16421 17418 20422 56 Senate D is t r ic t 3 14 6 7 10 9 8 11 28 Saturday, May 2, 1992 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. 5315 N. Vancouver (Corner of Vancouver and Killingsworth) d a n d p a .d bv th e ^ n i i U c c t ° R o - e te d M a r g a r d C a ^ Authorized ). # 18.5315 N Vancouver, Portland Or 97217. Zoz U«*» Stale Rep. * LV ’
