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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.
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