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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 2, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, July 2, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Impeachment better than recall In the wake of Gov. John Here is the essential distinction Kitzhaber’s resignation, Oregonians between recalling a governor and learned we are the only state impeaching him. Recall elections without an impeachment clause become re-election campaigns. in our Constitution. Our state Impeachment requires a legislative representatives rightly responded body to be speci¿c about the chief by approving a measure to put executive’s malfeasance and to hold a constitutional focused debate amendment the level of Shielding our beyond on the ballot, sound-bite politics. allowing Oregon As president governors voters to enact an of the Senate from what is impeachment clause. and a creature of But a funny thing the statehouse common in happened on the for almost three every other state decades, Peter way to the ballot. Senate President Courtney epitomizes is effectively Peter Courtney Oregon’s one-party blocked the a Democratic government. amendment, ruling Shielding our Govenor that he would not governors from bring it to the Senate Protection Act. what is common Àoor for a vote. in every other state Courtney’s stated is effectively a excuse was that Oregon voters have Democratic Governor Protection the recourse of recalling a governor Act. It is good for the axis of and that should be suf¿cient. longtime legislators, lobbyists and (Translation: Shut up and eat it.) public employee unions who de¿ne Courtney’s rationale is evasive. our state’s one-party politics. His excuse for inaction allows Considering the alarms raised by legislators to escape responsibility Kitzhaber’s untrustworthiness, it is for a governor whose actions appalling that Courtney is so tone warrant removal from of¿ce. deaf. Financial shenanigans in state government Oregon state government is a vast enterprise — larger than giant private employers. But if you read the recent articles from our Capital Bureau, you notice a theme. There seems to be no common standard among state agencies for enforcing ¿nancial control over your tax dollars. Moreover, a governor was allowed to operate in what an accountant would call a capricious manner. Hillary Borrud’s story, published in last Thursday’s East Oregonian, concerned tax credits given to investors in green energy projects. Borrud reported that “... around 2011, the Oregon Department of Energy scaled back its oversight of the tax credit sales. The department quietly stopped enforcing pricing and other rules, which allowed private brokers to strike deals in which the prices were never veri¿ed by the state.” When auditors in the Department of Revenue raised an alarm about this disparity, Gov. John Kitzhaber effectively told them to back off. It is remarkable that in Oregon state government, that kind of ¿nancial funny business is deemed to be OK. An earlier story from our Capital Bureau made a similar point. The agency in that story was the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Its employees struggled to track the many grants and other types of funding the agency receives. And the executive director spent down funds in one account that was meant for another purpose. As a consequence, the agency risked running out of funding altogether. Why aren’t ¿nancial controls in force to forestall that kind of capricious behavior" Like state government’s history of botching large computer software projects, this matter of building and enforcing ¿nancial controls is the unglamorous work of the state Legislature. And that is probably why it simply doesn’t get done. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. YOUR VIEWS Council’s job isn’t to add new taxes, fees The members of our city council are operating like typical politicians. At the June 25 meeting of the Capital Improvement Committee there was no talk of cutting anything, only how to stick it to the taxpayers again. There were seven members of the city council at the June 25 meeting (a majority). We know how the Pendleton City Council will vote at the July 7 regular meeting. There will be a gas tax on the November ballot. The council will pass a large utility fee on water meters and sewer hook-up. This charge is not for water or sewer maintenance that we need, only for street repair. Still to come at later meetings will be increases in water and sewer fees. There is a reason for this maneuver. The voters do not have a chance to vote on these fees. One of the council members stated, “We are elected by the voters and are empowered to do this.” The fact is most of this city council was elected with little or no opposition. This is our fault, a sad state of affairs for a city this size. It’s amazing that we spend over $2 million on Parks, Recreation, and Aquatic Center. How come we can’t ¿nd any money in a $15 million general fund to help ¿x the streets" This would help us get to these luxuries without losing our car in a pothole. It’s up to us to make the city council do their job. They just passed a budget for 2015-2016, the council needs to live with their decision. The council can ¿nd money for statues, now they need to ¿nd money for street repair without new taxes or fees. LETTERS POLICY Rex J. Morehouse Pendleton The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS I The sunny side of greed n the dire prophecies of science- both private corporations and public ¿ction writers and the fevered of¿cials. warnings of left-wing activists, big “If you’re a politician and all corporations will soon rule the earth — you care about is staying in of¿ce, or already do. you’re worried about a small group Fine with me. of voters in your district who They’ve been great on the issue of vote in the primary,” he told me, the Confederate battle Àag. Almost referring to members of the House immediately after the fatal shooting of of Representatives. “If you’re a Frank nine black churchgoers in Charleston, corporation, you need to be much Bruni South Carolina, several prominent more in sync with public opinion, Comment corporate leaders, including the heads because you’re appealing to people of Wal-Mart and Sears, took steps to across the spectrum.” retire the banner as a public And so, he added, symbol of the South; others “Ironically, a lot of made impassioned calls for corporations have to be that. far more democratic than And when Nikki democratically elected Haley, the South Carolina of¿cials.” governor, said that the Newsweek observed as Confederate Àag at the much in a story published State House should come this week, noting that down, she did so knowing inclusiveness “may not that Boeing and BMW, be good politics in this two of the state’s major day of polarization and employers, had her back. micro-targeting, but it seems In fact the state’s chamber to be good business. And of commerce had urged her that is making the business and other politicians to see community the sort of ‘big the light. tent’ political force that Eli Lilly, American neither major political party Airlines, Intel and other can claim to be.” corporations were crucial Major ¿nancial to the defeat or amendment institutions were well ahead of proposed “religious of Barack Obama, Hillary freedom” laws in Indiana, Arkansas and Clinton and other Democratic politicians when Arizona over the last year and a half. Their it came to same-sex marriage. The leaders leaders weighed in against the measures, of these banks and hedge funds lent their which licensed anti-gay discrimination, and voices and considerable sums of money to its put a special kind of pressure on politicians, legalization in New York in 2011. who had to worry about losing investment And Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstrom and and jobs if companies with operations in their other companies in Washington state worked states didn’t like what the government was to ensure passage of a marriage-equality doing. referendum there back in November 2012. And if it were up to corporations, we’d Under the stewardship of Howard have the immigration reform we sorely Schultz, Starbucks alone has been a need. Early last year, the U.S. Chamber of paragon of corporate muni¿cence and Commerce publicized a letter that urged social consciousness in areas ranging from Congress to act on “modernizing our higher education to race relations. Back in immigration system.” It was signed by 246 2011, Schultz used his corporate pulpit to enterprises large and small, including Apple, bemoan congressional sclerosis and try to AT&T, Caterpillar, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, exert more cooperation among Democrats Google, McDonald’s, Marriott and Microsoft. and Republicans on debt reduction; he Are these companies acting in their own succeeded in getting more than 100 other interests" Absolutely. They’re trying to make chief executives to pledge to withhold political sure that laws and local customs don’t prevent donations until Congress made bipartisan them from attracting and retaining the best progress. workforce. They’re burnishing their brands in Between 2010 and 2014, Unilever a manner that they hope will endear them to increased the fraction of materials it got customers. from farms with sustainable practices to But those efforts, coupled with whatever roughly one-half from less than one-¿fth. genuine altruism and civic obligation some And the software company Infor participated corporate leaders feel, have produced in a multimillion-dollar program to provide compelling recent examples of companies free tickets to “Selma” for American showing greater sensitivity to diversity, schoolchildren. social justice and the changing tides of The list goes on. And while it doesn’t public sentiment than lawmakers often erase the damage that corporations wreak manage to. on the environment or their exploitation of Corporations aren’t paralyzed by partisan workers paid too little, it does force you to bickering. They’re not hostage to a few big admit that corporations aren’t always the bad donors, a few loud interest groups or some guys. Sometimes the bottom line matches unyielding ideology. the common good, and they’re the agents of “They’re ultimately more responsive to a what’s practical, wise and even right. broader group of voters — customers — than Ŷ politicians are,” said Bradley Tusk, whose Frank Bruni is a columnist and restaurant critic for the New York Times. ¿rm, Tusk Strategies, does consulting for Corporations aren’t paralyzed by partisan bickering. They’re not hostage to a few big donors, a few loud interest groups or some unyielding ideology.
