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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, August 28, 2015
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
JENNINE PERKINSON
Advertising Director
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Tip of the hat,
kick in the pants
A tip of the hat to Hermiston councilman John Kirwan for raising his
voice to allow democracy to guide the city’s decision on whether or not to
ban marijuana dispensaries.
It’s not a stance we’ve seen from many local elected of¿cials, but are glad
to see Kirwan lead the way.
Cities and counties in rural Oregon where
a majority of voters were against legalized
marijuana in November 2014 have been
lining up to keep businesses from selling
the drug for either medical or recreational
purposes. Each entity has the choice of
putting it to a vote or enacting a ban without
input.
Many local elected leaders have taken the
shortcut built into Measure 91 — banning
the businesses outright without asking for the
public’s support. While written into the law, opt-out democracy isn’t a good
path to go down.
At very least we prefer the other route, giving voters the bene¿t of the
doubt and the ability to respond to a new situation.
In November of 2014 about 63 percent of voters in the county said
marijuana should remain illegal. That’s about the same percentage of U.S.
citizens who believed the drug should be illegal in a 2000 poll by Pew
Research. The same Pew poll shows that only 44 percent of Americans now
think the drug should be banned.
By the time the November 2016 ballot comes around, marijuana will have
been legal in Oregon for nearly 18 months and in neighboring Washington
for three years. And as time moves on, people are changing their minds
about the dangers of pot and the effectiveness of a sales ban. We think
asking them for input is worth the effort.
We’ve tipped our hat to the ¿re¿ghters on the burning front lines of
the northwest ¿res. Now we’ll extend a tip of the hat to everyone else
supporting the residents of the ¿re
threatened communities.
When tragedy strikes, neighbors often
are at their best. That’s been the case in
Grant County, where donations have poured
into a makeshift relief center at the county
fairgrounds. Stories have emerged of people
in Umatilla and Morrow counties donating
money, supplies, even animal feed to those
who are in danger of losing everything. Or
have already lost everything.
We can’t kick a wild¿re — it’s just not practical. It’s a force of nature and
science and will only singe the boot. But in the face of such a hellish reality,
it’s good to see people taking care of one another.
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.
Everyone should be
able to live out faith
YOUR VIEWS
Years ago a carpet cleaner who was
a Jehovah’s Witness refused to clean
the carpets of our church in Oregon
City because of his beliefs. Although
I disagreed with him, I support his
right to live and conduct his business
by his conscience. One of our basic
human rights is the right to live our
lives, including our business practices,
according to the dictates of our
conscience.
We are now being denied that right.
Whether a baNer in Oregon, a Àorist
in Washington, or a photographer in
New Mexico, a businessperson who
cannot in good conscience participate
in a homosexual event is maligned,
prosecuted, and severely punished.
How much hate must some people
have toward their fellow human beings
to bring down the police power of the
state to destroy them economically
over a cake, and be richly rewarded
for doing so. Where is the common
courtesy of saying, “We respect your
beliefs; we’ll go to another bakery.” If a
white supremacist ordered a cake with
racist words on it, the bakers would be
honored for refusing.
Using a false premise to establish
laws and penalties that require good
people to violate their conscience and
then criminalize them for maintaining
their moral integrity is tyranny. Forcing
them into violating their conscience is
nothing less than the rape of their souls.
The current radical sexual revolution
is viciously intolerant. It is a judgmental
juggernaut that assaults the First
Amendment and crushes all who stand
in its way.
America has lost its way. Only a
genuine spiritual and moral awakening
will save us.
Dr. J. W. Jepson
The Dalles
Gas prices still
a head scratcher
I wrote one other time asking a
simple question and was hoping that
one, or more, fuel distributors would
respond with an honest reply. But
again I was wrong. My question, using
yesterday’s prices: I observed what is
an unbelievable difference in the price
of unleaded fuel between Pendleton,
6tan¿eld and Hermiston. Pendleton fuel
was 2., 6tan¿eld Pilot Truck 6top
was $2.79, and the real shocker was in
Hermiston it was $2.99.
Fuel distributors used to claim the
reason Pendleton was the highest was
“transportation costs” getting the fuel
there. To my knowledge Pendleton
hasn’t moved, but fuel there is $0.16
less than 6tan¿eld, and a whopping
$0.36 cents cheaper than Hermiston.
Apparently it costs more to deliver a
shorter distance.
John Harvey
6tan¿eld
OTHER VIEWS
With eyes on Trump,
Cruz rises in GOP race
T
ed Cruz got a big boost in Iowa
“You can credit much of his
recently when the inÀuential
steady gain in the polls to his strong
social conservative activist and
performance in the debate, where
radio host Steve Deace endorsed him.
many of the 24 million Americans
To call it a sought-after
watching got their ¿rst extended look
endorsement would be an
at him,” says a Cruz campaign aide.
understatement. Deace says
Team Cruz saw a signi¿cant
prospective 2016 GOP campaigns
increase in support after the
began contacting him well before the
showdown. Cruz did a 21-stop
Byron
2012 election. All just assumed that
post-debate bus tour in South Carolina,
York
Mitt Romney was going to lose. The
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
Comment
recruitment efforts picked up in 2013
Arkansas, Tennessee and Oklahoma,
and 2014.
and saw growing audiences in each.
When few people were paying any
“He was drawing crowds of up to 2,500,” says
attention to the still-forming Republican race,
another aide. “We saw our RSVPs at every
Deace was hard at work.
event go up by no less than 50 percent after
“For me, this vetting process has been
the debate.”
going on for a couple of years,” he says. “In
But Cruz aides believe his recent uptick
our world, as activists on the ground, it’s
is about more than the debate. Cruz seems
actually kind of late in the game. You want to
to be the Republican most bene¿ting from
be winning the activist caucus now so you can taking on other Republicans — not so much
win the actual caucus later.”
his GOP rivals in the presidential race but
Now Cruz has won the Deace Caucus.
the party leadership in Washington. At the
Deace explains that he was looking for a
recent RedState Gathering of conservatives
candidate who can win the support of social
in Atlanta, Cruz won a huge ovation when he
conservatives like himself, and also of
was asked what it means to lead from behind.
business-oriented establishment conservatives “Well, sure,” Cruz replied. “Republican
as well.
congressional leadership does it every day.”
“We need a candidate who can walk
All the things that have made many
through the front door of the American Family Republicans in Washington dislike Cruz just
Association and Americans for Prosperity
make a certain type of GOP voter like him
and, while not changing who they are, or
even more. In much the way that primary
pandering, win a standing ovation from
voters admire Scott Walker for standing up
both,” says Deace. “I don’t know of another
and taking on the unions, they admire Cruz for
candidate besides Cruz that we can say that
standing up and taking on Mitch McConnell
about.”
and John Boehner.
Other campaigns would disagree, of
“He should make a commercial that is a
course, but the endorsement comes on top of
montage of people hating him — McConnell,
a good run by Cruz lately. The Texas senator
Boehner, the surrender caucus,” says Deace.
really connected with conservatives during the “He would close with, ‘The same people you
earliest days of his campaign; for a while in
hate, hate me. See you in February.’” For a
April, Cruz was in third place in the GOP race, signi¿cant part of the GOP base, Cruz has the
according to the RealClearPolitics average of
right enemies.
national polls. By July, he had fallen to eighth.
In a recent Fox News poll — the one in
Now, Cruz has moved up a couple of spots
which Cruz jumped up to third place after the
and seems headed higher.
debate, ahead of Jeb Bush — Cruz did better
Part of it was a well-received performance
with voters under 45 years of age than any
at the Aug. 6 Republican debate. The
Republican candidate except Donald Trump.
interesting thing about that is that Cruz spoke
He’s got room to grow. No one knows how
for less time, and uttered fewer words, than
long his recent rise will last, but it appears that
any of the other candidates except Rand Paul.
Cruz’s work is ¿nally making a difference.
“Man of few words” is not a phrase normally
Ŷ
associated with Ted Cruz. But when he opened
Byron York is chief political correspondent
his mouth, people listened.
for The Washington Examiner.
Testing optout will ultimately hurt ta[payers
The Bend Bulletin, Aug. 18
Oregonians who allowed or encouraged
their children to skip the Smarter Balanced
assessments in the school year that just ended
did their kids no favor. Moreover, if their
numbers grow, they could cause problems for
all school-age children in Oregon.
Smarter Balanced is the new exam that
Oregon chose to replace its old Oregon
Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam
when it adopted the Common Core curric-
ulum. It was one of 17 states to use the new
test last school year.
The U.S. Department of Education requires
the annual assessments as part of the No
Child Left Behind law. At least 95 percent of
students must take the tests, and at least 95
percent of individual groups — students in
poverty, students with disabilities and others
— must also complete the exam.
While Oregon hit the overall goal, there
were problems. African-American and
disabled student participation both fell below
95 percent statewide, and two dozen of the
state’s 197 school districts also fell below the
mark. More than 100 districts came up short
for at least one group of students.
Those numbers matter because there’s
money at stake. If participation rates drop too
far, Oregon could lose some $344 million in
federal education funds. That money largely
goes to special education and to schools with
a higher-than-average number of low-income
students, arguably the very kids who most
need help getting through school.
Neither Common Core nor Smarter
Balanced will end education as we know
it nor damage our children in the process.
Rather, the former is aimed at getting kids to
meet higher standards than before and to learn
to think critically. The latter simply allows
parents, educators and others to compare
Oregon student achievement with student
achievement elsewhere in the United States.
Yet state lawmakers bought into the
negative buzz this spring and passed a bill
making opting out of exams arguably easier
than opting out of immunizations — pretty
much for any reason a parent can come up
with.
They apparently did so without thinking
seriously about the matter, and while they will
be the ones asked to replace missing federal
funds if they’re lost, it is we taxpayers who
will supply them.
LETTERS POLICY
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. 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.