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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, January 8, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to Harney County Sheriff David Ward. Ward has thus far admirably handled the standoff with armed protesters at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, and has been a cautious and reasonable voice amid a sea of partisan and hypocritical shouting from all sides. He has galvanized his community, and earned the respect of many nationwide. We don’t know how many sheriffs in Oregon, especially rural counties that have complicated and antagonistic relationships with the federal government, would be so professional in such a stressful, dif¿cult and dangerous situation. Ward put his own politics aside for safety’s sake. “I could walk around the room and ask every person in here if everybody is happy with the way things are going in our country and I could probably get a thousand different answers on that,” said Ward at a community meeting Jan. 6. “I have my own frustrations. We’ve got visitors in town that have their own frustrations. But there’s appropriate ways to work out our differences.” Sheriff is a strange job in Oregon. It’s an elected position, and one that often requires all the campaigning and political promises that other such positions do. But then you get elected and are supposed to forget all that and be an apolitical servant of the people. (Of course, we guess that’s the goal of every political of¿ce, but Americans have long ago stopped demanding that state and federal legislators put people before politics.) There is still an awful lot that can go wrong in Burns. But Sheriff Ward has done his best to defuse it. We hope the situation ends peacefully, and that it spurs important conversations about federal lands. A kick in the pants to drivers who break the rules of the road and put the rest of us in danger. The streets and highways are dangerous enough with vehicles going safe speeds with attentive drivers at the wheel. What we don’t need are racers (like the two who caused a wreck near the county courthouse Tuesday), drunks (like the 29 who were cited during a three-week period in December in Umatilla County), texters, rubberneckers and other distracted, impaired or unsafe drivers. We’re still a few generations away from a self-driving Àeet of vehicles on the road that will take human error out of the equation. But until then, take responsibility for yourself, your friends and your family. 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. OTHER VIEWS Ballot measures will boost campaign contributions The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times A s we start the new year, it’s always tempting to take a look at what might be making news across the state in 2016. Here’s a good bet for the coming year: Some statewide elections will be attracting big money in contributions. But they might not be the races that you’d expect. In fact, the races for the state’s top elected positions might turn out to be low-wattage affairs. With the possible exception of the crowded ¿eld vying for the secretary of state’s of¿ce (recently, a stepping stone to the governor’s of¿ce), it seems unlikely that any of those races will be generating much electricity, let alone the big campaign contributions that can Àow into hotly contested races. It’s always possible that a legislative race somewhere in the state will take off, the way that the race between Sara Gelser and Betsy Close for a state Senate seat took off, and become a magnet for big campaign contributions, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen anywhere in the mid-valley in 2016. (In fact, we’d guess that few of the mid-valley’s legislative seats up for election in 2016 will even attract contested races, but we’ll see about that.) No, if you’re on the lookout for big-money statewide races in 2016, you’ll have to look elsewhere on the ballot. In particular, keep an eye on the statewide initiatives that end up qualifying for the ballot. One of those big-money races may involve efforts to increase the minimum wage in Oregon. Although this could change depending on what happens in the short legislative session scheduled to begin in February, four separate efforts are underway to collect the signatures necessary to put a minimum wage measure on the November ballot. And, already, contributions are rolling in. The Oregonian recently reported that Service Employees International Union Local 503 has started a political action committee, the Oregonians Need a Raise PAC, to prepare for a ballot ¿ght. That PAC already has collected $363,464 in a contribution that originates with the union’s international of¿ce, a clear sign that the issue is important to the union. That’s just the opening salvo. It seems a good bet that a minimum-wage ballot measure also will collect substantial contributions from opponents. So this is a race that should cost many millions of dollars, although it would have a ways to go to beat the current record-holder, the failed 2014 measure to require labeling on genetically modi¿ed food products. (The tab in that race: $32 million.) But the minimum-wage ¿ght might just be the undercard for the main event, at least in terms of campaign spending: A proposal to overhaul the state’s corporate taxes by establishing a gross receipts tax seems like a good bet to make the ballot. That political ¿ght could prove reminiscent of the battles over Measure 66 and 67 back in 2010; those measures attracted about $12.5 million in spending. By contrast, spending for the 2014 gubernatorial race between John Kitzhaber and Dennis Richardson topped out at about $8.3 million. But for now at least, the big-money races in Oregon politics don’t seem to be the ones with candidates attached. Keep an eye on statewide initiatives. 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. 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 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Guns, tears and Republicans P 100,000 inhabitants. resident Barack Obama shed Republican presidential candidates tears Tuesday as he called for should look at the natural experiment new gun safety measures, and that occurred when Missouri eased some critics perceived weakness or restrictions on buying handguns. The wimpishness. Really? On the contrary, result was a 25 percent rise in the we should all be in tears that 225,000 ¿rearm homicide rate, according to a Americans have already died of gun study in the Journal of Urban Health. violence in his seven years in of¿ce. In contrast, Connecticut tightened The shame is not a president Nicholas regulations on buying handguns, and weeping a bit, but that he has not Kristof gun homicides there fell by 40 percent, been able to prevent roughly as many Comment according to the American Journal of people dying from guns in America Public Health. on his watch as have been killed in the This is not to say that regulations always Syrian civil war (where estimates range from work, or that ¿xing the problem is simple. fewer than 200,000 to more than 300,000). Daniel W. Webster of Johns Hopkins Yes, the U.S. gun toll includes suicides and, University cites research that keeping guns yes, Syria is a smaller country, but it’s worth from people with past a cry that a “peaceful” convictions for domestic America during Obama’s violence doesn’t make much tenure has lost roughly as of a difference. But blocking many lives to gun¿re as access to guns by people Syria has in civil war. subject to current domestic Ted Cruz responded to violence restraining orders the president’s executive does reduce killings of actions with a Web page intimate partners. showing a scowling Obama We need an evidence- in a helmet, looking like driven public health a jackbooted thug staging approach, modeled on a home invasion, with our highly successful the warning, “Obama regulation of cars to reduce wants your guns.” Chris auto deaths. That’s the approach the Obama Christie protested that Obama was behaving executive actions pursue. Republicans like a “petulant child.” Jeb Bush decried have said for years that we should focus on Obama’s “gun-grabbing agenda.” Donald enforcing existing laws. That’s what Obama Trump warned that Obama was moving is doing. toward banning guns. The upshot of all this Likewise, Obama is pushing to investigate scaremongering will be more Americans the feasibility of smart guns that operate with rushing out to buy ¿rearms. a ¿ngerprint or a PIN. This may or may not Look, let’s acknowledge that liberals have work, but it’s worth a try in a nation where not handled gun issues well over the years. perhaps 300,000 guns are stolen annually. A Liberals often antagonize gun owners by toddler in America shoots someone on average coming across as patronizing or insulting — once a week because guns are so easy to pick as well as spectacularly unknowledgeable up and ¿re. If our cellphones can be made to about the guns they seek to regulate. But work only with a PIN, it’s crazy that anyone on the basic question of whether more guns can use a stolen assault riÀe. create more safety or more risk, the evidence There’s no magic wand to solve gun seems clear: Most gun owners use ¿rearms violence in America, but neither is it responsibly, but with more guns there are immutable fate that 32,000 Americans die more tragedies. from ¿rearms each year. We know from the Exclude guns and the U.S. has a rate for experience of states like Connecticut and many violent crimes similar to that of other Missouri that sensible regulations save lives. rich countries. But because we have 300 And why wouldn’t we want to keep guns from million guns sloshing around, some in the men subject to domestic violence restraining hands of high-risk individuals, we have a gun orders if the result is fewer women murdered homicide rate that is about 20 times that of Australia (which cracked down on guns after a by jilted boyfriends? The Republican presidential candidates mass shooting there). are on the wrong side of history here. While Gun advocates say criminals will always even Republican voters overwhelmingly say have guns, so regulations make no difference. in polls that they favor sensible steps like But increasingly we have evidence that this is universal background checks, the Republican wrong. candidates are politicizing what should be The states with the most restrictive a public health issue, and they are scaring gun laws have the lowest gun death rates Americans into buying more guns, which (including suicides). Take Massachusetts and magni¿es the problem and causes more New York, which have some of the tightest carnage. gun restrictions in America; they have 3 or 4 Ŷ gun deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year. Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and At the other extreme, two of the states with the cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. Kristof, a most permissive gun regulations are Alaska columnist for The New York Times since 2001, and Louisiana, and both have gun death rates won the Pulitzer Prize two times. about ¿ve times as high: more than 19 per There’s no magic wand to solve gun violence in America, but neither is it immutable fate. YOUR VIEWS Burns standoff a media circus, public relations event Easy there, troops: Armageddon isn’t here. These loony Rambo types who are trespassing at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge compound will leave when they get hungry. Tonya Harding and her merry crew could have done better. This is a media event. If I was a hardened skeptic, I would believe Sheriff David Ward coerced this out¿t to show up so he could be center stage and do some grandstanding. When you’ve got these 24-hour news giants on hand and there is no news, they make news. /ast week there was Àooding in the Midwest. The media grossly hackneyed the word “historic.” So settle down. The sun will rise tomorrow at its allotted time. John Shippentower Pendleton It takes a village, not a police state Recently, I came home from a friend’s birthday party where there was Oreo ice cream cake. My son, who is four, understandably didn’t want to leave the party. Who would? My friend’s 18-year-old son had to help me get his coat on him, carry him out to the car, and strap him into his car seat. Many parents of preschoolers know the drill of the child who is too wiggly to put into the car or the child throwing a tantrum. When I got home, my son didn’t want to get out of the car seat. He wanted me to carry him into the house. I told him I had to carry in two shopping bags, and that he is a big boy and could walk himself in. The ¿t continued. After I got my son into the house, he ran back outdoors. He ran circles around our parked car in the driveway, all fueled by Oreo ice cream cake. I repeatedly told him to come inside, tried to reason with him. Alas, reasoning with a 4-year-old. Eventually, he settled down and pouted on the porch for a few minutes ¿ve, by my count while I watched him while putting the shopping bags down), then came inside sobbing and apologizing, and got ready for bed. This morning, I was informed that a neighbor had called Child Protective Services alleging I had locked my child out in the cold for 15 minutes. I understand that there is child abuse. I understand the “If you see something, say something,” philosophy. But why wouldn’t someone offer to help? I’m always grateful when another parent steps in and says, “You should listen to your mom,” or offers to help me push out a grocery cart when I have an unruly child. My neighbors might have been well- meaning, but next time, if you’re really concerned, I wish you would offer to help rather than calling a government agency. Shaindel Beers Pendleton
