Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
EO MEDIA GROUP
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MIKE FORRESTER
STEVE FORRESTER
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Pendleton
Chairman of the Board
Astoria
President
Pendleton
Secretary/Treasurer
CORY BOLLINGER
JEFF ROGERS
Aberdeen, S.D.
Director
Indianapolis, Ind.
Director
OUR VIEW
A forest plan
we can live with
The Blue Mountains Forest Plan
is the overarching management
document that guides decisions on
millions of acres of public land in
Eastern Oregon.
Land managers on the Umatilla,
Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur
national forests have been working
under that plan, which has not been
updated since 1990. That was two
Bush presidents ago, and about eight
years before Google was founded.
The plan is long overdue for
an update, but the public and land
owners (the federal government and
we the people) have, as of yet, been
unable to make headway on what
that should look like.
After a long, arduous process to
collect and collate public comment,
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possibilities for what an updated
plan could look like. They call
those alternatives. The public didn’t
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Service decided to go back to the
drawing board and consider more
alternatives. It was another delay
for a new forest plan, but perhaps it
will allow for an outcome that more
people will be happy with.
It’s hard to do. Forest users come
in all different stripes, and they want
different and sometimes opposite
things from the forest plan. Lumber
industries want more board feet.
Environmental groups want more
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want great hunting opportunities and
easy access to their favorite spots.
Tribal groups want to conserve
resources and preserve traditional
culture.
It’s impossible to perfectly
please everyone. But as we saw in
other Eastern Oregon public lands
debates that got out of hand, it is
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and individuals to take part in the
process, and provide accountability
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our government to know what we
want, if we don’t tell them? And not
in all caps social media swearing,
but in reasoned public testimony.
At the same time, we need our
government to listen. We cannot
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everything we want, but we are all
stakeholders and we deserve to have
our voices heard and considered.
The public has had many
opportunities to chime in and be
considered, and now you have one
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The East Oregonian and Oregon
Public Broadcasting, as noted in
our front page story today, have
teamed up to bring the OPB show
Think Out Loud to Pendleton to
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from the Forest Service will answer
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of the process and members
with industrial, recreational
environmental and tribal concerns
will make their case for how they
want the woods to look and feel.
The forum is Wednesday from 7-8
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&ROOHJH¶VPDLQOHFWXUHKDOO3OHDVH
arrive by 6:30 p.m. so you’ll be
in your seat by the time the audio
engineers hit the record button.
This forest plan revision has
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enter another stage, Oregonians have
the opportunity to listen and learn.
That is the best way to feel involved
and invested.
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 VIEW
Voter law motors into closed primaries
The Oregonian
T
he idea behind Oregon’s new
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into law last year by Gov. Kate
Brown, was all about removing barriers
to voting, real or imagined.
By tapping Oregon’s Driver and
Motor Vehicle Services database of
people seeking driver’s licenses or ID
cards, the state could automatically
add to the voter rolls those eligible
Oregonians who had not previously
registered.
According to the Oregon secretary
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new voters have been added since the
program began less than three months
ago — far outperforming the typical
2,000-voter-a-month pace of the past.
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doing what backers wanted it to do:
Enfranchising many who might not
otherwise have bothered to register.
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barriers is about to meet the immovable
object that is Oregon’s closed primary
system.
More than 86 percent of the new
voters added so far this year are
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political party. That’s the default setting
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return a mailer designating a party
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kept off voter rolls completely.
But under Oregon law, major political
parties can restrict participation in their
primaries to only those voters who are
registered with their party.
Both the state’s Democratic and
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their primaries closed in this way to
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just races for state legislative positions
but carry over to the presidential race as
well.
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who may want to cast a ballot for Bernie
Sanders or Donald Trump in May’s
primary may not do so, because both
candidates will appear only on their
respective parties’ ballots.
The irony that nearly all new
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would be barred from voting in the
most prominent races this May is not
lost on those who run the program.
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announced last week that elections
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voters reminding them that they cannot
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primary unless they change their voter
registration to designate the appropriate
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The deadline to submit a change for
the May primary is April 26.
The secretary of state’s
announcement, however, does highlight
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eventually address.
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surging nationally, not just in Oregon,
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closed primaries are cutting out hundreds
of thousands of Oregonians who should
not have to declare fealty to one party or
another to simply cast their vote.
If the state truly wants to give voters
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the system is set up intentionally to
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failed legislative bill to prepay postage
for ballots are nothing more than
meaningless gestures.
The real work requires the
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rhetoric about eliminating barriers means
nothing when they refuse to remake a
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OTHER VIEWS
Learning from Obama
ike many political junkies, I’ve
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been spending far too much
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time looking at polls and trying
predicted that by now 89 percent
to understand their implications.
of the nonelderly population would
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be covered; the actual number is 90
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percent.
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The details have been something
aren’t the only things being polled;
of a surprise: fewer people than
we’re still getting updates on President
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Paul
Barack Obama’s overall approval. And Krugman EXWIHZHUHPSOR\HUVWKDQH[SHFWHG
something striking has happened on
dropping coverage, and more people
Comment
that front.
signing up for Medicaid — which
At the end of 2015 Obama was
means, incidentally, that Obamacare is
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looking much more like a single-payer system
Americans disapproving than approving.
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Since then, however, his approval has risen
is that reform has indeed delivered the big
sharply while disapproval has plunged. He’s
improvements in coverage it promised, and it
still only in modestly positive territory, but
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the net movement in polling
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averages has been about 11
reform, which the left
percentage points, which is
considers toothless and the
a lot.
right considers destructive.
What’s going on?
In fact, while the big banks
Well, one answer is that
haven’t been broken up,
voters have lately been
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given a taste of what really
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bad leaders look like. But
stability — has been greatly
I’d like to think that the
reduced. And as for the
public is also starting to
economic effects, have I
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mentioned how well we’ve
the Obama administration
done on job creation?
has been in addressing
Last but one hopes
America’s problems. And there are lessons
not least, the Obama administration has
from that success for those willing to learn.
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I know that it’s hard for many people on
the environment that, if not canceled by a
both sides to wrap their minds around the
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notion of Obama-as-success. On the left, those 6XSUHPH&RXUWVZLOODPRXQWWRYHU\
caught up in the enthusiasms of 2008 feel let
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down by the prosaic reality of governing in a
All in all, it’s quite a record. Assuming
GHHSO\SRODUL]HGSROLWLFDOV\VWHP0HDQZKLOH Democrats hold the presidency, Obama will
conservative ideology predicts disaster
emerge as a hugely consequential president —
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will learn a lot from his achievements.
market; and what are you going to believe, the
April fools!
ideology or your own lying eyes?
Seriously, there is essentially no chance
But the successes are there for all to see.
that conservatives, whose ideas haven’t
Start with the economy. You might argue
changed in decades, will reconsider their
that presidents don’t have as much effect
dogma. But maybe progressives will be more
on economic performance as voters seem
open-minded.
to imagine — especially presidents facing
The 2008 election didn’t bring the political
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transformation that Obama enthusiasts
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vested interests: Wall Street, the medical-
seven years claiming incessantly that Obama’s LQGXVWULDOFRPSOH[DQGWKHIRVVLOIXHOOREE\
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business incentives, so it’s important news if
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the economy has performed well.
ways that have made American lives better
And it has: We’ve gained 10 million
and more secure.
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The lesson of the Obama years, in other
and unemployment is below 5 percent. True,
words, is that success doesn’t have to be
there are still some areas of disappointment
complete to be very real. You say you want a
— low labor force participation, weak wage
revolution? Well, you can’t always get what
growth. But just imagine the boasting we’d be you want — but if you try sometimes, you just
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House.
Ŷ
Then there’s health reform, which has
Paul Krugman joined The New York Times
(don’t tell anyone) been meeting its goals.
in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page
Back in 2012, just after the Supreme
and continues as professor of Economics and
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International Affairs at Princeton University.
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There is
essentially no
chance that
conservatives
will reconsider
their dogma.
YOUR VIEWS
Athena-Weston voters should
support school bond
I want to encourage all of the voters who
live in the Athena-Weston School District to
vote yes on the upcoming bond.
You may have read in the paper that several
schools in our region have been picked to
receive a matching fund grant from the state of
Oregon. The Athena Weston School District is
one of the lucky ones. We will only be paying
44 cents more per assessed $1,000 than we
are paying right now. Along with that 44 cents
comes an additional $4 million from the state
of Oregon for a total of $8 million to improve
our aging schools.
We can replace buses that are over 30
years old. I have two boys in high school
here. I can’t believe they are riding some of
the same buses that I rode when I was in high
school. How long have you had the car in your
driveway?
The school board has many items they
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student security is at the top of the priority list.
Passage of this bond will keep our children
safe for years to come.
This list includes maintenance and
renovations, energy savings upgrades,
technology upgrades and many others that
are way overdue. You can see this list on the
school district website www.athwest.k12.or.us
and watch a promotional video where you will
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alike on the importance of this bond.
A yes vote on the passage of the Athena
Weston School District Bond is a yes vote for
our future. Please join me by voting yes to our
children and our future.
John Shafer, mayor
Athena
Guns at national convention
the latest in GOP craziness
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conventioneers signed a petition saying they
wanted to carry heat (semi-automatic pistols)
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all caught on world wide TV coverage. That
would end the gun debate in America, here
and now, once and for all.
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agenda, have remained silent about this
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FDQGLGDWHV7HG&UX]DQG'RQDOG7UXPSKDYH
to opine about it?
Ron Lowe
Nevada City, Calif.