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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Feds move
away from
private prisons
In July, online outlet Mother
Jones published a massive piece
of journalism that has since had a
massive effect on the country, and
the lives of hundreds of thousands of
Americans.
Reporter Shane Bauer spent four
months working as a guard at a
corporate-run prison in Louisiana,
spotlighting the poor conditions for
both employees and inmates.
Just a month after the piece
was published, President Barack
Obama announced that the country
will start reducing the number of
federal inmates currently being held
in private
prisons and
work toward
ending the
practice
entirely.
Currently
there are
193,299
federal
inmates
behind bars.
It’s a long, great read (ive
chapters and hundreds of thousands
of words, and took 14 months to
write and fact check.) You can, and
should, ind it online in its entirely. A
few highlights:
▪ Bauer was required during
his four-month training class to be
exposed to tear gas.
▪ He was paid $9 an hour by
Corrections Corporation of America,
which runs the prison.
▪ There were never more than two
loor oficers per general population
unit, roughly one per 176 inmates.
▪ Inmates have the upper-hand
over outnumbered guards. Drugs
and violence are rampant.
▪ Prisoners are also mistreated,
and keeping them behind bars as
long as possible is good for the
company’s bottom line. So they’re
kept longer for infractions, often
without “trial.”
▪ 82 percent of the more than
1,000 federal civil cases iled by
prisoners between 2010 and 2015
named CCA as the defendant.
According to Mother Jones, CCA
houses more than 66,000 inmates,
mostly across the rural South. That
makes it the second-largest private
prison company. In 2015 it made
$1.9 billion in revenue and $221
million in income.
The piece, in general, makes
clear that for CCA, the bottom line
comes before the safety of guards
and inmates, and the civil liberties
of everyone
in their care
and employ.
We’re
thankful
that Obama
is moving
federal
inmates
away from
private
prison
oversight. If the government takes
your freedom and liberty, it should
be required to hold up the other
end of the bargain and offer a safe,
healthy place to work off your
sentence. It’s costly for taxpayers but
perhaps that should induce us to ind
better ways to punish lawbreakers
and better ways to rehabilitate them.
We should be reminded that
Obama’s policy change does not
cover Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s private prison
population, which often oversees
34,000 immigrants awaiting
deportation. The issues at those
facilities are often worse than
anything documented by Bauer and
deserve further scrutiny.
For a readership area that includes
multiple state prison facilities, we
must note how important it is to
keep private prisons out of Oregon.
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
A lot — but not too much —
to decide in November
The (Eugene) Register-Guard
O
regonians will vote on seven
statewide ballot measures in
November, the same number as in
2010. The last time an Oregon general-
election ballot featured fewer than seven
ballot measures was in 1982, when Gov.
Vic Atiyeh was re-elected.
In between, the state has seen a glut
of ballot measures — 18 in 1994, 23
in 1996 and a modern record of 26 in
2000. The fever has been broken, with
numbers subsiding to the single or
low-double digits in the past decade,
improving the odds that voters will take
the time to study each ballot measure
carefully.
Part of the reason for the lower
numbers is that the Legislature has
made it harder to put initiative measures
on the ballot. Petitioners are subject
to tighter regulation than they used to
be — including a law that prohibits
paying petitioners for each signature
they gather.
The crackdown came in response to
concerns that well-funded organizations
had found ways to buy their way onto
the ballot. These concerns may have
been felt most acutely by Democratic
leaders who saw that many of these
organizations were pushing an anti-
government, anti-tax and anti-labor
agenda.
Another factor is the withdrawal from
the scene of Oregon’s two most proliic
authors of initiative measures, Bill
Sizemore and Kevin Mannix.
Sizemore often had several initiatives
on the same ballot, usually intended to
limit taxes or spending. His activities
came to a halt after a jury found his
organizations guilty of racketeering.
Mannix promoted a series of tough-on-
crime measures in the 1990s, but the
pace of his work has slowed. This year,
a Mannix-backed initiative to abolish
the state estate tax was barred from
the ballot because signatures had been
gathered improperly. Both Sizemore
and Mannix were Republican nominees
for governor, and though they were
defeated, their inluence on public policy
in Oregon has been far-reaching.
This year, the most consequential
initiative by far is Ballot Measure 97,
which would impose a 2.5 percent tax
on gross corporate receipts of more than
$25 million. The tax would raise an
estimated $3 billion a year — an amount
its union backers claim would be enough
to rescue Oregon schools and other
public services from their long decline,
and which business-led opponents
claim would hurt the economy, kill
jobs and ultimately be paid by Oregon
consumers.
Also on the ballot are two education-
related initiatives. Measure 99 would tap
lottery funds to pay for outdoor school
programs for all students in Oregon.
Measure 98 would require the state to
fund programs to keep students from
dropping out of high school — including
vocational education and college
readiness classes. A fourth initiative
would ban in-state trade in such
animal products as elephant ivory and
rhinoceros horn.
The Legislature referred three
measures to the ballot: Measure 94,
eliminating the mandatory retirement
age for judges; Measure 95, widening
investment options for university funds;
and Measure 96, diverting 1.5 percent of
lottery funds to veterans’ programs.
It’s a manageable list — and a relief
from the bedsheet ballots of the not-so-
distant past.
OTHER VIEWS
Why America’s leadership fails
W
swallows time so they get to spend
e’ve clearly had a failure of
less time thinking about policy; the
leadership in this country.
The political system is not
way service to a partisan team eclipses
working as it should. Big problems are
service to the cause that brought them
not being addressed.
into this in the irst place.
But what’s the nature of that failure?
For example, Hillary Clinton
The leading theory is that it’s the
seems to have been irst inspired
corruption: There is so much money
by a desire to serve children, but
lowing through Washington that the
over the decades walls of hard-shell
David
special interests get what they want and
Brooks combativeness formed. Mitt Romney
everyone else gets the shaft. Another
seems to be an exceptionally ine
Comment
theory has to do with insularity: The
person, but when he was campaigning
elites spend so much time within the
his true nature was often hidden under
Acela corridor that they don’t have a clue
a ilm of political formulas.
about what is going on beyond it.
As the poet David Whyte once put it,
There’s merit in both theories. But I’d
“Work, like marriage, is a place you can lose
point to something deeper:
yourself more easily perhaps
Over the past few decades,
than inding yourself ...
thousands of good people
losing all sense of our own
have gone into public
voice, our own contributions
service, but they have found
and conversation.”
themselves enmeshed in a
It plays out differently
system that drains them of
in different cases. But a
their sense of vocation.
careerist mentality often
Let’s start with a
replaces the vocation
refresher on the difference
mentality. The careerist
between a vocation and a
mentality frequently makes
career. A career is something
politicians timid, driven
you choose; a vocation is
more by fear of failure than
something you are called to.
by any positive ideal.
A person choosing a career asks, How can
Such people are besieged by the short-term
I get the best job or win the most elections? A
calculations and often forget about their
person summoned by a vocation asks, How
animating vision and long-term ideal. They
can my existing abilities be put in service of
rationalize that, since the opposition is so evil,
the greatest common good?
anything that serves their career serves the
A career is a job you do as long as the
country. This is not just bad for the people
beneits outweigh the costs; a vocation
involved but for the system itself.
involves falling in love with something,
People with a vocation mindset have
having a conviction about it and making it part their eyes ixed on the long game. They are
of your personal identity.
willing to throw themselves toward their goals
A vocation involves promises to some
imaginatively, boldly and remorselessly.
ideal, it reveals itself in a sense of enjoyment
People who operate a career mindset, on
as you undertake its tasks and it can’t be easily the other hand, often put self-preservation
quit when setbacks and humiliations occur.
above all. Nothing gets done because
As others have noted, it involves a double
everybody’s doing the same old safe rigid
negative — you can’t not do this thing.
thing.
It’s easy to be cynical, but I really do
I do think there’s often an arc to vocation.
think most people entered public life with
People start with something outside
this sense of idealistic calling. When you
themselves. Then, in the scramble to get
spend time around government oficials you
established, the ambition of self takes over.
are constantly struck by the fact that they are
But then at some point people realize the
more impressive in private than in public.
essential falseness of all that and they try to
Somewhere at the base of their personal story
reconnect with their original animating ideals.
you usually ind an earnest desire to serve
And so I think it possible to imagine a
some vulnerable group.
revival of vocation. If Clinton is elected,
The fact is, political lives are simply not
maybe even she can remind us that we’ve all
that glamorous or powerful or fun. Most
developed these bad habits, that most of us
politicians wouldn’t put up with all the
secretly detest the game we’re in and the way
fundraising, the stupid partisan games, unless
we are playing it.
they were driven at some level by the right
It would be an act of amazing bravery if
reasons.
she could lead people to strip away all the
But over the years, many get swallowed by careerist defense mechanisms and remember
the system: all the calculating consultants; the
their original vows and passions.
ephemeral spin of the media cycle; the endless
■
meetings with supplicants; the constant grind
David Brooks became a New York Times
of public criticism; the way campaigning
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
A career is
something
you choose;
a vocation is
something you
are called to.
YOUR VIEWS
Don’t believe corporate scare
tactics in Measure 97 debate
I found it interesting that Rebecca Tweed,
the Defeat the Tax on Oregon Sales campaign
coordinator, stated “most of the $6 billion
measure will be paid by Oregon consumers
through higher prices.”
By this logic I would expect to see
the following sign when I go to our local
McDonald’s: “Welcome to Oregon, where
the lowest corporate taxes in the nation allow
us to make incredible proits. In order to pass
those savings on to you, our loyal customers,
please note that all items on the dollar menu
will in fact only cost 95 cents. Enjoy!”
Likewise I should expect Subway’s $5
footlong to only set me back four and change.
When I go to price a table saw at the Home
Depot website, there should be an alternative
price given to Oregon customers. It stands to
reason that if higher corporate taxes leads to
higher consumer costs, costs should be much
lower in our state where corporations pay less
than they do in any other state.
I wonder too, that if most of the costs
will be passed on to the consumer, why
are corporations pouring tens of millions
of dollars into defeating this measure?
Corporations have historically had no
objection to point of sales taxes paid by
consumers.
Are we to believe that corporations are
spending massive amounts of money to
protect us poor consumers from higher prices?
This would constitute an act of magnanimous
corporate altruism heretofore unseen in the
history of the world. Please. Corporations
oppose this measure because they want to
preserve their sweetheart deal in the state of
Oregon.
Finally, if corporations are able to simply
raise costs on consumers to pass on the cost of
paying their fair share, why wouldn’t they just
raise their prices regardless? This would allow
them to make an even greater proit to reward
their shareholders and lavish their executives
with even more outlandish compensation
packages.
Indeed, given the fact that McDonald’s,
Subway and Home Depot are not currently
giving discounts to their Oregon customers, it
would appear that they already have. I applaud
Governor Kate Brown and the Citizen’s
Initiative Review Commission for supporting
Measure 97.
Please join me in voting yes on Measure 97
for a better Oregon.
John Scanlan
Pendleton
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
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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.
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