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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, April 7, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to the clever solution proposed to keep open the Oregon State Police crime lab in Pendleton. The lab — the only of its kind in Eastern Oregon — has found itself on the chopping block before. With state resources as tight as they are, it’s no wonder the ax is being wielded again. But, as we’ve written before, having a resource like the lab in Umatilla County is a worthwhile investment. One central lab somewhere in the state may be able to process evidence more efficiently, but getting forensics teams to crime scenes in a timely manner and getting that evidence back to the lab just as quickly is critical. The solution, which Sen. Bill Hansell and Rep. Greg Barreto both found favorable in their visit last week, is to partner with Blue Mountain Community College to put the lab on the Pendleton campus. It would add educational opportunities for criminal science students at the college and provide a place for the lab to operate. The lab was housed at the college from 1970 to 1986. There is still much to be worked out, but we think OSP and BMCC would make great lab partners and provide a long-term solution to a recurring problem. A kick in the pants to Congress. It seems we could write such a line every week, but the childishness and destructiveness of our legislative branch have hit a new record low. In arguing the merits of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, both political parties came across petty and vindictive, trying to best the other side rather than work for the American people. This all began with Republican stonewalling back in 2016, which kept capable and moderate judge Merrick Garland from having a hearing in the Senate — something that had never been done in our nation’s history. Following game theory, Democrats felt they had to answer that rule-breaking with rule- breaking of their own, filibustering Gorsuch’s confirmation on principle despite his excellent résumé. Senate Republicans then broke another rule to break the Democratic rule-breaking, for the first time allowing a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court judge. Everything is now broken. It means the Supreme Court and the American justice system will be used even more for political gamesmanship, that vacancies will only be filled when the political winds are blowing in the right direction, and that seriously incompetent or partisan choices will be confirmed on the slimmest of margins. The American system will suffer for it. The swamp is swampier than ever — collegiality and compromise remain dirty words. A tip of the hat to Governor Kate Brown for interceding to drop a lawsuit filed by the Psychiatric Security Review Board against the Malheur Enterprise. The lawsuit filed against one of the smallest newspapers in the state was aimed at shutting off records that Oregon’s attorney general had already ruled should be made public. The government used taxpayer dollars to hire a lawyer to keep the newspaper from learning more about why the state released a man who claimed he faked mental illness to stay out of prison, and later was accused of stabbing his wife to death and killing a man in a car crash. “Oregonians deserve a government that is transparent to the fullest extent permitted by law,” Brown said in a statement last week. “No one requesting public records should be at risk of being sued by a state agency. I believe that the public is best served by bringing this matter to an end now rather than after a lengthy and costly litigation.” Governments across the country are testing their limits and trying to silence media and keep important information from taxpayers and citizens. It’s a good sign when the Oregon governor and attorney general both work to get public information in the hands of the public. 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 My most unpopular idea: Be nice to Trump voters W hen I write about people around the country. To win over Trump struggling with addictions or voters isn’t normalizing extremism, homelessness, liberals exude but a strategy to combat it. sympathy while conservatives respond Right now, 68 percent of partisan with snarling hostility to losers who legislative chambers in the states make “bad choices.” are held by Republicans. About 7 When I write about voters who percent of America’s land mass is in supported President Donald Trump, Democratic landslide counties, and it’s the reverse: Now it’s liberals who Nicholas 59 percent is in Republican landslide respond with venom, hoping that Kristof counties. Trump voters suffer for their bad I asked the people I interviewed Comment choice. in Oklahoma why they were sticking “I absolutely despise these people,” with Trump. There are many reasons one woman tweeted at me after I interviewed working-class conservatives vote against their Trump voters. “Truly the worst of humanity. economic interests — abortion and gun issues To hell with every one of them.” count heavily for some — but another is the Maybe we all need a little more empathy? mockery of Democrats who deride them as I wrote my last ignorant bumpkins. The column from Oklahoma, vilification of these voters is highlighting voters who a gift to Trump. had supported Trump and Nothing I’ve written since now find that he wants the election has engendered to cut programs that had more anger from people who helped them. One woman usually agree with me than had recovered from a rape my periodic assertions that with the help of a women’s Trump voters are human, center that stands to lose too. But I grew up in Trump funding, another said that country, in rural Oregon, she would sit home and and many of my childhood die without a job program friends supported Trump. facing cutbacks, and so on. They’re not the hateful Yet every one of them was caricatures that some liberals still behind Trump — and expect, any more than New that infuriated my readers. York liberals are the effete “I’m just going to say it,” tweeted paper cutouts that my old friends assume. Bridgette. “I hate these people. They are Maybe we need more junior year “abroad” stupid and selfish. Screw them. Lose your programs that send liberals to Kansas and jobs, sit home and die.” conservatives to Massachusetts. Another: “ALL Trump voters are racist and Hatred for Trump voters also leaves deplorable. They’ll never vote Democratic. the Democratic Party more removed from We should never pander to the Trumpites. working-class pain. For people in their 50s, We’re not a party for racists.” mortality rates for poorly educated whites The torrent of venom was, to me, as have soared since 2000 and are now higher misplaced as the support for Trump from than for blacks at all education levels. struggling Oklahomans. I’m afraid that Professors Angus Deaton and Anne Case of Trump’s craziness is proving infectious, Princeton University say the reason is “deaths making Democrats crazy with rage that of despair” arising from suicide, drugs and actually impedes a progressive agenda. alcohol. One problem with the Democratic anger Democrats didn’t do enough to address is that it stereotypes a vast and contradictory this suffering, so Trump won working-class group of 63 million people. Sure, there were voters — because he at least faked empathy racists and misogynists in their ranks, but that for struggling workers. He sold these voters doesn’t mean that every Trump voter was a a clunker, and now he’s already beginning white supremacist. While it wasn’t apparent to betray them. His assault on Obamacare from reading the column, one of the Trump would devastate many working-class families by reducing availability of treatment for voters I quoted was black, and another was Latino. Of course, millions of Trump voters substance abuse. As I see it, Trump rode to the were members of minorities or had previously White House on a distress that his policies will voted for Barack Obama. magnify. “Some people think that the people who So by all means stand up to Trump, voted for Trump are racists and sexists and point out that he’s a charlatan and resist homophobes and just deplorable folks,” his initiatives. But remember that social Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has emerged as a progress means winning over voters in flyover surprising defender of Trump voters, said the country, and that it’s difficult to recruit voters other day. “I don’t agree.” whom you’re simultaneously castigating as The blunt truth is that if we care about a despicable, bigoted imbeciles. progressive agenda, we simply can’t write off ■ 46 percent of the electorate. If there is to be Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and movement on mass incarceration, on electoral cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist reform, on women’s health, on child care, for The New York Times since 2001, writes on inequality, on access to good education, op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He on climate change, then progressives need to won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and win more congressional and legislative seats 2006. Maybe we need more junior year “abroad” programs that send liberals to Kansas and conservatives to Massachusetts. YOUR VIEWS March for science and evidence over ideology On April 22, organizers in Pendleton will host a March for Science. The focus is supporting federally funded evidence-based science, much of which influences our communities, our economies, and our daily lives. With all the uncertainties in Washington D.C. right now, the Pendleton march coincides with many more across the nation in support of the sciences. Programs and priorities are changing rapidly. While science does not set policy, sound science should certainly inform and influence policy. Here in our region, we have benefited from federally funded evidence-based science in many ways. Yields and efficiencies have improved through the work of our local agricultural research stations. Knowledge and effectiveness of management have increased for forest, rangeland, fish, and wildlife with the help of the U.S. Forest Service research labs throughout the northwest. Funding from the Department of Commerce and the EPA has advanced our knowledge and management of aquatic species throughout the Columbia Basin. The list goes on and on from public health and medical breakthroughs into many other aspects of our daily lives. In considering the president’s budget and some recent actions in Congress, science is being replaced by ideology. When this happens, there are no long- term winners. We define our culture and our quality of life through science, education, our achievements, and the arts. They have been the foundation for civilizations since the beginning of time So much of our technology and advancements have relied on evidence-based federally funded science. The March for Science on April 22 throughout the country will be a statement supporting the importance of continuing federal support for these programs and for science and what it brings to our lives. Jeff Blackwood Pendleton Hermiston schools should sell property “The good news is, as home owners, we pay only about 48 percent of the schools’ bond levy. Businesses and utilities pay 52 percent. Also, as our area continues to grow with more residents and business, the tax rate will be lowered each year since more people and businesses will be included to pay the bond, thus lowering individual tax bills over time.” (Dr. Jer D. Pratton, March 28, East Oregonian.) As this comment sounds good, I find a few things with a flaw. As follows: I have been a Hermiston resident for more then 30 years, and graduated from Hermiston High School. My taxes have only gone up; the only time my property tax ever went down is when the county devalued my property by $25,000 three years ago and in 2016 they devalued my home value again and raised the property tax. So if there is suppose to be an overall reduction, why did my property tax go up? If the current bond is voted in I will see an increase. So over time, how much time are you talking about — 10, 20, 40 years? I’m not against growth in the school system. Our family donated 6,000 yards of fill for the new football field and I helped load it into their trucks for free. What I am against is the school district holding on to $5 million they have now and wanting to spend it on property for future growth, say, 40 years down the road. If expansion is needed, they should spend what they have now to better the community. Most companies want a 25,000-person base within the city limits. Hermiston’s last census was in 2013; at what point will the city update the census? I feel the time is now to allow economic growth. How about the school board sell off the Highway 395 frontage in front of the Sunset School to develop commercial business and take the $2-3 million value that I have been told is considered for this. Apply it to the expansion and repair what we have now. I would vote yes on a bond to help pay for what is needed if they would show good faith in this community and allow Hermiston to grow as well on the commercial side. Sell off one part to pay up to $8 million total and put up a bond for the remainder. Compromise. I do not feel we as residents need to carry the whole bond. The retired community of the town will not be able to afford the increase. Maybe a smaller increase would work on both sides. Troy White Hermiston
