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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Friday, January 5, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 Tip of the hat, kick in the pants ■ A kick in the pants to Jeff Sessions’ decision to nix the Obama rule that directed the Department of Justice to leave states alone if they decide to decriminalize and legalize marijuana. Oregon, of course, is one of those states. And despite a bumpy beginning, legalization has gone relatively smoothly and continues to get smoother. It is bringing in millions of tax dollars, reducing the amount we spend on incarceration, and directing funding to those who become drug-addicted. It is being used by those who just turned 21 and the elderly, for health reasons and for recreation. Marijuana is no longer a partisan issue. According to recent polling, about 50 percent of Republicans nationally favor legalizing the drug, and the number is higher for Republicans in states that have already legalized. Sessions’ gambit (to distract from the president’s legal issues?) is poor policy and poor politics. It’s also a good reminder that “states’ rights” isn’t really a conservative principle. It’s just something you say when you aren’t in power and making the rules, and something you discard as soon as you are. ■ A tip of the hat and a walk into the sunset for local weather forecaster Dennis Hull. Hull retired this week after 39 years with the National Weather Service, almost 20 of them in Pendleton. Over the decades, he’s watched snow fall and dust blow, heard thunder clap and watched over and interpreted thousands of maps and graphs. He’s done it all as the technology around him has changed rapidly — from fold out papers that puttered in from far afield, to radar and digital forecasts that can measure to the microparticle. The Pendleton office of the National Weather Service is a beacon for the area — and a boon for area farmers, travelers and residents alike. Hull’s leadership and contributions to the organization are appreciated. Staff photo by E.J. Harris Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement that her office would “fight to continue Oregon’s commitment to a safe and prosperous recreational marijuana market.” ■ A kick toward the pharmacy for everyone in the region who has yet had their flu shot. As reported earlier this week, influenza cases have increased dramatically in the local area. Hospitals and doctors from Hermiston to Walla Walla are inundated with patients who have contracted mild and severe cases of the virus. But luckily, there remains a way to reduce your chances of contracting it, and for reducing the effects of the flu if you do: A flu shot. It’s a simple and affordable (sometimes free depending on your insurance or at special events). And it does increase your chances of avoiding the flu, or at least lessening it. If you don’t have a good excuse for not getting one, then do it. You’ll make yourself healthier and your community healthier, too. OTHER VIEWS What has Mitt Romney learned? F OTHER VIEWS Congress must fix gun database Albany Democrat-Herald hree large U.S. cities last week filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense, alleging that many service members who are disqualified from gun ownership haven’t been reported to the national background check system. The odd thing about this particular lawsuit is that the facts really aren’t in dispute: Military officials, although they can’t comment directly on the lawsuit, have previously acknowledged problems with their reporting, and a Pentagon spokesman this week said a review of the policies and practices at each branch of the armed forces is continuing. Last month, the Justice Department ordered a federal review of the database. (The official name of the database is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, but it’s better known by its acronym, NICS). All of those actions occurred in the wake of the shooting last month at a Texas church. The gunman, Devin P. Kelley, killed 26 people in the Nov. 5 shooting before taking his own life, authorities say. But Kelley, a former Air Force serviceman, shouldn’t have been allowed to buy the rifle he used in the attack: He had been convicted in a 2012 court martial of assaulting family members and served 12 months’ confinement. Since federal law prohibits selling a gun to a person who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child, the conviction should have prevented Kelly from purchasing firearms. But the Air Force failed to report the conviction to the NICS database. What’s most worrisome about the lapse that let Kelley slip through the system is that it’s not nearly the only one. The Pentagon’s watchdog agency said this month that it had found a “troubling” number of failures even this year by the military services to alert the FBI to criminal history information. Obviously, for the national database to do its job, it needs to have access to as much T Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. relevant information as possible. In the wake of the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, committed by a mentally ill man named Seung-Hui Cho, Congress passed a bill to strengthen the system with more criminal records and mental health information. And the bill did just that: Data from the Department of Justice data suggest the number of federal and state records entered into the system has increased significantly since the law was signed in January 2008. Now, a new piece of legislation pending in Congress aims to close some of the remaining gaps in the system. The so-called “Fix NICS Act” would improve the reporting of domestic violence convictions. A Senate version of the bill would impose a financial penalty by barring bonuses for the heads of federal agencies that fail to report the convictions. The measure also would reward states that improve their reporting, and would provide funding for those efforts. This bill is not controversial. One of the senators leading the push for the measure is John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and a strong gun-rights advocate. The measure has bipartisan support. The National Rifle Association backs the bill. This should not be a difficult burden for Congress to lift — although the House of Representatives managed to gum up the works by linking its version of the bill to partisan legislation that would allow national concealed-carry reciprocity. It’s exactly this sort of legislative maneuver that too often manages to sink important works of legislation such as the Fix NICS Act. Congress left Washington for its holiday break with a long list of unfinished business, including work on relatively uncontroversial but nevertheless important areas. (The list includes, of course, the renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan.) Is it too much to ask Congress to take care of these matters quickly upon its return, before it again bogs down in the gridlock that appears to be its usual state of affairs? irst, some praise for Mitt As a result, whether in his father’s Romney, who is apparently Michigan, in his running mate’s poised to run for the Senate Wisconsin, or in Pennsylvania where from Utah now that Orrin Hatch has he campaigned hopefully near the announced his retirement. end, downscale white voters who The 2012 Republican presidential could have gone Republican either nominee is a man of honor, decency voted for Obama or stayed home. and serious accomplishment. And in that failure lay the opportunity His attempt to rally Republican that Trump intuited — for a Ross opposition to Donald Trump in Douthat Republican candidate who would 2016 was an exemplary act that rhetorically reject and even run Comment threw the cowardice of his party’s against the kind of corporation-first establishment into sharp relief. And conservatism that Romney seemed to his willingness to re-enter public service embody and embrace. at a time when other Trump-skeptical Since taking office, of course, Trump Republicans are running for the exits has mostly turned his back on his own (and when he could be enjoying a very economic populism — and lost much of comfortable retirement with his 1,765 his modest-to-begin-with popularity in grandchildren) shows an old-fashioned the process. But in that time, the men who spiritedness that his party’s hollow men imagine themselves the party’s stewards conspicuously lack. or its conscience have learned little from But now, some criticism. For all the way he beat them and then beat the that he is upright and decent and loves Democrats. They are still suffering from his country, Romney was also part of what Pete Spiliakos, in a withering column #HowYouGotTrump, and what he might for First Things last month, called “The have to offer today depends to some extent Romney Disease” — a condition that on whether he realizes it, and whether he’s combines admirable personal probity and learned anything from his presidential decency with an abiding commitment to defeat and the weirdness that’s engulfed unpopular economic policies. his party since. The best of the current Republicans Romney’s direct role in Trump’s (the Paul Ryans, the Ben Sasses, the Mitt ascent was modest but telling. He didn’t Romneys) have certain common features just accept the Trump imprimatur in his that should be appealing to the electorate. campaign against Barack Obama; he flew They seem to have the home life of the to Las Vegas to have the endorsement family man. They have the discipline and bestowed upon him, issued some flattering diligence of the organization kid. They words about his endorser’s awesome have the looks of the pretty boy. Yet the business acumen and essentially averted public still rejects them, because the voters his eyes from the conspiracy theories about find their ideas even more unpleasant than Obama’s origins that Trump was then Trump’s odious personality. enthusiastically peddling. If Romney joins the Utah Senate race, and Like most prominent Republicans at the ultimately the Senate, there will be a lot of time, Romney no doubt assumed that the talk about the service he can perform for his fever swamp stuff didn’t need to be attacked, country by resisting the worst of Trumpism. that it would evaporate once the GOP won But he could also perform a service by back the White House. But instead the fever showing that he has learned something from swamp stuff helped hand the party to Trump watching Trumpism succeed where his himself, and the birther’s grip-and-grin with own campaign failed — which would mean Romney was a small but notable milestone steering a different and more populist course on that path. than those NeverTrump Republicans who The larger, indirect role that Romney pine for a party of the purest libertarianism, played in Trump’s ascent was in the way and those OkayFineTrump Republicans who he ran and lost in 2012. There were times are happy now that Trump has given them when the Man From Bain Capital seemed to their corporate tax cut. Right now there is a small caucus in the have some sense of the populist discontents Republican Party for a different way, for that Trump successfully played upon four a conservatism that seeks to cure itself of years later. Romney’s rhetoric on China and Romney Disease by becoming genuinely immigration was a more restrained version pro-worker rather than waiting for a worse of Trump’s nationalist pitch, and here and there he tried to imitate Franklin Roosevelt’s demagogue than Trump to come along. Did I say small? I meant very small: It basically promise, updated crudely by Trump, to be a consists of Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike traitor to his successful class. Lee of (ahem) Utah, plus perhaps Arkansas’ But not nearly often enough. Instead, Tom Cotton and a few other figures trying to the defining pitch of the Romney campaign adapt to Trumpism rather than just surviving was the tone-deaf “you built that,” which valorized entrepreneurs and ignored ordinary it. But one high-profile square-jawed junior workers; the defining policy blueprint was senator could make that caucus feel much a tax-reform proposal that offered little larger. or nothing to the middle class; and the Why shouldn’t the cure for Romney defining gaffe was the famous “47 percent” Disease begin with Mitt himself? line, in which Romney succumbed, before ■ an audience of Richie Riches, to the Ayn Ross Douthat joined The New York Times Randian temptation to write off struggling as an Op-Ed columnist in 2009. Americans as losers. 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. 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.