VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, March 26, 2022
ANDREW CLARK
East Oregonian
A5
BARBARA CLARK
A SLICE OF LIFE
Life is rich
with friends
like these
F
riendship. What does that mean?
Who is a friend and what does this
person do to deserve that title?
We came to Pendleton from East Africa
in 1973 and bought a small house in town.
The idea was to get acquainted with the
area and then find a place in the country.
We especially wanted space for our five
kids to do what kids do — run around and
learn about whatever comes their way. We
found a church and met many wonderful
people, some of whom have become life-
long friends over these nearly 50 years.
But, what makes a lifelong friend? I
immediately think of loyalty as a primary
component of friendship, a sort of
umbrella characteristic with many second-
ary implications. Being accessible when
help of any sort is needed. Being steady,
dependable, supportive and sharing of
oneself.
Being pleasant, fun or frivolous
depending on the situation. Being
thoughtful and concerned, and express-
ing it when things aren’t going well. Being
honest when you need to be sorted out.
Being empathetic when there are serious
problems like health concerns. And also,
being accepting even when you are acting
like a jerk.
Finally in 1975, we found our home in
the country about 10 miles north of town.
It had all the characteristics we needed lots
of space all around and no other human
habitation in sight. Bedrooms for all of us.
Large outbuildings for shop and storage.
Fresh air and far enough from the highway
to be silent — no anthropogenic sounds.
The ranch originated in the 1880s
so the house and outbuildings were old
enough to need lots of maintenance. This
gave me opportunities to teach our four
sons useful skills — carpentry, plumbing,
electricity, painting, repairing anything
broken, auto mechanics, forever main-
tenance — and our daughter learned the
necessary household management skills.
And now the friendship element. Our
nearest neighbors were about 1 mile away
on an established wheat farm. They were
in the same church we attended, and with
their wheat truck helped us move to our
new country home. They invited neigh-
bors from miles around to welcome us
with a party featuring homemade ice
cream and strawberry shortcake.
Soon their daughter was babysitting
our kids and we were enjoying meals
together and each others company. With
my work on ranches all over Eastern
Oregon, these friends were there when
Barbara needed emergency health care
and while she recovered they took care of
the kids. Another time when I was away
working, our St. Bernard tangled with a
porcupine and our friend came to figure
out how to confine that hurting dog and
get the quills pulled out of his mouth and
nose.
They were always available if we
needed a hand for anything — spring,
summer, fall and winter. The loan of the
truck for graveling our lane, or a tool
I didn’t have and advice on how to fix
things. And on early winter mornings
when the snow was deep we’d hear the
clack-clack-clack of his Oliver bulldozer
plowing out our lane so that we could get
to work and the kids to school. Another
special surprise was when these friends
gifted us with three days of vacation.
They took all five of our kids and sent us
off in their pickup camper to go wherever
we wanted, just the two of us! Talk about
thoughtful, creative, sharing, caring and
supportive.
Time passed, our boys got older and
our friends hired them for farm work. My
work often required me to be gone for
several days and I might come home in the
afternoon and our friend would be doing
field work. I’d hustle home, make a big
thermos of tea, grab some cookies, then
flag him down for a take-a-break tea party,
just the us two out there in the wheat field.
More time went by, they retired and
moved to the coast, then McMinnville,
and our friendship continued with visits,
birthday and anniversary celebrations and
more.
Those friends were Ray and MaryLea
Bowman. Many of you who read this
have known them. For us they were truly
forever friends. MaryLea died late in
2020 and Ray died last Sunday. Life is
rich when you have friends like Ray and
MaryLea and their family.
———
Dr. Andrew Clark is a livestock veteri-
narian with both domestic and international
work experience who lives in Pendleton.
Barbara Clark is a teacher with a broad vari-
ety of experience internationally and domes-
tically at primary and secondary levels, Blue
Mountain Community College and Eastern
Oregon Correctional Institution.
To get past red vs. blue Oregon, let’s try MAGRA
TIM
NESBITT
OTHER VIEWS
W
hat does it mean for our nation and
our state when three of every four
of us in Oregon think our democ-
racy now is “more at risk”? And what can we
do to fix it?
The Oregon Values and Beliefs Center’s
February survey, which elicited a long list
of thoughts on those questions, captures
insights into why Oregonians have become
more pessimistic about how we govern
ourselves and what they think we should
do to counter the forces that threaten our
democracy.
After diving deep into the survey
numbers, and reading more than 2,000
comments from respondents, I came away
troubled by Oregonians’ lack of confidence
in the health of our democracy, but also
encouraged that we can still find common
ground on how to restore its vitality.
Let’s begin with the 74% who think our
democracy is either “a lot more at risk”
(58%) or “a little more at risk” (16%). Their
comments on why they see such risk reflect
both predictable partisan anger and a more
widely shared concern about the parties
themselves, the effects of divisive partisan-
ship and the failures of government.
• Among respondents who pointed a
finger at either party, those blaming Republi-
cans outnumbered those blaming Democrats
by a ratio of 3 to 1.
• But the larger share, representing
more than half of all those who provided
comments, looked beyond the parties to
bemoan a sense of divisiveness, loss of
civility, an increase in hate and violence
as well as the failures and even corruption
of government.
As someone who worked in, and still
believes in, government, that’s hard to hear.
But, it also signals an opening to move
beyond “my side-ism” and look for shared
solutions with appeal across the political
spectrum.
Another bright spot: respondents are less
likely to see division in Oregon than in the
U.S. (74% vs. 88%) and notably fewer of us
are “very worried” about this development
here vs. what we see in the nation as a whole
(35% vs. 53%).
Steps to ‘a healthy government’
We also can find some modestly hopeful
signs in Oregonians’ views of the hot button
issues of a stolen Presidential election (only
19% hold that view) and the Jan. 6 attack on
the U.S. Capitol (a similar 18% think of it as
a “reasonable protest” or a false flag event
fomented by Trump’s opponents). That still
may be concerning to some, but to me it’s a
“super minority.”
However, the views I found most reveal-
ing emerged from a deeper dive into what
respondents perceive at the core of what ails
our democracy and what they favor to restore
“a healthy government.”
Leading the list of what ails us:
• “The American economy is rigged to
the advantage of the rich and powerful”
(78% agree strongly or somewhat agree);
and,
• “Traditional parties and politicians don’t
care.”
Connecting these two systemic criticisms
is a more personal concern: “We can no
longer share honest opinions with each other
in our workplaces, schools and social gather-
ings” (71%).
These views are corroborated in
responses to another question asked of those
(53%) who are very or somewhat dissatis-
fied with “the United States federal form
of government.” Their reasons range from
“built on classism, controlled with those
with the most money” (30%), “unable to get
common sense things done” (19%), “plagued
by partisan infighting” (15%) and “beholden
to special interests” (12%).
And, if the strongly felt need to “share
honest opinions with each other” is a
compelling plea for more open dialogue, a
later question highlighted what we should be
talking about. Here’s what Oregonians think
are very or critically important features that
can contribute to a healthy government:
• “Equal opportunity to participate in
elections and representation” (87%).
• “Officials and institutions are account-
able to the public” (86%).
• “Equal participation, equal treatment
and due process for all” (86%).
• “A legal framework that is enforced
equally, impartially and uniformly” (84%).
• “Institutions are responsive to problems
in a reasonable time” (81%).
• Principles such as these can be easy
to agree to but harder to advance in the
form of concrete reforms. But I’d adver-
tise the agenda for a big-tent conversation
about fixing our democracy, not in terms
of MAGA vs. anti-MAGA, but, instead, of
MAGRA — Make American Government
Responsible and Accountable.
Once in the tent, we can begin the sharing
of honest opinions about some of the more
specific ideas advanced by the comments I
read through in this survey:
• Campaign finance reform.
• Open primaries and/or other forms of
more representative choices in elections.
• Controls on the excesses of social media.
That last item surprised me, but it fits with
the desire for a more honest and balanced
sharing of opinions.
Let the MAGRA discussions begin.
———
Tim Nesbitt, a former union leader in
Oregon, served as an adviser to Govs. Ted
Kulongoski and John Kitzhaber and later
helped to design Measure 98 in 2016, which
provided extra, targeted funding for Oregon’s
high schools.
Seeking compromisers who care about ‘The Oregon Way’
DICK
HUGHES
OTHER VIEWS
”C
ompromise, compromise,
compromise. Collaborate,
collaborate, collaborate.”
These are the qualities that Brian Clem
seeks in legislative candidates this spring —
“compromisers who care about ‘The Oregon
Way.’”
Clem speaks from experience. He served
in the state House for nearly 15 years until
last fall, was a legislative aide, ran campaigns
and worked for U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden.
“The country definitely has gotten
more divided and Oregon has gotten more
divided,” Clem said, yet “there are people
who believe you should try really, really hard
to get a consensus.”
He and five former Democratic
colleagues in the Legislature want to support
such candidates. Last week they launched
a new political action committee — Orego-
nians Are Ready, or OAR PAC. They are
Democrats, after all, so the initial goal is to
back Democratic legislative candidates in
the May primary who will be more centrist,
more willing to compromise than their oppo-
nents.
I find this development relevant not
for any ideological position but for what it
says about our state, including the need for
hearing rural voices in Salem. Three of the
founders have links to Coos Bay, includ-
ing Clem, who grew up there. They have
watched as decisions made in Salem and
Washington, D.C., helped turn a thriving
community into an impoverished one – and
have stymied local attempts to rebound.
Clem, a Salem businessman, seeded the
PAC with $500,000. The other founders are
former state Sen. Arnie Roblan, of Coos
Bay, and former Reps. Jeff Barker, of Aloha;
Deborah Boone, of Cannon Beach; Betty
Komp, of Gates; and Caddy McKeown, of
Coos Bay.
They don’t necessarily align on every
issue. But, Clem said, “I think we’re all
united on that Oregon has lost its way.”
All six were considered moderate Demo-
crats. In 2016, they began to hold Tuesday
night dinners with colleagues in search of
middle-ground solutions on complex topics
such as raising the minimum wage.
However, as the Democrats expanded
their House and Senate majorities in recent
years, there was less need for consensus with
moderates, or with Republicans at all.
Meanwhile, primary elections draw the
most partisan of voters. That is why Demo-
crats often go to the left and Republicans to
the right instead of campaigning as moder-
ates. Too often, legislators also lean away
from the center to avoid drawing primary
challengers from their Democratic left or
Republic right.
The new PAC aims to support compro-
mise-willing Democrats who face such
opponents.
“I don’t believe compromise is a bad
word,” McKeown said. “The fringes push
ideas. But when you listen to everybody and
you work with everybody, I think you come
up with good legislation.”
That was a lesson McKeown honed
growing up in a small town and later repre-
senting a purple district in the Legislature:
Learn to work together with everyone. You
must give a little to get a little. You can’t
afford to burn bridges.
Clem put it another way: Stay at the table
until everyone gets what they need. Help
them save face instead of rolling over them.
Clem said in his dozen or so years chair-
ing a legislative committee, there never was
a party-line vote on a bill. He led such issues
as protecting the Metolius River headwaters,
resolving a Washington County land use
battle, limiting class sizes in public schools,
and helping residents recover from the 2020
Labor Day wildfires.
As another example of collaboration, he
cited Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Happy Valley,
who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.
She could have rolled over Republican Rep.
Ron Noble, a former police chief in McMin-
nville. Instead, they worked together on law
enforcement reforms.
The 2011 Legislature, with the House
evenly split between Republicans and Demo-
crats, underscored for Clem the immense
power of compromise and collaboration.
That legislative session — in which Roblan
and Rep. Bruce Hanna, R-Roseburg, served
as co-House speakers — is regarded among
Oregon’s must successful. Though discus-
sions often were difficult, lawmakers reached
bipartisan agreements on such contentious
issues as redistricting, education reform and
the state budget.
In this year’s legislative session, Clem
said, farmworker overtime seemed to offer
an opportunity for a similar bipartisan
victory, though with significant give-and-
take. That didn’t happen. House Bill 4002
passed on a party-line vote, with exception
of retiring Democratic Sen. Lee Beyer, of
Springfield, who voted “no.”
———
Dick Hughes has been covering the Oregon
political scene since 1976.