WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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OUR VIEW
State’s
spending
problems
When people spend other people’s money, they can
be less than fi nicky. And so it seems with workers at
the state of Oregon.
For instance, the state bought 23 Xerox print-
ers for $1,461.78. A state audit found a better deal
that could have saved the state more than half that
amount.
The state bought 58 copies of some statistical soft-
ware for $12,694.42. A state audit found a better deal
that could have saved $6,079.52.
And the state bought four licenses for some data-
base software for $119,649.11. The same state audit
from December 2018 found a better deal that could
have saved the state $107,017.51.
Yikes.
Those are egregious examples. We did pick them
from the audit to highlight the shocking savings that
the state could have made if it spent money more
carefully. Of course, state workers may not always
have the time to seek out a great deal on every pur-
chase and state purchasing requirements can inter-
fere with getting the cheapest price. The state audit
found, though, the state could have saved between
$400 million and $1.6 billion during the 2015-2017
biennium based on $8 billion in procurements during
that time.
We’d like to be able to tell you that’s all fi xed now.
We can’t. But we can tell you the state is moving in
what could be a positive direction in one area — pur-
chases by state and local governments that are too
big to put on a credit card.
The state has a contract with Periscope Holdings,
an Austin, Texas, company, to build a new statewide
procurement system, according to Governing maga-
zine. The platform called OregonBuys is scheduled to
gradually go live across government in 2020. There
are similar systems in Illinois, New Jersey and Mas-
sachusetts. If it works right, it will replace what’s
called ORPIN, which is the system the state and local
governments use now.
Buying stuff for the state gets complicated, because
there are many legal requirements. The hope is that
the system will keep that in the background and gov-
ernment workers will be able to shop for goods more
easily. It will automate a lot of the work. It might
make it easier for smaller vendors to compete for
state dollars. And the state should be able to better
track spending and purchases and manage that data.
Will the cost of the OregonBuys be recouped in sav-
ings? We hope so. Will it fi x the fundamental problem
that people aren’t as careful when they spend other
people’s money? No. But it should enable the state
and the public to better monitor it.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions
of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Schiff’s bias aids GOP skeptics
Even before his ill-advised mock-
ery of President Trump’s request for
“a favor” from new Ukrainian leader
Volodymyr Zelensky, House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff
(D-Calif.) was seen by Republicans as
blinded by bias against Trump. And
now that Schiff is leading the initial
phase of the House impeachment
inquiry, he has become Exhibit A in the
GOP argument that the whole thing is
rigged.
As if to confi rm those suspicions,
Schiff’s committee has turned a portion
of its website into a glossy, political-
campaign-style presentation of the case
against Trump, titled: “Read for your-
self: President Trump’s Abuse of Power.”
It’s accessible from the main page of
the Intelligence Committee’s website
through a prominent link bearing the
innocuous-sounding title, “Impeach-
ment Inquiry.”
“The House of Representatives
launched an impeachment inquiry
to ascertain the full extent of the
president’s misconduct, and thanks
to testimony from dedicated, nonpar-
tisan public servants, we now have a
much fuller picture of how President
Trump abused the State Department
and other levers of government for his
own political gain,” the page states in
its introduction. “Pursuant to House
Resolution 660, we are now releasing
transcripts of these witness interviews
so every American can see the facts and
decide for themselves: is this conduct
acceptable?”
The question featured in boldface on
the website may sound neutral, but the
page is anything but. Instead, it high-
lights excerpts from selected witnesses
to paint a damning case against Trump.
This is precisely why Republicans
focus at least as much on the process
of the inquiry as the substance. But it’s
important to put what Schiff is doing
in historical context, not because he’s
breaking with precedent but because
he’s adapting past practice to the cur-
rent legal reality.
President Nixon’s “Saturday Night
JON HEALEY
Massacre” — his attempt to shut down
the Watergate investigation in October
1973 by having the Justice Depart-
ment fi re special prosecutor Archibald
Cox, which prompted the top two DOJ
offi cials to resign rather than carry
out Nixon’s order — helped persuade
Congress to enact a law in 1978 creat-
ing a judicially appointed independent
counsel to investigate allegations of
presidential wrongdoing. Independent
counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently
probed the Iran-Contra scandal during
the Reagan administration, and then
independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr
dug into the Whitewater land-fraud al-
legations against President Clinton.
Starr’s Whitewater investigation
covered several years and produced
nothing, but with the help of attorneys
for Paula Jones, who’d sued Clinton for
sexual harassment, Starr forced Clinton
in August 1998 to testify before a grand
jury about an alleged White House
affair with an intern named Monica
Lewinsky. Clinton falsely denied having
“sexual relations” with her, and within a
few months, the House impeached him
in a lame-duck session. The Senate de-
clined to convict him the following year.
Congressional Republicans hated
the Walsh investigation. Congressional
Democrats hated the Starr investi-
gation. As a result, Congress let the
independent counsel statute lapse in
1999. Since then, the primary respon-
sibility for investigating the president
has rested with the Justice Depart-
ment. Most recently, a top DOJ offi cial
appointed special counsel Robert S.
Mueller III to look into possible Russian
collusion with the 2016 Trump cam-
paign after Trump fi red FBI Director
James B. Comey, who had been leading
the counterintelligence probe.
The current attorney general, Bill
Barr, has shown no inclination to
investigate the allegations that Trump
leaned on Ukrainian offi cials to conduct
investigations that would benefi t
Trump politically; in fact, the DOJ has
already decreed that Trump’s request
in the July 25 phone call with Zelens-
kiy did not violate federal campaign-
fi nance laws against seeking donations
from foreign sources.
So in the absence of an independent
counsel or a special counsel, Schiff has
put himself in the role of the person
assembling the case against Trump.
That’s why the depositions were
conducted in private sessions, as grand
jury testimony is done, making it hard
for witnesses to coordinate their stories
(hello, Gordon Sondland!). That’s
also why Trump isn’t being given the
chance to participate yet, although
Republicans on the committees are
certainly advancing the narratives
Trump’s lawyers would be advancing
to defend the president.
The public hearings that begin this
week will give Republicans more of
the openness they sought, but Schiff is
likely to remain in Kenneth W. Starr
mode. He’s leading a three-committee
effort to gather evidence about
Trump’s machinations on Ukraine;
it will be up to the House Judiciary
Committee to open the process to
Trump’s lawyers, who will challenge
the evidence and try to put it into a
very different context. The Judiciary
Committee will then decide whether
to recommend articles of impeachment
for the House to vote on.
Notably, Starr laid out 11 specifi c
grounds for impeaching Clinton based
on his conduct with Lewinsky and
his efforts afterward to cover it up. If
Starr’s investigation of that episode is
any guide, one can expect the report
Schiff produces to be similarly pointed
and conclusory. It’s safe to bet too that
Republicans with situational amnesia
about Kenneth W. Starr will complain
that the process was irredeemably
tainted from the start.
Jon Healey is the Los Angeles Times’
deputy editorial page editor.
OTHER VIEWS
Harris’ longer school day proposal worth considering
Editorial from The Dallas
Morning News:
We wouldn’t have expected
ourselves to back a new spending
plan from a presidential primary
candidate, and certainly not in
the present atmosphere where
trillions of dollars in new taxes
are being proposed to support
programs of such vast government
overreach that it staggers the
mind.
But we had to pause when
California Sen. Kamala Harris, a
slumping candidate in the Demo-
cratic primary, suggested a modest
pilot program to study expanding
the school day from its traditional
ending time of 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
This actually could be helpful.
And it’s worth considering.
Harris’ proposal would see a
small number of participating
school districts receive $5 mil-
lion in grants over fi ve years to
help some low-income elemen-
tary schools develop after-school
programs that would keep kids
learning and active until a parent
or guardian gets off work.
The program would be studied
for its impact on parents, children
and schools and depending on its
outcome, could be considered for
greater funding in the future.
Don’t get us wrong. We don’t
think schools should raise chil-
dren. Parents should. And in a
more perfect society, perhaps, chil-
dren could have greater free time
to roam and explore their world.
We are kidding ourselves to
believe we live in such a society.
Many kids are simply transferred
from school to some off-site after-
school care when the bell rings.
Others ride the bus to an empty
home and wait for mom or dad’s
workday to end.
For too many working parents,
the hours between the end of
school and the end of work (not to
mention the commute home) are
fraught with concern about getting
quality care if they can even begin
to afford that in the fi rst place.
Harris’ policy recognizes that
reality and its particular impact
on low-income communities where
children are most vulnerable. And
it approaches a proposed solution
in a sound fashion — a slow and
integral study in interested com-
munities.
Our surprise at our interest in
this plan is surpassed only by our
surprise at the reaction of progres-
sive media and, of course, far-left
social media.
They hate Harris’ plan because
it would actually help working
parents work, as if a 40-hour
workweek qualifi es as the depth of
capitalist cruelty.
“Rather than reshaping soci-
ety to accommodate the needs
of workers, Harris’ plan appears
designed to keep more people
working for longer, suiting the
interests of their employers and
using gestures towards communi-
ty input as a smokescreen,” writes
Brendan O’Connor in Vice.
O’Connor carries on to conclude
— and this isn’t parody — that
slowing economic productivity
would be great because it “could
reduce climate-harming emis-
sions.”
Tell that to people who need a
paycheck to cover the rent and
groceries.
Harris’ plan actually is accom-
modating “workers,” or people as
we like to call them. And what’s
more, it might give their children
the advantage of greater learn-
ing and extracurricular activities
that are too often not available in
lower-income schools.