TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
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OUR VIEW
Change
Oregon’s
DUII law
A drunken driving conviction for John Hedgpeth
seemed a cinch.
An Oregon state trooper pulled Hedgpeth over in
2014 for riding his motorcycle without a helmet. The
trooper took him into custody for DUII and brought
him to the North Bend Police Department for an
intoxilyzer test. It was one hour and 45 minutes after
Hedgpeth had been stopped before the test began.
The test showed his blood alcohol content was .09%.
The legal limit in Oregon is .08%.
Charged. Convicted. Case closed?
Nope. Hedgpeth appealed and the case ended up
before the Oregon Supreme Court. The defendant
claimed the state’s evidence did not show he was
intoxicated at the time he was riding the motorcycle.
The court ruled in his favor.
In many cases, more police work would have
prevented that outcome. The prosecution could have
presented evidence of a roadside sobriety test. There
could have been testimony from experts showing that
a .09 blood alcohol content about two hours after he
was stopped indicated he was impaired at the time of
the stop. That evidence, though, was not presented at
his trial.
Most states allow a two-hour window if .08 is
established. Not Oregon. Some states allow a three-
hour window. So this legislative session Senate Bill
201 would change Oregon law. It creates a two-hour
window. And the bill seems on track to pass. The bill
also would make a second change in the law regard-
ing DUII. It relates to the Supreme Court’s decision
in what is called the Guzman case.
In Oregon, a person cannot be held accountable for
DUIIs in other states unless the laws are essentially
identical — the Oregon law’s “statutory counterpart.”
Ricky Guzman was indicted for felony DUII and
other crimes. The indictment for the felony DUII
alleged that Guzman had two prior convictions for
DUII from other jurisdictions, including one from
Kansas.
Guzman challenged that the Kansas conviction
was not a statutory counterpart and so his Oregon
charge could not be a felony.
The Kansas statute is broader than Oregon’s
statute in that it applied to operating any vehicle and
allowed conviction based on a blood alcohol content
of .08% within three hours of operating a vehicle. The
court found for Guzman.
The impact could be that Oregon would be the only
state in the country that did not allow out-of-state
DUII charges to count toward a felony. SB 201 puts a
stop to that.
In 2019 in Oregon, 34% of the driving-related
fatalities were related to alcohol-impaired driving.
That’s more than 160 deaths. The law needs to be
changed. Pass SB 201.
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.
Moving Oregon’s border?
The devil is in the details
By Charles Jones
The devil is in the details. The devil
is also in hard realities. Veteran Mike
McCarter, president of Move Oregon’s
Border (MOB), wrote an opinion piece
in local papers supporting MOB. MOB
wants to force 850,000 Oregonians to
become Idahoans and force 75% of the
land in Oregon into Idaho.
This fellow veteran looks at just
eight of a thousand devilish details and
realities that would result from MOB’s
plan.
1. Snow Plows. Those plows that
keep the our highways and the free-
ways open are owned by Oregon. Will
Oregon donate millions of dollars of
plows to another state? Is Idaho going
to spend millions to buy plows and pay
drivers to service nearly all the snow
country of Oregon, which is now largely
paid for by western Oregon gas taxes?
Who will keep our highways clear?
MOB volunteers?
2. Prisons and criminals. Several
state prisons are in MOB’s targeted
counties. I’ll mention one, and you can
multiply. Snake River Correctional
Institute, near Ontario, was fi rst built
in 1991. The 1994 addition alone cost
$175 million (not corrected for infl a-
tion), the largest Oregon general fund
expenditure ever, even to this day. You
think Idaho is going to buy? What
happens when they don’t? Little penal
islands of Oregon in Greater Idaho,
or will MOB come up with a quarter
billion dollars as a starter for help-
ing Idaho buy just one of their new
prisons? Also, there are nearly 3,000
prisoners in that one prison. They are
charged with Oregon crimes. They are
not guilty of Idaho crimes. Hmmmm.
Will MOB volunteer to move the
prison structures and infrastructure to
western Oregon? Or do we, with other
prisons full, just release the prisoners?
3. Ontario and Malheur County. In
2020 Ontario recreational marijuana
dispensaries did over $91 million in
sales. Ontario received over $1,850,000
in marijuana taxes in FY 2019-20.
Most sales were to people coming from
Idaho. Additionally, a huge part of
Ontario’s retail and most of business
growth has been along the border,
where Idahoans shop to avoid sales tax
on furniture, lawn mowers, building
supplies, clothing, and many durable
goods. Does MOB hope Ontario (most
of the population of Malheur County)
will kill their golden-egg goose by
becoming Idaho? Not a surprise that al-
most no one attended the recent MOB
rally in Ontario.
4. Buildings. Oregon owns hundreds
of million dollars of buildings through-
out the MOB targeted counties. As a
tiny example, in La Grande alone, the
building values are staggering. Tens
of millions just at EOU. Then there’s
DMV, regional ODOT facilities, OSP,
Extension, State Forestry, ODFW,
on and on and on. MOB leaders are
spending too much time at the Ontario
dispensaries if they think Oregon will
give that all away. And even if they did,
ask any title agency or property lawyer
about the time and cost involved in
purchases and sales — years and
years and millions and millions in
litigation. Paid for by whom?
5. Land. Besides the aforementioned
real estate, consider the thousands of
acres of state forest in the targeted
counties. All the thousand of miles of
state highways. All the state parks.
Consider the tiniest fraction of these
holdings — Wallowa Lake State Park.
How many millions is that incredible
chunk of land worth? If you owned it,
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would you just give it to your neigh-
bor? Your kids might object. And don’t
forget the state coastline of southern
Oregon. Talk about pricey real estate!
6. Bonds. Oregon owns hundreds of
million dollars in bonds issued to ser-
vice debt on construction in targeted
counties. Will Idaho happily take over
those bond payments? And who will be
paying the accountants and lawyers
for incredibly complex transfers?
7. Retirement Accounts. Oregon
holds retirement accounts for not just
state employees, but also for nearly all
police offi cers, fi re fi ghters, teachers,
city workers, county workers, univer-
sity and community college employees,
extension agents, game wardens,
wildlife and fi sheries biologists, family
and human service workers, judges
and district attorney offi ces ... the list
goes on. Courts have consistently ruled
those retirement contracts are legal
and binding. So Idaho will merrily
pick up a few billion of debt? Think
fi refi ghters might fi ght to keep their
pensions? Think there might years of
paperwork and millions of lawyer fees
involved?
8. Licensing. What about our elected
judges? Do teachers go back to college
to take courses required for Idaho cer-
tifi cation? Will nurses, doctors, thera-
pists, counselors, contractors, plumb-
ers, electricians, dentists, hygienists,
barbers, beauticians, accountants,
realtors, title agents, drivers, insurers,
and nearly all professions descend on
Idaho for licensing and bonding? Will
we hold new elections for our offi cials
(commissioners, mayors, sheriffs,
clerks, etc.) elected under Oregon law?
How many years will we pay for court
cases on these issues?
And this is only the tip of that devil-
ish iceberg — that devilish reality of
our complicated lives, economy, and
citizenship in the year 2021.
Charles Jones, a retired navy commander
and science teacher, is a fourth-generation
eastern Oregonian living in La Grande.
OTHER VIEWS
Time for Oregonians to end abusive relationship with Salem
By Mike McCarter
This May, voters in fi ve counties
of Eastern Oregon will be deciding
whether to entrust the future of their
children and their communities to
the governance of an enlarged Idaho
or to the unhinged politicians of
Salem.
The Idaho Legislature is con-
trolled by representatives from rural
districts, who govern according to
the concerns and priorities of rural
counties.
The ruling party in the Oregon
House doesn’t have a single repre-
sentative from Eastern Oregon or
any rural district. Since the ruling
party doesn’t consult the other
party, Eastern Oregon is completely
ignored.
Long after Gov. Kate Brown is
out of offi ce, her replacements will
continue to act on the priorities and
values of Northwest Oregon because
that area has 79% of Oregon’s voters.
This is why Oregon hasn’t elected a
Republican governor in 38 years, and
Democrats have a super-majority in
both houses of the Oregon Legisla-
ture.
You might be a Democrat, but
most Eastern Oregon Democrats
don’t want Eastern Oregon to be
ruled by the kind of Portland politi-
cians who won’t or can’t stand up
to the relentless advancement of
radical leftist proposals. They don’t
understand how we make a living.
Their decisions damage industries
like timber, mining, trucking and
farming.
“The ruling party in Salem has
a vision of the future that does not
include people like me or the rural
culture of my community, friends,
and family,” said former Speaker of
the Oregon House of Representatives
Mark Simmons of Union County. “It
is time to part ways with them by
every legal means available to us.”
Voting patterns prove that East-
ern, Central and Southern Oregon
do not belong in Oregon. It’s bigger
than politics — it’s our culture. These
areas gave two votes to Trump for
every Hillary or Biden vote, just like
Idaho.
Our counties would be better off as
part of Idaho. Oregon schools rank
37th in the nation. Idaho’s schools
rank 23rd, according to U.S. News.
Idaho is the state with the eighth
smallest tax burden, and Oregon
ranks 33rd, according to taxfounda-
tion.org. Idaho has a much lower
cost of living. In March, the U.S.
government ranking of 50 states on
unemployment rate showed Idaho
ranked fi fth and Oregon 31st.
Idaho is not a sanctuary state, nor
does it give driver’s licenses to illegal
aliens. Taxpayers there aren’t forced
to pay for abortions.
Rural Oregon is in an abusive
relationship with the Willamette
Valley. Their leaders refuse to protect
citizens from rioters, arsonists,
criminals and illegal aliens, but they
infringe on your right to defend your
family with fi rearms. The public
school curriculum teaches the next
generation to hate Americans and
Americanism.
It’s time to end this abusive rela-
tionship.
Mike McCarter of La Pine is a veteran
and a former president of the Oregon
Agribusiness Council and Oregon
Association of Nurserymen.