SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Celebrate
Baker’s
graduates
The list of traditional activities that Baker High
School seniors have lost over the past 15 months
makes for a depressing litany.
Homecoming. Prom. Sports and many other extra-
curricular activities. Dozens of days in their class-
rooms with their classmates and teachers.
The Class of 2020 had a normal senior year until
just before spring break in March 2020. But for the
fi nal three months of their last year at BHS, noth-
ing was normal. No in-person classes. No sports. No
traditional graduation ceremony at Baker Bulldog
Memorial Stadium.
The Class of 2021 endured upheaval from the
start. They had online classes for the fi rst two
months of the school year. Then they attended in-
person classes for one day for several weeks, then
two days until late January. Not until April 12 did
seniors (along with other high school and middle
school students) return to a regular four-day week of
in-person classes.
The Class of 2021 has had a full slate of sports, but
an ersatz version, with shortened seasons and no of-
fi cially sanctioned playoffs and state tournaments.
This year’s graduates will have something closer
to a normal graduation than their counterparts did a
year ago. Commencement will happen in the sta-
dium, although attendance will be limited.
Deprived of the usual ceremony last year, the Class
of 2020, after accepting their diplomas in a drive-
thru format, drove along 10th, Broadway and Main
streets, parade-style, while well-wishers braved rain
showers and cool temperatures to wave and applaud
from the sidewalks. It was a fi ne tribute.
This year’s vehicle procession isn’t part of the of-
fi cial school schedule, but the senior class is inviting
people to gather along Broadway and Main streets
at noon on Sunday, June 6, prior to graduation. The
route will start at 10th and Broadway, proceed east
on Broadway to Main, then south to fi nish at Auburn
Avenue.
Let’s show the seniors, as we did a year ago, that
we honor their achievements, even if we can’t all do
so in the traditional way. (And it’s not going to rain,
either.)
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
For the People Act is too broad
By John C. Fortier
The For the People Act is too broad and
seeks to nationalize many democracy re-
forms that would be better left to states.
The fi rst version of the act was
launched in 2019, after Democrats had
taken control of the House of Representa-
tives. With Republicans in charge of the
White House and the Senate, it had no
chance of becoming law. It was aspira-
tional, a statement of Democratic values
on democracy reform, and a blueprint
of an agenda for many specifi c policy
changes that Democrats could highlight
as contrasts to Republican policy.
And this blueprint was incredibly
broad and ambitious: setting many
federal standards for the way states
administer elections, introducing forms
of public fi nancing of election campaigns,
requiring very detailed independent
redistricting commissions that would
take away the power of redistricting from
state legislatures, to name a few of the
more prominent proposals.
But in these large brushstrokes
and also in many of the details there
was little bipartisan consensus for the
reforms, some of which have been bitterly
debated for years. In addition to the lack
of agreement between the parties, the bill
would overrule many future or existing
state reforms that states would tailor for
their own citizens.
Some Republicans incorrectly claim
that voting laws are the province of the
states and the states alone. More ac-
curately, the Constitution allows states
to craft election laws, but in most cases,
Congress can enact federal laws that
will preempt or overrule state laws. In
practice, however, states have had the
preeminent role in elections, and only in
specifi c instances has Congress stepped
in with federal laws, with the result that
American elections, unlike those of other
countries, are extremely decentralized.
States maintain signifi cant differences
in the way they run elections, from the
balance of mail vs. in-person voting, the
adoption of voting technology, the offi ces
and questions that appear on ballots, to
the hours of voting at polling places. Only
in some very specifi c cases has Congress
set federal standards by law: voting
rights, “motor voter” registration, the
post- 2000 reforms and overseas voting,
for example.
While such a decentralized election
system can have fl aws, states have often
been engines for change. Major reform
efforts such as the adoption of the secret
ballot and the introduction of absentee
voting and early in-person voting oc-
curred state by state, without any federal
mandate. If states are sometimes said
to be laboratories of democracy, they
can also be laboratories for democracy
reform.
Fast forward to 2021, a Democrat is
in the White House, and the party has
narrow majorities in both the House and
Senate. The For the People Act, which
in 2019 had been more of a statement of
principles, now seems like a transforma-
tional possibility for enthusiastic Demo-
cratic reformers. The diffi culties that
Democrats are now facing passing the
act, however, stem from the mismatch
between aspirations and reality. Repub-
lican support is almost nonexistent, so
attracting 60 votes to invoke cloture in
the Senate is extremely unlikely. Even
without the fi libuster, holding together
all 50 Democratic senators will be a chal-
lenge. And fi nally, opposition from states
would also likely sink this large bill, as
Democratic lawmakers and election
offi cials may object to provisions that
overrule their state reforms.
A more realistic avenue for democracy
reforms is to take on reforms of a modest
character one by one, and to take them
on in the states. Democrat-controlled
legislatures in Nevada and New Jersey,
for example, implemented substantial
changes to increase the usage of voting
by mail.
And while there has been strong
Democratic criticism of proposed election
changes by Republican legislatures, they
are much more likely to be enacted be-
cause they are much more modest than
the For the People Act. First, they apply
only to the state in question, not the na-
tion as a whole. Second, while Demo-
cratic critics have been vocal, Republican
reforms have been incremental, small
changes to dates in mail and early voting,
some regulation of the handling of mail
ballots and election observers. Compare
this to the hundreds of pages of reforms
in the For the People Act.
Supporters of the For the People Act
seem to think that because the subject
is democracy reform, the normal rules of
how bills are democratically passed do
not apply. Democracy reforms will suc-
ceed as they have in the past only if they
achieve some level of consensus at the
federal level, or through the hard work of
state by state reforms.
John C. Fortier is a resident scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute. He wrote
this for InsideSources.com.
In patience, Job has nothing on a T-ball coach
In the pantheon of patience, Job
boasts the ultimate reputation.
But though it pains me to
quibble with the biblical narrative,
so far as I can determine from the
historical record, Job never coached
T-ball.
Which relegates him to second
place in my book.
Or on deck, if you prefer.
Even Job, I suspect, would be
unable to suppress a brief grimace
while trying to guide a fi ve-year-old
toward fi rst base when the kid is
determined to sprint straight from
home plate to second.
(Which, I have to admit, is logical
to anyone who understands the
value of a shortcut but is not terribly
familiar with the rules of baseball.
Which is a category that includes
many fi ve-year-olds.)
I had been away from T-ball for
quite a number of years but the
sport is much as I remember it.
Which is to say, an event with
a facade of orderliness yet also a
palpable sense that at any instant it
could devolve into a debacle involv-
ing tears, dust, and diminutive,
grass-stained knees.
I have returned to the game, as a
spectator, thanks to my grandson,
Brysen, who turned four in February
and is donning a leather glove and a
JAYSON
JACOBY
cap for the fi rst time this spring.
T-ball, notwithstanding the atmo-
sphere of scarcely controlled chaos,
is appealing in the way typical of
games that involve small children
gamboling about. Their energy is
infectious, their antics inevitably
amusing.
There is a unique cuteness to a
kid of kindergarten age clad in a uni-
form, running for all she’s worth, to
stand in triumph on a base and then
turn toward the bleachers, beaming
and waving at her individual cheer-
ing section.
Brysen took to T-ball right off.
He makes his way around the base
paths with glee, and when he makes
it safely to the next station he often
crosses his arms across his little
chest, as though to mark the accom-
plishment.
(Not that anyone has to worry
about being tagged out. In T-ball all
the players touch all the bases in
each inning, of which there are two.
Which is just the right number of
innings.)
While watching Brysen’s games
I’ve found myself focusing, in
between his and the other players’
particularly funny shenanigans, on
the coaches.
I can only marvel at their ability
to handle a situation that, like
certain radioactive isotopes, is
inherently unstable and prone to
explosive behavior.
Coaching on a fi eld with a couple
dozen four-, fi ve- and six-year-
olds is roughly akin to teaching a
kindergarten class or running a
daycare center, but with the added
element of possibly being struck by
an aluminum bat or beaned with a
baseball.
I have many times winced,
anticipating a painful blow, while
watching a coach kneel beside the
tee and help a player grip the bat
in the proper way.
And even when the coaches are
out in the fi eld, safely out of bat
range, they have to disassemble the
wriggling mound of dusty human-
ity that forms almost every time
a batted ball appears in the vicinity.
These coaches are, of course,
volunteers.
They donate their time not for
the prospects of glorious victories
— score is not kept in T-ball, and
there is no state tournament —
but so that kids can get outside
and give their fi ne motor skills a
workout.
This is no small contribution.
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A neighbor lopped off the top of a
tree a block or so to the west of our
place and brought Elkhorn Peak
right into our living room.
Rarely, if ever, have I more ap-
preciated a bit of chain saw surgery.
I noticed the arrival of the great
sedimentary peak on a recent day
when I was home for lunch. I was
looking out the window at the west
end of our house, mainly to gauge
the volume of twigs our weeping
willow had shed during the latest
bout of gusts.
But as my eyes lifted from the
yard to the horizon, I was taken
aback by what I saw.
There was the familiar trian-
gular tip of Elkhorn Peak, second-
tallest summit in the range and,
from most vantage points in Baker
City, the dominant one.
As is often the case with familiar
sights, I had never really seen that
amputated tree’s higher limbs until
they were gone.
I’ve lived in my house for almost
26 years, but at that moment, as
I gazed at Elkhorn Peak, I felt
almost as though the place were
new to me.
Although Elkhorn Peak, at 8,931
feet, falls 175 feet short of its near-
by neighbor, Rock Creek Butte, I’ve
long had a special affi nity for the
former, mainly, I suspect, because I
see it much more often.
It’s not so precise as a calendar,
to be sure, but I much prefer to
gauge the succession of the seasons
by having a look at Elkhorn Peak’s
steep east face. After a mid-winter
storm it is pure white, all of its
dark brown nubs of ancient stone
temporarily plastered. During
spring and summer the white
splotches gradually shrink until,
around the time August replaces
July, the last bright patch disap-
pears, leaving the peak barren,
maybe for only two months but
perhaps for as long as three and
half, what with the vagaries of
autumn storm.
Now, suddenly and unexpect-
edly, I can have a look at the peak
while relaxing on the soft cushions
of our sofa.
It’s a revelation, as welcome as a
new pair of contact lenses.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.