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The BulleTin • Friday, June 4, 2021 A5 EDITORIALS & OPINIONS AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER Heidi Wright Gerry O’Brien Richard Coe Publisher Editor Editorial Page Editor Bend Parks & Rec makes needed shift to a lottery K ids Inc., is one of the most sought-after programs offered by the Bend Park & Recreation District. For more than 30 years, working parents have had a supervised place where their children in the Bend-La Pine Schools could learn and play after school. The program has had two prob- lems. It’s so good, more parents want their kids in it than the district can provide. Names pile up on a waitlist year after year. And there was an an- nual scramble on the internet to sign up for what, for the next school year, will be about 900 spots. The program isn’t free. It costs $195 per month. The district offers scholarships to ensure lower-income families can also benefit. Determi- nation for scholarships is based on household size and income level. One way to distribute a scarce resource is first come, first served. That’s how this program has worked. In recent years, the district held an annual 5:30 a.m. May internet melee for parents to compete for the lim- ited spots available. That rewarded internet savvy and internet connectivity. It rewarded parents that don’t have to work in the early hours. It rewarded parents who have the breathing room to plot out how they will take maximum advantage of the 5:30 a.m. moment. The welcome and needed change this year is that the district switched to a lottery. Now, parents have plenty The welcome and needed change this year is that the district switched to a lottery. Now, parents have plenty of time to sign up. Then a lottery is held to determine who is selected for the limited number of spaces available. of time to sign up. Then a lottery is held to determine who is selected for the limited number of spaces available. Siblings are considered to- gether, which is critical. The lottery is more fair, though parents do lose agency — no matter what they do, it doesn’t change the outcome. There will likely still be waitlists. Even after the district hired more staff for the program, the waitlist stayed at about 400, as The Bulletin’s Brenna Visser reported in 2020. We hope the district will be able to find ways to serve more families, though it has found a way to make the com- petition more fair. A new way to learn about Oregon politics O regon’s political life bursts with conflict. But the state will be in trouble if the polit- ical life is not anchored in a way that serves and represents all the people who live here. The state is an intricate mix of strong, rural, conservative traditions in many areas and a growing, seem- ing dominance of a more progres- sive movement. National political events can also transfigure the local. We probably all are guilty of fall- ing into comfortable patterns of what we read or follow about Ore- gon politics. And maybe we don’t seek out enough views that chal- lenge our own. We urge you to check out a new podcast called “The Oregon Bridge.” It’s put out by Ben Bowman and Alex Titus. They are friends. They often disagree. Bowman is a pro- gressive, serves on the Tigard-Tuala- tin School Board and ran for state Senate. Titus is a conservative and worked as an adviser in the Trump administration. Every two weeks or so they have been interviewing someone new, primarily in Oregon politics. They interviewed state Rep. WLnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, a progressive en- dorsed by Bernie Sanders in one ep- isode. In the next they interviewed Alex Skarlatos, the conservative who came about as close as anyone has to defeating Rep. Peter DeFazio. You may remember Skarlatos as the sol- dier, who with others, helped to stop a gunman on a train to Paris. They also interviewed Kevin Frazier, the law student from Oregon who sub- mits a column to The Bulletin once a month. Frazier hosts a blog, called The Oregon Way, which is a forum for political commentary. The podcast isn’t political mud wrestling. It’s not people yelling at each other. They are thoughtful dis- cussions. If you are looking for a way to enhance and broaden your under- standing of Oregon politics, check out The Oregon Bridge. You can find it on Apple Podcasts and many other places. Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe. Keep people safe by preventing gun violence BY HEATHER MCNEIL W hat is your reaction when you hear the words gun vi- olence awareness, or gun safety, or gun sense? It is important to understand that none of these has anything to do with gun control, or taking away guns or denying Second Amendment rights. What they have to do with is re- minding people that gun violence is at a tragic rate in the United States, and that it is everyone’s responsi- bility to be aware of the importance of universal background checks, of making untraceable “ghost guns” il- legal, and of storing guns unloaded and locked. Here are facts to consider. There have been 231 mass shootings in the United States in 2021. Over 4.5 mil- lion children live in a household with a loaded, unlocked gun. According to the Deschutes County Suicide Data Report, youth suicides in De- schutes County have almost doubled from 2000-17, and 56% of all suicides were accomplished with a gun. Fed- eral, state and local governments are spending an average of $34.8 mil- lion EACH DAY to deal with the aftermath of gun violence. Gun vi- olence-related deaths in 2020 will likely exceed 40,000, a rate of 12.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people. This trans- lates to the highest rate of gun deaths in the last two decades. It is estimated that there was a 64% increase in gun sales in 2020 over 2019. What can you do? Put aside politics and understand that this is a safety issue for all com- munities. Unfortunately, the word “control” is thrown about by politi- GUEST COLUMN cians, the media, and the NRA. But gun sense is not gun control. Most gun owners are very responsible and understand the importance of safe storage. But children are curious, and in 2021, there have been 93 uninten- tional shootings by children, resulting in 36 deaths and 62 injuries nation- ally. I cannot think of anything more tragic. Wear orange. June 4 is Gun Vio- lence Awareness Day, and the follow- ing weekend is known as Wear Or- ange. It is a time when gun violence prevention supporters and advocates wear orange to honor the victims of gun violence and show support for the gun safety movement. This na- tional movement began in 2013 when 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed in Chicago just one week after she performed at Presi- dent Obama’s second 93 inauguration. Orange was her favorite color, and it is the color hunters wear to protect themselves from gunfire. I am grate- ful to the Deschutes County commis- sioners and Bend City Council who endorsed Gun Violence Awareness Day proclamations. Wear orange this weekend. Go to everytown.org for research and more facts. Everytown Research and Policy “conducts independent, methodically rigorous research, sup- ports evidence-based policies, and communicates this knowledge to the public.” Contact your United States legisla- tors and urge their support for univer- sal background checks. If you own guns, store them locked and unloaded. There are methods of safe storage that still allow for quick access if necessary. Taking a few extra seconds is worth a child’s life, or the life of someone who might impulsively consider suicide. Join Moms Demand Action Or- egon on Facebook. Moms Demand Action is a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence. If you own guns, store them locked and unloaded. There are methods of safe storage that still allow for quick access if necessary. Taking a few extra seconds is worth a child’s life, or the life of someone who might impulsively consider sui- cide. Recognize the role of guns in sui- cides. Over the past decade, the US firearm suicide rate has increased by 13%. This trend has been of particular concern for children and teens, whose firearm suicide rate has increased by 59% over the past ten years, and for veterans, who have a firearm suicide rate 1.5 times higher than non-vet- eran adults. Above all, please remember that the definitions for the words safety, sense and awareness are exactly what they say they are. Let’s keep our families and loved ones safe by being aware and using good sense in order to pre- vent gun violence. e e Heather McNeil lives in Bend. Letters policy Guest columns How to submit We welcome your letters. Letters should be limited to one issue, contain no more than 250 words and include the writer’s signature, phone number and address for verification. We edit letters for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. We re- ject poetry, personal attacks, form letters, letters submitted elsewhere and those appropriate for other sections of The Bul- letin. Writers are limited to one letter or guest column every 30 days. Your submissions should be between 550 and 650 words; they must be signed; and they must include the writer’s phone number and address for verification. We edit submissions for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. We reject those submitted elsewhere. Locally submitted columns alternate with national colum- nists and commentaries. Writers are lim- ited to one letter or guest column every 30 days. Please address your submission to either My Nickel’s Worth or Guest Column and mail, fax or email it to The Bulletin. Email submissions are preferred. Email: letters@bendbulletin.com Write: My Nickel’s Worth/Guest Column P.O. Box 6020 Bend, OR 97708 Fax: 541-385-5804 Why the Supreme Court just expanded police powers, unanimously BY NOAH FELDMAN Bloomberg A merican Indian tribes have won a small victory at the Su- preme Court. In the case, U.S. v. Cooley, justices held that tribal po- lice on a reservation can arrest and search people who are not Native American when there is probable cause to suspect them of a federal or state crime. The decision was unan- imous, almost certainly for a quirky reason: The court’s liberals favor tribal sovereignty on reservations and the court’s conservatives favor expansive police power to stop and search. Con- servatives also hate throwing out con- victions on procedural grounds. The case began in 2016. Late one February night in Montana, a Crow reservation police officer noticed a truck pulled over on U.S. Highway 212, a highway that runs through the reservation. Inside was Joshua James Cooley. According to the officers, he had “watery, bloodshot eyes” and “ap- peared to be non-native.” The officer saw two semi-automatic rifles on the front seat. The officer ordered Cooley to get out of the truck, administered a pat-down search, and called for backup — a call that brought tribal, county, and federal Bureau of Indian Affairs officers to the scene. Then, according to the arresting of- ficer, he looked in the truck and saw in plain view a glass pipe and some methamphetamine. When the backup came, he saw more meth, also in plain view. (Yes, all police reports from stops like this sound a little doubtful when it comes to “plain view.” But hey, we weren’t there.) Cooley, who was not a member of any tribe, was charged with his drug and gun offenses in federal court. That’s the normal process when someone who isn’t American Indian commits crimes on reservation land. In federal court, Cooley’s lawyers got creative. They argued that the evi- dence should be excluded because the reservation officer lacked the author- ity to investigate non-apparent vio- lations of federal law on the highway running through the reservation. In other words, the officer shouldn’t have been involved in finding Cooley’s guns or drugs in the first place. The federal district court agreed and threw out Cooley’s case. On ap- peal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit tried to craft a new rule to fit the circumstances. It said that the tribal officer could only arrest some- one if the officer first tried to deter- mine whether the person was Native American; and if the person was not, then only if it was “apparent” that he had violated state or federal law. The Supreme Court rejected the 9th Circuit’s proposed rule in an opin- ion by Justice Stephen Breyer. The court based its reasoning on an im- portant 1981 Supreme Court case, Montana v. U.S. In that case, the court stated the general proposition that a tribe’s sovereign powers don’t extend to the activities of non-members — subject to two exceptions. One is for taxing or licensing non-members who entered into business relationships with the tribe. The other, which the court applied to Cooley, is for conduct by non-members that “threatens” or “has some direct effect” on the tribe’s political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare. Breyer wrote that the second ex- ception fit Cooley’s case “almost like a glove.” He reasoned that a drunk driver on a reservation could kill someone — and extended the logic to carrying contraband across the reser- vation. The upshot is that tribal police can stop and search where they have probable cause to think a crime has been committed — more or less the same power that all cops have. The court was right to reject the ap- peals court’s idea that tribal officers have to start by with an on-the-spot determination of who is Native Amer- ican and who isn’t. That would be im- practical as well as invidious. And it is appropriate that the decision treats tribal sovereignty respectfully. It’s important to realize that the court’s unanimity isn’t the result of ju- dicial sympathy for tribal sovereignty, at least not on the court’s conserva- tive side. Rather, the decision enables more police to do more arresting and searching — which conservatives like and liberals generally don’t favor. But here, there was something in the decision for both sides: more searches for conservatives and more tribal sovereignty for liberals. But if tribes are sovereigns, then they can and often will act like states, maximiz- ing their own power at the expense of individual liberties. e e Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg columnist and host of the podcast “Deep Background.”
