The BulleTin • SaTurday, January 8, 2022 B5
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Oregon Legislature
needs a better way
to inform public
T
he 2022 legislative session doesn’t officially start until
February, but next week legislative committees will be
meeting and talking about proposed bills.
Legislators may know some of
what’s coming. It’s hard for the pub-
lic to know much of anything, so far.
For instance next Tuesday, one
House committee is going to be
talking about a proposal for broad-
band, cannabis, system development
charges, assistance for live venues,
workforce development and more.
As of Friday morning, it’s not clear
who will be testifying or even what
those bills are really about.
You could argue that’s fine. More
details are typically posted before
the meetings. Some committees
have posted proposed bills and who
will be testifying. And, well, the leg-
islative session hasn’t even started,
yet. These are just preliminary
discussions.
It’s always easy to come up with
excuses and justifications. But if the
state’s elected leaders aimed to create
a system designed to get input from
Oregonians, this is not how they
would do it. Proposed bills and full
agendas would be posted far in ad-
vance to give the public a chance to
understand what’s coming and react.
From what we can tell there are
some interesting legislative con-
cepts on the table. We will just sin-
gle out one. It aims to protect school
superintendents.
Last year, the Adrian School
Board fired Superintendent Kevin
Purnell because the board wanted
him to defy the governor’s mask
mandate and he refused. The pro-
posed bill says school boards may
not direct superintendents from
taking any action that conflicts with
state or federal laws or policies. It
also prevents schools boards from
taking any employment action if a
superintendent complies with such
laws and policies.
Maybe that bill is not one that will
generate much public discussion.
But when a bill is not posted well in
advance, there is less chance that the
public could have input.
What we have with the Oregon
Legislature is a system that allows
public input, not one that is de-
signed for it. It’s designed now to
serve only those who have the time
and energy to refresh state websites
every hour to see if clear informa-
tion is posted. We don’t expect that
to change. Trickling out informa-
tion keeps the power in Salem in the
hands of legislators and lobbyists
and away from the public.
Historical editorials:
Where is consideration
for the taxpayer?
e
Editor’s note: These historical editorials
originally appeared in the Feb. 22, 1907 edition
of what was then called The Bend Bulletin.
W
ith Prineville getting a fine
new $45,000 court house,
with Judge Bell’s and all
the county officer’s salaries increased
100 per cent, with the assessed
value of property doubled and taxes
heavily increased, will someone
please show us where the taxpayer
comes in on this “efficient county
management?”
•••
The Rev. Homer says The Bul-
letin “has lost all sense of com-
mon decency and hence cannot do
much harm.” Present and former
neighbors of Homer’s say equally
as fine things about him. “O wad
some power the giftie gie us, To see
oursel’s as ithers see us; It wad frae
monie a blunder free us, and foolish
notion.”
•••
There is much just wrath brew-
ing at Bend regarding the unwar-
ranted delay of mail. It is generally
conceded that a delay of a few days
was necessary, but that there is
little excuse for a condition of af-
fairs that the deprives the whole of
Central Oregon of outside mail for
more than a month. It is believed
that if there was much concern felt
by the railroad officials the wash-
outs on the Columbia Southern
could have been repaired long ago.
What kind of weakling system is
that allows a few small breaks and
washouts on its line to stop for so
long a time? The railroad should
have found some means to for-
ward the mail to Shaniko where
the Cornett company has facilities
ready and waiting for many days to
carry it to its destination. There is
a woeful lack of good management
somewhere.
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.
My Nickel’s Worth
Consider Starnes for governor
I’m writing to encourage your readers to consider
Patrick Starnes as the next governor of Oregon. In 2018
Starnes ran for governor on a platform emphasizing cam-
paign finance reform, which is essential to getting anything
meaningful done in Congress. His lobbying efforts resulted
in the Oregon Legislature putting Measure 107 on the bal-
lot, an amendment to the Constitution authorizing the es-
tablishment of campaign finance limits (it passed with 78%
voter approval), and though Speaker Tina Kotek failed to
get those limits codified, the constitutional authority to do
so is now in place.
If Starnes is elected, he will ensure the job gets fin-
ished. He refuses to accept donations from political action
committees and corporations and limits contributions to
$1,000. A cabinetmaker by trade, Patrick has a decade-
slong history of being elected to government agencies: As
a school board member he worked to improve the quality
of education for our kids; and as director of the Douglas
County Soil and Conservation District he worked with di-
verse elements to craft policies that resulted in economic
and environmental benefits.
He has a demonstrated ability to work across party lines
and find solutions. His platform, emphasizing campaign
finance reform, universal health care, homelessness, wild-
fire response and recovery, solutions to climate change and
more, is available on his website, and there are several good
interviews in the “In the News” section. Patrick is commit-
ted to Oregon and familiar with issues that affect both urban
and rural Oregonians. Please visit his website to learn more.
—Daniel Page, La Pine
Establishment tries to block Kristof
As a lifelong independent voter and a resident of this
state I love for the past 20 years, I am appalled by the deci-
sion by the Secretary of State and the Democratic Party es-
tablishment to declare Nicholas Kristof ineligible to run for
governor. While the decision is predictable and depress-
ingly consistent with Oregon political maneuvering, it is
nonetheless disgusting.
At this time, when the Republican Party has completely
lost its way, Kristof’s candidacy offers a breath of fresh air
and the possibility of a revitalization of Oregon’s political
landscape. I have looked forward to finding out more of
what he has planned for the state and deciding if, in fact, I
want to support him. Now it seems that a few bureaucrat-
ically minded politicians in Salem are acting — out of fear
I strongly suspect — to make that impossible. Shame on
them!
My point is simple: don’t hide behind arcane rules to
protect the establishment. Instead, find the courage to
make an honest decision and let Oregon voters decide!
— Gary R. Olsen, Redmond
Check Adair’s comment
I am responding to an article appearing in the Dec. 8
edition of The Bulletin. It described a discussion among
the Deschutes County commissioners as to whether they
should join Bend in signing a letter to apply for $1 million
in state funds to open a joint office of homelessness. I was
surprised to see Commissioner Patti Adair’s comment,
“We truly have more people (homeless) coming here. I
hear they are put on buses from Texas … from Seattle. We
are definitely a popular spot.” I take this to mean some un-
known persons/entities are putting the record number of
homeless persons on buses and sending them to Bend. I
am certain that an elected official would not make such a
statement without having verified the truth of it. I am re-
minded of the Northern California town I lived in before
I moved to Bend. Local rumor was that the increase in
crime in the town was because some persons/entities were
sending hardened criminal parolees to our town instead of
sending them back to their home counties.
We need to ask Commissioner Adair to please identify
the unnamed in Texas and Seattle who are placing home-
less on buses to Bend so we can hold them accountable.
Should we be watching for these homeless-filled buses?
Where is the bus stop?
— Dolores Ellis, Bend
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Democrats: Revise the filibuster and reap the whirlwind again
BY HUGH HEWITT
Special to The Washington Post
I
f Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., succeeds,
against all odds, in alter-
ing Senate rules to amend or
abolish the filibuster, he will
quickly join Harry Reid from
Nevada as among the best
Democratic allies the Republi-
can Party has ever had.
Post columnist Marc A.
Thiessen recently detailed Reid’s
greatest legacy — the confirma-
tions of Justices Neil Gorsuch,
Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Co-
ney Barrett by simple Senate
majorities. As Reid’s gambit
showed, the consequences of
supposed reforms can often be
counterproductive.
So it will be for Schumer’s
party if the leader’s filibuster fix
is allowed to succeed.
The real winner in Schum-
er’s gambit would most likely
be Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who
will use the new Schumer rule
to enact a generation’s worth of
regulatory rollbacks and other
reforms, just as he used the
Reid rule to guide the Supreme
Court to a 6-to-3 conservative
majority.
McConnell is the ultimate
realist. He warned Reid in 2013
that weakening the filibuster
would backfire on Democrats:
“You will regret this, and you
may regret this a lot sooner
than you think.”
By most accounts, Schumer
needs to be caught trying to
alter the filibuster rule even
though the votes for such a
move do not exist. Sen. Joe
Manchin, D-W.Va., continues
to oppose changing the de-
cades-old rule; and other Dem-
ocrats are believed by some to
stand behind him in private,
grateful for his public courage.
But if the filibuster is some-
how revised or amended, the
GOP majorities that look cer-
tain to emerge in both cham-
bers after November will com-
bine with whoever the GOP
nominates in 2024 to create
Jabin Botsford/ The Washington Post
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., aims to change the fili-
buster rules.
a unified field of Republican
power in January 2025. Expect
the new Republican president
to use the new rules to move
quickly to enact long-overdue
reforms.
First on my list would be a
comprehensive measure that
obliges school districts receiv-
ing federal funds to end public
employee unions in schools.
Teachers will holler and shout,
but simple majority rule in
the Senate will roll them. The
disgust that has greeted the
Chicago Teachers Union vote
this week to defy the city’s
in-person learning order —
and teachers unions’ conduct
during the pandemic generally
— has not diminished the re-
spect Americans have for the
hard-working educator. But
state “education associations,”
as teachers unions are often
called, long ago overplayed
their hands.
Extreme environmentalists
already worry that long-over-
due updates to the Endangered
Species Act, the Clean Wa-
ter Act and the Clean Air Act
are coming, in part because
those reforms will reduce their
long-running accumulations
of so-called stakeholder power
in decisions far removed from
conservation. If the country is
to get moving again, amending
these laws will be a critical first
step. The filibuster has long
protected these self-appointed
guardians of water, air, land
and sea. That could all change
in 2025.
Defense spending, entitle-
ment reform and reductions in
the federal workforce will all
get a big lift in 2025 using sim-
ple majorities in both houses.
Republican staffers should
spend 2023 and 2024 drafting
bills and telegraphing a new re-
form era, so it can be launched
in January 2025. The goal: dis-
empowering bureaucrats and
interest groups.
True, a new “simple major-
ity” Congress will more prone
to huge mood swings. But the
accumulated power of Demo-
cratic special-interest groups,
once dashed, will prove hard
to recover. Schumer is risking
it all.
If Schumer succeeds, the
GOP need not worry about the
unconstitutional provisions of
the “voting rights protection”
bills now being bandied about.
The 6-to-3 conservative Su-
preme Court created by Reid’s
folly a decade ago will strike
them down, just as it will strike
down a number of other laws
in the current or future terms.
Schumer should learn from
Reid and remember: Mess with
the filibuster at your peril.
e
Hugh Hewitt is a contributing columnist
to The Washington Post. He is a political
analyst for NBC, president of the Nixon
Foundation and a professor of law at
Chapman University Law School, where
he has taught constitutional law since
1996.