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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2022)
A8 The BulleTin • Thursday, January 13, 2022 EDITORIALS & OPINIONS AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER Heidi Wright Gerry O’Brien Richard Coe Publisher Editor Editorial Page Editor What’s the right price for public records? A police bodycam recording, emails between politicians or data about COVID-19 cases can tell a story that Oregonians want to know and some in government contrive to hide. Oregon’s public records laws are strong on paper. But there are many examples where government bod- ies seek to delay or outright deny requests. And sometimes the fees charged for the records can be prohib- itively pricey. Charge enough and it’s just the same as any denial. Examples drive that home. A Bulle- tin reporter made a public records re- quest from the organization that over- sees this region’s bus system, the Cen- tral Oregon Intergovernmental Coun- cil. The reporter sought the complaints filed from disabled and low-income riders. After more than a year of wait- ing, the reporter got the documents in 2016. The complaints were indeed few compared to the volume of rides pro- vided, though some complaints were serious. Passengers said drivers were putting them in danger. In another example, in 2018, when iPads were still relatively new in the Bend-La Pine Schools, a Bulletin re- porter asked for a list and the price of apps and textbooks purchased for stu- dent iPads. The district said the price would be $2,000 because of the staff time to collect it and the cost of a law- yer to go through and redact anything necessary. The district did lower the price to $1,000, but that was still too high a cost. Those are relatively extreme ex- amples from a few years ago. COIC made changes to its public record policy. And at least when The Bulle- tin’s editorial board requests infor- mation from the school district, the response is swift and reasonable. Fees charged, though, continue to be an issue for journalists, the public and governments. Oregon’s Public Records Advisory Council is looking for solutions. The council is a state body whose power comes from its ability to study and make recommendations. It’s up to leg- islators to weigh the recommendations and make any changes in the law. The council has heard from jour- nalists. It knows complying with some requests are a burden for government agencies. And there are companies who make vast requests for public documents and turn around and sell the information. How should state policies be written to handle that? The council reviewed last week a proposal to have the Legislature’s Policy and Research Office look into how other states handle such matters. What are the fees charged? How are the fees determined? Does the public get charged for legal fees for review and redaction? Then there is the matter of fee waiv- ers. In Oregon, journalists frequently request a fee waiver, arguing that what they are doing is in the public interest. Sometimes public bodies then waive the fees or reduce them. How is it done in other states? All that information could be useful. The more difficult question to answer will be what options work best. Jour- nalists may see it one way. Other mem- bers of the public another. And govern- ment agencies a third. Making high school football a fair fight F riday night. High school foot- ball. The band. The cheerleaders. The crowd. It can still be quite the event, even if the pandemic and chronic traumatic encephalopathy have clouded those Friday night lights. So when the Oregon School Activ- ities Association’s Football Ad Hoc Committee proposes changes, it’s worth looking at what they have in mind. We read in The Oregonian the committee is considering a policy to make football teams playing down a classification to be ineligible for post- season play. Teams are allowed to play down a classification if they have been losing, a lot. They are allowed to play down if they had an in-class winning per- centage for 22% or less over the previ- ous two years. But what about when a team that plays down keeps winning or making it to the championship? Is that fair? We don’t pretend to know the right way to solve this problem. If you want, you can contact the OSAA and tell it what you think. The website is osaa.org. 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. A possible Snake River dams solution BY JIM GREER T he question of “should the lower four Snake River dams be removed to save salmon?” seems never-ending, while a poten- tial solution is now within reach. With the many stakeholders, such as power utilities and conservation groups, dug in with opposing posi- tions siding with either “the dams should stay” or “the dams must go”, one could conclude there is no possi- ble resolution. For over three decades the pop- ulations of Snake River salmon and steelhead have plummeted to levels nearing extinction. Billions of dol- lars have been spent on fish ladders, water release programs, habitat res- toration, removal of road culverts and other stream blockages, killing of predators like cormorants, sea li- ons and smolt-eating pikeminnows. Hatcheries have been built to raise and replace the wild steelhead and salmon for human harvest, but the protected wild component of these fisheries is still at all-time lows. Lawsuits and judges are drawn into the fray to determine if plans developed by agencies are adequate for recovery of the salmon and steel- head. Invariably the plans have been found to be insufficient. The scien- tists found smolt mortality is more than 20% at each lower Snake River dam as they migrate downstream. The surviving fish must then nego- tiate the remaining four Columbia River Dams and reservoirs. Ocean conditions and climate change have also added their impacts to the equa- tion in recent years. GUEST COLUMN So, whose ox is being gored? Be- sides the fish, the biggest losers are the Native American tribes that cul- turally, spiritually and for sustenance have depended on salmon for thou- sands of years. Sport and commercial fisherman and the communities and businesses associated with these ac- tivities are huge economic losers. Utilities make the case that the lower four dams provide reliable, and carbon free electricity, while fearing the wrath of their customers if electric rates were to rise. At the same time new clean energy tech- nologies and conservation programs are expanding quickly and adding replacement power to the electrical grid. The state’s scientists say that re- moving these dams will give the fish a long-term fighting chance. Their data show no matter what has been done to date, the wild fish populations continue to decline. Conservation groups make the case for salmon recovery, increas- ing biodiversity, and adding jobs and economic gains through new recreational opportunities. With the dam removal option, irrigators, grain growers, barging companies and others dependent on the dams fear lost livelihoods. Many politi- cians appear to see the challenge of consensus too high of a mountain to climb. Tribes remind everyone of what the United States promised to them in treaties and agreements made long ago. So yes, saving salmon is a highly complex problem. However, there is a proposal on the table today that addresses most all of the concerns. U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, a Repub- lican from Idaho, has put forward a draft plan he calls The Columbia Basin Initiative. He has a big pic- ture view of the future of wild Snake River salmon and steelhead and where they are headed and the costs and impacts to those affected by dam removal. He and his staff have done extensive reviews of the science and past mitigation actions and have concluded dam removal is the only option for success. The Initiative addresses all aspects of the contro- versy, how issues will be addressed, and the federal dollars used to cover the costs. Simpson notes that sev- eral congressional representatives and senators from the four states involved (Montana, Idaho, Wash- ington and Oregon) sit in powerful committee positions, which makes now the time to move forward. We need support from all of our con- gressional representatives as time is running out for these iconic fish species. I encourage you to look at Rep. Simpson’s initiative at the Colum- bia Basin Initiative and contact fed- eral senators and representatives to get their support and ask your friends across the four states to do the same. Jim Greer lives in Sisters. He is a former director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the former chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. e 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 phone number and address for verifica- tion. We edit letters for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. We reject poetry, personal attacks, form letters, letters sub- mitted elsewhere and those appropriate for other sections of The Bulletin. Writers are limited to one letter or guest column every 30 days. your submissions should be between 550 and 650 words and 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 columnists and commentaries. Writers are limited 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 What if Democrats lose and Republicans become a majority party? BY MEGAN MCARDLE The Washington Post W ASHINGTON — What happens if Democrats lose in 2024? I don’t mean “What if Republi- can-controlled legislatures override the results of the presidential elec- tion?” or even a less noxious “What if a Republican wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote?” I mean, what if Democrats just . . . lose? The question is admittedly specu- lative, but it’s not as far-fetched as my left-leaning readers might imagine. They ought to start imagining it, how- ever, because the more the left as- sumes it can’t happen, the more likely it becomes. Democrats have gotten out of the habit of thinking of the Republican Party as a normal opposition that sometimes beats them by the sim- ple expedient of winning more votes. Even before Jan. 6, they often saw Re- publican victories as a bit of a cheat, the product of voter suppression, ger- rymandering and the bad luck of a Constitution that grants outsize influ- ence to low-population states. Demo- crats push election reforms so aggres- sively because they believe their cause is right. But it’s also true that they tend to assume that any accessible, fair and honest system will give the majority of votes to Democrats. It’s understandable that they’d think so, since our current system gives such outsize influence to low-popula- tion states where Republicans outper- form. And frankly, often, Republicans act like losers who can’t win elections fairly — the brazen gerrymanders, the craven coddling of Donald Trump’s “stop the steal” twaddle. Yet the belief in an “emerging Dem- ocratic majority” predates any Trum- pian alarm bells. It goes back to a 2002 book by John Judis and Ruy Teix- eira that outlined how demographic change could give Democrats a dura- ble advantage. Over time, the left ele- vated the authors’ modest hypothesis into a prophecy; in 2016, one heard repeated suggestions that Republicans might never win another presidential election. That belief helped shift left-wing politics further leftward — less need to worry about wooing moderates when you can instead just turn out your growing base. Yet that leftward shift alienated a chunk of white work- ing-class voters whom Judis and Teix- eira had counted on keeping in the Democratic camp. Now, Teixeira is warning that Democrats risk losing many Hispanic and Asian voters, too. Those are demographics they can’t afford even to win much less deci- sively. Election analyst Sean Trende recently told me that, all else equal, if Trump had won roughly half of His- panics in 2020, he would have won the popular vote. In reality, Trump got only about a third of them. But that was up from around 28% in 2016 — and now, a recent Wall Street Journal poll shows Hispanic voters evenly split between the parties. Democrats haven’t slipped as far with Asian voters, but Teixeira documents troubling signs for the party in New York’s mayoral race and Virginia’s gubernatorial election. One can imagine Republicans building a working majority by pick- ing up larger minorities of Hispanic and Asian voters, while winning back some educated white voters an- gry about school closures or worried about crime. That’s a possibility the left needs to prepare for. A left that understood it could lose, outright, would still care about elec- tion integrity. But it would also try to stem recent losses by shifting focus away from the divisive issues that ex- cite young progressives, and toward bread-and-butter policies that are broadly popular. That left would also make some contingency plans in case everyone does their best, and Repub- licans win anyway. For example, the left has increas- ingly defined itself as a coalition of progressives and people of color against reactionary whites. Would that be a viable organizing principle in a world where Republicans win a siz- able percentage of non-white votes? Beyond that, what sort of politi- cal positions should the left adopt, if Republicans start to outpoll them? The belief in a frustrated Democratic majority has made the left increas- ingly critical of the anti-majoritar- ian features of American democracy. How well will those criticisms read if Democrats take their turn as the party that can’t quite win a popular major- ity? Might their future selves come to appreciate the filibuster, celebrate the electoral college or regret their en- dorsement of various court-packing schemes? Of course, conservatives should engage in similar introspection. If Re- publicans expected to win more elec- tions, what would they say about the filibuster, or America’s growing pref- erence for running all important de- cisions through the Supreme Court? For that matter, how would a party swelling with Hispanic and Asian vot- ers position itself on immigration? And if Republicans can assemble a majority of the vote, won’t they want Democrats to accept the legitimacy of that vote? If so, shouldn’t they set a good example now? As this suggests, there are upsides even for Democrats in the prospect of a few substantial Republican victories: Nothing is more likely to resign Re- publicans to the need to respect elec- tion integrity. Still, Democrats would probably rather arrive at that point having fought hard, and prepared themselves, rather than having spent their time fiddling with the rules and working the media refs while Republi- cans scooped up their voters. e Megan McArdle is a columnist for The Washington Post.
