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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2019)
A4 OPINION Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, March 13, 2019 Paulus blazed trails in Oregon politics F ormer Secretary of State Norma Paulus was a product of rural Oregon. She exemplifi ed what individuals can do when given a chance — conquering poverty, polio and the lack of a college degree to emerge as one of Oregon’s most infl uential politicians. And Paulus did so during an era in which she typically was “The Only Woman in the Room,” the title of her autobiography. Paulus died Feb. 28, two days after another Republi- can secretary of state, Dennis Richardson. U.S. Rep. Greg Walden and state Sen. Betsy Johnson remarked at Rich- ardson’s recent funeral that Paulus set the standard for her successors, regardless of political affi liation. Both were strong, inde- pendent, transformative lead- ers, said Republican Walden, who represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District. Democrat Johnson added that Paulus and Richard- son placed the needs of Ore- gon ahead of their own polit- ical party. “Norma blazed her own trail and was one tough cookie,” Johnson said. Paulus would have turned 86 on March 13, but hers cer- tainly was a life well-lived. She was the fi rst woman elected to statewide offi ce in Oregon and the last Repub- lican secretary of state until Richardson. Norma Jean Petersen was born during the Depression to a Nebraska farm family who eventually settled near Burns in Eastern Oregon, seeking a better life. But the family’s poverty kept her from attending col- lege after graduating from Burns High School at age 17. Instead, she became a secre- tary for the Harney County district attorney. Then polio struck and she endured weeks of treatment in an iron lung. After recovering, she moved to Salem, where she went to work as a legal secretary for Chief Justice Earl Lato- urette of the Oregon Supreme Court. She so impressed Lato- urette that he urged her to become a lawyer despite not being a college graduate. She studied part-time at the Willa- mette University law school while still working full-time at the Supreme Court and also being married with a young child. Her husband, Bill Paulus, whom she met at law school, eventually bor- rowed money from an uncle so she could quit her job and be a full-time law student. It was a productive invest- ment. In 1962, Norma Paulus graduated from law school with honors. Her marriage to Bill lasted 40 years until his death in 1999. Although Bill Paulus stayed in the back- ground politically, he was a well-regarded lawyer in his own right, known for his work with school districts. A legislator before being elected secretary of state in 1976, Norma Paulus was fearless. She stood up to the followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who tried to rig Wasco County elections by busing in homeless peo- ple to register as voters, and who contaminated salad bars in The Dalles to sicken other voters. Later as the state’s elected superintendent of public instruction, Paulus took on teacher unions and others who questioned her vision for school reform. All the while, she car- ried a deep affection for the vastness of her state, from the coast to the mountains and the rangelands of East- ern Oregon. Everywhere she went, people seemed to know her on a fi rst-name basis. Paulus lost the 1986 elec- tion for governor to Demo- crat Neil Goldschmidt, and the Oregon Republican Party soon moved on from the cen- trist approach she represented – fi scally conservative and socially liberal. As her obituary said, “She leaves a legacy of indepen- dence, fi erce respect for the integrity of democratic insti- tutions and willingness to engage adversaries or even friends in standing up for what she thought right.” Her rural values served all of Oregon. GUEST COMMENT Sunshine your fundamental right By Jim Zachary Valdosta Daily Times For government to be of, by and for the people it must be out in front of the people. The theme for Sunshine Week 2019 is simply, “It’s your right to know.” The reason it’s your right to know is that it’s your government. From the courthouse, to the statehouse to the White House, it is your right to know what gov- ernment is up to. Every deliberation by city council, county commission, state legislature or U.S. Congress is the people’s business. Every penny spent by local, state and federal government is your money. Every document held in the halls of government belongs to you. Transparency is not, or at least should not be, partisan. Access to government meet- ings and public documents should never be arduous or even controversial. Government derives all of its powers from the public and is answerable to the public. It is unfortunate state and fed- eral laws are needed to protect the public’s right to know. Of course, we know those laws are needed and more often than not must be leveraged by people requesting even the most basic information from elected and appointed offi cials. No branch of government should exempt itself from free- dom of informa- tion laws, and no person in govern- Jim Zachary ment should seek to circumvent those laws. Accessing government infor- mation and attending delibera- tive meetings should simply be viewed as democracy in action and not as an adversarial relation- ship between the governing and the governed. Access laws are not media laws. Every person should have free and open access. The right to know is not only an American right, it is funda- mentally right. Government secrecy that goes beyond national security is fun- damentally wrong. So records custodians at city hall, the county courthouse, with the public school system or at the state capitol must not bris- tle when a person asks for pub- lic records. The records request- ors are simply asking for a copy of what belongs to them already. Records requestors should not create an unnecessarily hos- tile relationship when making requests. A records request and fulfi ll- ment should be a basic, and ordi- nary, transaction between gov- ernment and the public it serves. City council, county commis- sion, the board of education, the state legislature and its commit- tees should not balk at the pub- lic’s right to attend meetings and should not look for every excuse to retreat into an exec- utive session or closed door meeting. Attending meetings, sitting in on deliberations, understand- ing not only what decisions are reached but how those decisions are reached are all things which are simply basic American rights, fundamental to living in an open and free society. In our politically charged, polarized, vitriolic climate there is very little conservatives and progressives can agree on. The public’s right to know is one thing that everyone, both in and out of government, both left and right leaning, and at the local, state and federal levels, should agree on. We are the government. The government is us. It is, therefore, everyone’s fun- damental right to know what gov- ernment is, and is not, doing. Jim Zachary is CNHI’s dep- uty national editor, regional editor for its Georgia, Florida, Missis- sippi, Alabama and Texas news- papers and editor of The Valdosta (Georgia) Daily Times. He is the vice-president of and FOI trainer for the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. He can be reached at jzachary@cnhi.com. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR More facts about vaccines To the Editor: I would like to add a few facts to the letter “Maybe everyone should rethink vaccines.” Fact: More than 684,000 adverse events following vacci- nation, including hospitalizations, injuries and deaths, have been reported to the federal government since 1990. This number is esti- mated to represent less than 1 per- cent of all vaccine adverse events that have actually occurred. Fact: The U.S. government now recommends that children receive 58 doses of 13 vaccines, with 41 doses given by the age of 6. Fact: Vaccine policy and man- dates have helped to create a global vaccine market now pro- jected to bring a staggering $57 billion dollars to drug companies by 2025. One of the most politically powerful public-private part- nerships in the world today is the lucrative one that has been forged by the pharmaceutical industry with government, main- stream media and wealthy philan- thropic foundations with political agendas. These facts go a long way in explaining why mainstream media outlets have been united in attacking parents and physicians who defend the ethical principal of informed consent, including informed consent to vaccination, and are calling for vaccine exemp- tions to be severely restricted or eliminated. The responsibility for the cri- sis of trust in the global vaccina- tion system lies with those who operate the system and refuse to acknowledge the suffering of the people harmed by vaccines. Sheila Swaja Mt. Vernon L ETTERS POLICY: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues. Brevity is good, but longer letters will be asked to be contained to 350 words. No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person. No thank-you letters. Submissions to this page become property of the Eagle. The Eagle reserves the right to edit letters for length and for content. Letters must be original and signed by the writer. Anonymous letters will not be printed. Writers should include a telephone number so they can be reached for questions. We must limit all contributors to one letter per person per month. Deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. Send letters to editor@bmeagle.com, or Blue Mountain Eagle, 195 N. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845; or fax to 541-575-1244. 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