PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The start of any new year is a good time to look ahead to new challenges on the public policy horizon.

Hill.com posted several for the Obama Administration and Congress this week, including the top priority to deal with ISIS-inspired terrorism. So this blog will turn to Oregon rather than focus on national issues.

 

FINDING THE RIGHT LEADERS IN 2016 ELECTIONS

As someone who has been involved and followed politics for more than 40 years in Oregon, 2016 would be a good time to elect leaders on both sides of the aisle who have the ability to find middle ground on pressing public policy problems. That’s where the best solutions lie anyway.

Too often, those of us who vote choose candidates who mimic our views or appeal to our worst instincts in politics – the fight, the battle, the name calling instead of the commitment to solutions. Now is the time to find different kinds of leaders.

 

BRINGING EFFECTIVENESS TO STATE AGENCY OPERATIONS

Current Governor Kate Brown has her hands full with problems in three state agencies – the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Energy Department (DOE) and the Department of Transportation (ODOT).

The latter, ODOT, is the least contentious of the three, in part because the administration there, whether you agree with every decision or not, has its act together. The worst of the agency offenders is DHS which has come under fire for failing to monitor contracted providers effectively, thus causing harm to children, especially children who need residential care.

DOE has made headlines threatening its very existence by fouling up state energy tax credit programs.

A test of the governor in the next weeks will revolve around whether she can get a handle on the DHS problems and inject a new level of credibility in the agency. Her chief operative in this challenge is Clyde Saiki, a long-time state government manager who has distinguished himself in several previous roles. He left his new gig as head of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) to take over temporarily at DHS, though he hopes to return to DAS where he serves essentially as chief operating officer for state government.

If the governor cannot get a handle on DHS issues, the failure could affect her election bid, though, at the moment, the run is hers’ to lose as she campaigns for her own four-year term in the state’s top political job.

 

FINDING WAYS TO BOOST RURAL OREGON

House Republican leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, made headlines recently when he told the Economic Summit meeting that rural Oregon is in crisis.

Targeting his remarks at Portland-area business and political leaders at the Oregon Convention Center, McLane asked: “Are you concerned about rural Oregon or do you believe we’re in crisis? Because that’s different… If it’s a crisis we have a rich history in Oregon of coming together and solving it.”

McLane was right to point out an important issue for all of Oregon’s leaders, including the Democrats who hail from urban Oregon.

When I was deputy director at the Oregon Economic Development Department, all of us there were concerned about the “two Oregons” – urban areas where economic development was possible and rural areas where it often was not.

My hope is that leaders will heed McLane’s admonition to focus on rural Oregon – or at least not to ignore it based on priorities from Portland and Eugene.

 

IMPROVING GOVERNMENT CREDIBILITY

That title may sound like an oxymoron to those who have watched Oregon state government take its lumps over the last year. Four-time governor John Kitzhaber’s fall from grace gained national publicity as he sacrificed a recently-won fourth term in the governor’s office.

Many observers felt he was tone-deaf by letting his live-in “First Lady,” Cylvia Hayes, work as an unofficial state government employee while using her status to win private lobbying contracts, which displayed an incredible – and, I guess, still alleged — lack of regard for the state’s ethical laws.

On that front, the actions by Kitzhaber and Hayes sparked a commitment to review Oregon’s public records law (ORS 192.500), long held as a statutory commitment to make most records public. And, to put a point on it, did this law apply to e-mail communications. A group of state leaders and private sector representatives (including an official from the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, a client of the firm where I worked as a lobbyist for 25 years, CFM Strategic Communications) is working to bring the public records law into the 21^st century.

The work of this group, plus the overall commitments of state elected officials, will go at least part of the way toward restoring public trust in government, though it should be said that there is a long way to go – and individual actions by government officials always have an effect on whether trust can be built, or if built, retained.

 

DO “JOBS” MATTER?

The word “jobs” is in quotes because, by it, I mean jobs as a political issue.

It has been surprising to me that few politicians run anymore on the idea of helping the private sector create jobs – jobs that pay salaries to individuals who, in turn, pay taxes and keep government funded, including in what often is the top priority, K-12 education.

Public employee unions are resorting again to singling out corporations in Oregon as the enemy by proposing a measure at the polls next November to increase taxes. Corporate leaders have said that, if the measure passes, some of them will take their business elsewhere.

Even a leading Democrat, Senator Peter Courtney, D-Salem, told business leaders that the union-inspired measure would spark a huge fight at the polls, one he compared to the Civil War and the ghastly deaths at the Battle of Intietam.

Overstatement? Probably because that is a stock in trade for Courtney. But his message also is worth considering. He worries about the battle and what comes of it for Oregon.

So do I! As a veteran state lobbyist, my fondest wish in the New Year would be for competing interests to find a way to sit down at a table – make it a round one – and hash out solutions, including on tax policy, that are the best for all of Oregon.