PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19TH 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, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), 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.
As lawmakers trek to Salem for their “short annual legislative session,” the time is right to emphasize again questions legislators should ask as they contemplate adding to Oregon laws.
Before listing those questions, let me deal quickly with the subject of annual sessions.
It used to be that Oregon’s Constitution limited sessions to every-other-year – the odd year. That changed several years ago when, led by Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, legislators proposed and voters approved a move to annual sessions.
Some of us involved as lobbyists worried that annual sessions could be the first step down a slippery slope to a professional legislature, one that operated much like Congress. But Courtney and others sold the idea as a way for legislators to move farther toward being equal with the Legislative Branch.
He also said the short session – it lasts only for a month – would deal with housekeeping measures, emergencies and other smaller-gauge issues that could not wait until the regular odd-year sessions. It would not be a session devoted to major policy proposals.
Well, here is how Courtney’s counterpart in the Senate, Senator Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, put it last week in a news release that got statewide play:
“As I recall, Oregonians were sold on the idea of annual meetings with the promise that the “short” session would focus on balancing the budget, making small legislative “fixes,” often referred to as “housekeeping measures,” and responding to emergencies that need immediate attention from the Legislature.
“I’m sorry to report that the “short session” has become little more than a setting for the majority party to pursue an over-reaching agenda of tax increases, regulation, and ideological issues dear to the progressives who rule Portland and to a great extent, the rest of Oregon.”
As examples of over-reaching proposals, Ferrioli listed a minimum wage increase, a “cap and trade” energy mandate that he said would raise energy costs for businesses and families, and a mandate for affordable housing that would force construction contractors to build a certain amount of below-cost housing units for people of limited means, to be paid for by higher costs passed on to more traditional home buyers.
Indeed, all of those proposals have been talked about as legislators get ready for their sojourn in Salem.
As they arrive, I believe they should be prepared to ask at least four questions in relation to each legislative proposal, however big or small it is.
- What is the problem for which a proposed policy or action is deemed to be the solution? This question is seldom raised or discussed.
- Is there an appropriate role for government to play? The answer, if the question is even raised, is rarely no.
- If there is, what does the state expect to get for the money it is spending — in other words, what is the expected return on investment? This is an apparently foreign concept.
- How will state government action affect the private sector, especially individual and corporate taxpayers on whom the state depends for money to fund its operations? This is seldom discussed, unless raised by those lobbying for Oregon businesses.
If legislators would ask and answer these questions with a constructively critical eye, we’d have a better legislature and better results.
Perspective from the 19th Hole 