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 use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as 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.

There is a huge question facing the business community after it banded together as never before to kill Ballot Measure 97 by a wide margin, 58 to 41 per cent. That question is in the form of two parts:

1. Should the business community head to Salem quickly to offer potential compromise solutions to political leaders in Salem, all of whom are Democrats – Governor Kate Brown, House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate President Peter Courtney, not to mention the Republican leaders, Representative Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, and Senator Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day? [Note: Two of them, Brown and Kotek, endorsed Measure 97.]

Or:

2. Should the business community hold its own counsels in private about possible revenue issues for the State of Oregon, revenue issues that might be acceptable to the business community if those issues were part of a larger, bi-partisan plan? This assumes the business community would avoid heading to Salem until or unless the Democrat leaders ask for help.

According to multiple sources in and around the Capitol, a wild card in all of this is the large underfunding problem in the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS). The business community believes that solving the PERS problem should be part of the plan, but that might be difficult for Democrat leaders, given public employee union support for PERS, even though anyone involved in budget-making in Salem has to reckon with PERS.

My vote is for #2 above. The rationale:

• The business community coalesced in a way not seen recently in Oregon to kill Measure 97. It raised nearly $30 million to do the deed because the governor and legislative leaders were not able to craft a compromise proposal that would pass muster at the legislature and/or with voters. Nor were the leaders able to convince public employee unions to stand down from offering a poorly-drafted and poorly-conceived measure.

• This is not the time to cash in the influence of the coalition quickly in favor of some kind of alternative.

• Let the leading Democrats in Salem come to the business community to ask for help to craft a compromise measure that will help the state fund important priorities – K-12 education, higher education, cops and prisons, and health care…plus the elephant in the room, the PERS problem.

• Instead of heading off to Salem, business representatives should meet behind closed doors to discuss whether there are tax alternatives, which could be advocated, and be prepared to advocate for those alternatives if there is a compromise process.

• Waiting is a better strategy at the moment because public employee unions, which lost the Measure 97 battle, already are advocating a major, new tax measure at the Capitol, one that even goes beyond Measure 97. If the D leaders respond to that kind of one-sided proposal, it will only mean another damaging campaign at the polls.

• Plus, it is important for the business community not to isolate Republican leaders in Salem who stuck with business in the Measure 97 campaign. Those leaders should be involved in any attempt to craft a solution.

The new legislature in Salem won’t be gathering at the Capitol until early January, then will begin meeting in earnest in February.

For the leaders, it is not too early to be mapping a strategy to do the tough work in the session, which is to balance the budget in a bi-partisan fashion. That will be a major test of legislative success in 2017.

And a footnote:  By position, the only political leader with the moxie to bring disparate interests together is Governor Kate Brown.  Her background in the legislature, where she dealt with business leaders, put her in a good position now to ask for help…if the “ask” involves all interests with something at stake.  So far, she has not taken up the challenge, but there is still time.