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.

Despite the best efforts of certain legislative leaders — Senator Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, for example — lawmakers in Salem have not found the key to new tax policy.

Time is short.

By language in Oregon’s Constitution, legislators must adjourn their regular session by July 10 at the latest, a deadline which does not leave much room to craft the political compromise to allow new taxes – presumably with some spending cuts – to be adopted.

The Oregon Education Association (OEA) added to the difficulty last week when it filed an initiative that, if approved, would ask voters to raise corporate taxes.

Never mind that legislators are at work in Salem trying to craft a compromise.

Never mind that, last fall, voters turned down what the Oregonian newspaper called “the mammoth Measure 97” – and it fell by a huge margin.

I have no idea what political calculus drove the OEA to head to the ballot at this time. It would have been smarter for the union to have waited until the end of the legislative session and, if an agreement was not reached, then head to the ballot.

But, no surprise here. The OEA does not consult with me to frame its political agenda.

The OEA’s proposed initiative could raise as much as $1.75 billion annually for K-12 and higher education through a corporate tax that would be assessed based on companies’ sales.

The teachers union is also filing a second initiative that would make it easier for the Legislature to raise corporate taxes to pay for education. To pay for education in some circumstances, the OEA proposes to remove the current requirement for a three-fifths super-majority in the Legislature to increase taxes.

“Parents and students are fed up with having the third largest class sizes in the nation,” Hanna Vandering, president of the Oregon Education Association said in a press release that was quoted in the Oregonian. “Having strong public schools is an Oregon value, but you would never know by looking at the Oregon legislature. These ballot measures seek to put the power back in the hands of the people, not the powerful business lobbyists that control Salem.”

Also, according to the Oregonian: “The union is among the financial supporters of Our Oregon, the political nonprofit behind Measure 97. That initiative would have raised more than $3 billion annually, but it went down to defeat in November after a bruising campaign that was the costliest ballot battle in Oregon history.”

Meanwhile, the Joint Ways and Means Committee (it writes the overall State of Oregon budget) approved and sent to the floors of both houses an $8.2 billion K-12 budget proposal for 2017-19. That sparked the usual “it’s not enough” howls from the OEA and other self-styled advocates for K-12 education.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Senator Hass said last week. “We have a choice to do nothing because it is too hard. We have a choice to do some tried and true short-term changes, tax increases. And third, we have a choice to reform our system that will add a measure of stability and reform I think is the key.”

Hass is right about the crossroads. There are only a few weeks left in this regular legislative session, which has prompted some to speculate that a special session in late summer or early is in the offing.

What’s happening here is what has been happening in the last few years in Oregon – a deadlock over state spending and taxes, which illustrates that legislators cannot find middle ground.

Too bad, because middle ground is where the best policy solutions lie.