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.

A letter writer to the Oregonian over the weekend got answer right to the question posted in the headline.

The short session, the writer said, should be for “adjusting budgets due to up or downturns in revenue, for fixing non-conforming statutes that are in conflict with state or federal law, and addressing any immediate public safety threats.”

From me, ditto.

The letter writer went on: “The short annual session is not for large, partisan, complicated policy, statutory or constitutional changes. Unfortunately, the latter is exactly what is happening in the Oregon Legislature today. Regardless of their merits or demerits, cap and trade, taxing repatriated investments, making health care a constitutional right and other contentious concepts are complex issues. They are simply too complex and far-reaching to be heard, passed and sent to the governor during a short session.”

Again, ditto from me.

A couple years ago, Senator Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, then Senate Minority Leader, put it this way:

“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.”

The main advocate of short sessions, Senator Peter Courtney, D-Salem, no doubt would offer a different view. He campaigned for the short-session change in Oregon’s Constitution as a way to help put legislators on a more even footing with the Executive Branch.

I don’t know if Senator Courtney likes the way short sessions are going, but I hope he will lead the legislature to tighten the agenda.

Dealing with the large, complicated issues over a 35-day session is tough. There simply is not enough time to rush complicated matters through to final votes. The time for such matters is the odd-numbered, year-long session when legislators are in Salem for about six months.

The prospect of all of this prompted me, as a long-time state lobbyist, to vote against the annual session proposal when it was on the ballot. Without trying to say that I am prescient, I thought I knew that, before long, short sessions would take on a life of their own. At the extreme, annual sessions could make the Oregon Legislature like Congress, which is not, at least these days, a laudable goal.

Further, there is just not time, or perhaps even the inclination, for legislators to ask a basic set of questions that should precede any action on individual bills.

I have written about these before, but here they are again:

1.  What is the problem for which a proposed policy or action is deemed to be the solution? This question is seldom raised or discussed.
2.  Is there an appropriate role for government to play? The answer, if the question is even raised, is rarely no.
3.  If there is a role for government, 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.
4.  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 were to ask and answer these questions with a constructively critical eye, we’d have a better legislature and better results.

And, we also might see a return to the basic concept of a short legislative session – time in Salem to handle small, but important, issues that cannot wait until the odd-numbered year.