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.

When you have been a lobbyist for about 40 years, as is the case with me, it is relatively easy to come up with a list of strange stories over those years.

Here is a collection of mine:

Oink-oink: This refers to the strange situation when the legislator at the rostrum in the Oregon House called for a vote with the phrase “all in favor say oink-oink.”

It was a reflection of the fact that the first installment of State of Oregon money to deepen the Columbia River channel (thus allowing deeper-draft, ocean-going ships to ply their way up and down the Columbia) was imbedded in a “pork-barrel” bill.

To get the money, in my role as the Port of Portland chief’s Salem lobbyist, I had to agree to include three different, local projects unrelated to channel deepening. Thus, it became a “pork-barrel bill,” with the request for an “oink-oink” vote.

I was in the third-floor balcony viewing the proceedings on the floor, and with others, couldn’t stop laughing. The good news? The bill cleared the House floor on a 40 to 20 vote and moved over to the Senate where it passed easily, without any “oink-oink” request. The governor signed the bill and, today, the channel is deeper.

Car with Senator Bryant: If you are a state capitol lobbyist in Salem, you often have to work hard to find a few moments to talk with, important legislators. Often, 30 seconds here or there turns out to be the key to success.

So it was that I came into possession of information that Senator Neil Bryant, a Republican from Bend (he has become the best legislator friend I made in my 40-year career), had gone to Washington, D.C. on Oregon Senate business.

Thus, I knew that he would need a ride down to Salem when he landed at PDX. I went to his office, talked with his wife, Mary, who was his legislative assistant, and volunteered to pick him up. She readily agreed.

That meant that I had at least an hour of time with Neil because, as I drove at 70 miles-per-hour toward Salem, he wouldn’t be able to escape the car.

For me, it was time well spent. For Neil, who knows? However, as we have talked about this episode over the years, we both agreed that it was a brilliant strategy!

Betsy Johnson call: I am not sure this can be called a highlight. It may actually be a lowlight. It started when, more than 13 years ago, I experienced what I have to come to call “my episode.” In regular everyday parlance, you can use the term “heart attack.”

This occurred on a Wednesday evening and the good news is that, by Friday, I was well on my way toward recovery, though I did not necessarily have that perspective at the time. I was alert in the hospital, giving thanks that I was still around.

The emergency took me away from lobbying for a couple weeks, so I thought I had a quick chance to pick up a couple of the pieces. So I placed a call to Senator Betsy Johnson, a Democrat from Scappoose, to continue lobbying her on a health care policy issue.

Because she had not seen in person for a few days, she asked where I was. I told her I was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. She couldn’t believe I would take time for a call and, and on several occasions since that call, she has had fun with me – sometimes in public — about taking such action during my recovery.

All I can say is that it was just an indication of solid, sometimes stupid, commitment to my practice!

A political fundraising request for $10K: There is a bright line between political fundraising and policy development at the Capitol, so much so that there is an understanding that requests for money will not be transacted at the Capitol, even in “public areas.”

Several years ago, a legislator who, for this report, will not be named, accosted me in the hallway, asked to sit beside him on a bench outside a hearing room and proceeded to beseech me for $10,000 for his re-election campaign from my firm’s clients.

I made no commitment, suggesting it would be more appropriate for such a request to be made, if it were to be made at all, outside the Capitol.

The result? We did not respond affirmatively to this legislator’s entreaty.

I could recount other stories, but enough for now. Suffice to say that, for me, every day in my lobby career was different, one reason why I liked the gig enough to remain in it for 40 years.