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 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 in Oregon head for Salem soon for the 2019 “long legislative session,” it is a good time to repeat advice I have given earlier – a list of questions elected officials should ask before they move ahead on any individual piece of legislation.

The four questions listed below are ones frequently ignored as legislators consider the thousands of bills introduced every session in Salem.

While not magic answers, asking and answering these questions would produce better government.

So, here they are:

What is the specific problem for which a proposed policy or action is deemed to be the solution?

This question is seldom raised or even discussed. Yet, it should be. Too often, the introduction of a bill is done for just that reason and none other – getting it printed. Legislators then tell constituents they have acted on their behalf. Action, in this case, is just getting a bill printed and that process alone, when you add up totals for thousands of individual bills, costs thousands of dollars of staff time for the attorneys who draft all bills.

Is there an appropriate role for government to play?

This is an even more basic question that tests another often-ignored issue: Whether there is the role of government? Government should not insert itself into every issue. So, the best answer to this question could be “no,” though, of course, “yes” is a justifiable answer, as well. But, the question is rarely asked or answered.

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?

Return on investment often is a foreign concept in the halls of the legislature. But the concept should be considered in the sense of subjecting government programs – old ones and new ones – to a key test: What results do they achieve? If they don’t produce results, they should be discontinued.

In fact, in social services law in Oregon, the first instance of the use of the return on investment notion in private contracting law occurred in the 2011 legislative session when lawmakers passed and the governor signed Senate Bill 964, now ORS 418.190-195.

It requires programs that contract with state government on foster care issues to produce results or lose the contracts.

In terms of full disclosure, I was the prime advocate for the bill on behalf of my firm’s client, Youth Villages, which said on the record that it would be happy to compete for government contracts under the new policy if it were to be enacted.

At the time, I would have hoped that the officials at the Department of Human Services would support the proposition because, if nothing else, it would help end contracts that were not performing effectively. But, no, we were able to pass the proposition only over the objections of the agency.

How will government action affect the private sector, especially individual and corporate taxpayers on whom the state depends to fund government?

This, too, is seldom discussed, at least at the initiative of legislators. Lobbyists for some consumer groups raise the question. So do lobbyists for business. But both often fall on deaf ears. Yet, legislators rely on taxpayers to help keep government afloat.

I like what Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, wrote in a Wall Street Journal piece several years ago.

“We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise.  We have to let them compete.  We need to let people fight for business.  We need to let people take risks.  We need to let people fail.  We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions.  And, we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.

         “That is what economic freedom looks like.  Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or to do nothing.  People understand this.  Freedom of speech, for example, means that we have to put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular.  We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.       

         “But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles or growth and loss, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself.

         “Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedom through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations.  We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it.  We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws.  We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved.  Each time, we demand, “Do something…anything.”

Using good words, Bush was advocating a posture that said government always should assess the effect of its actions on private citizens, often allowing those citizens to rise, not be confined by excessive government regulation.

Asking and answering the questions I have outlined above, with the spirit of the Bush quote as a backdrop, would go a long way toward creating appropriate limitations on the role of government, both in Oregon and nationally.

It also would make government better. So, I say to legislators as they arrive in Salem after the first of the year, ask the right questions and don’t be afraid to answer logically and honestly! Doing so will benefit all of those who depend on government “to get it right.”