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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

As all of who like sports watch athletic conferences around the country smolder into something we don’t recognize, it is hard to know what to say, if anything.

So much has been written that I am cautious about adding my own words to the debate, which has watched the Pac 12 conference dwindle down to four schools – Oregon State University, Washington State University, Stanford, and the University of California.

Do I care?

I am not sure because, as with many things these days, it’s all about the money.  And there’s nothing I can do about that.

The University of Oregon and the University of Washington bolted from the Pac 12 to the Big 10…or how many is it above 10?  Several other Pac 12 schools bolted for the Big 12.

The best way for me to make my views known, if anyone cares, is to reprint a column by my favorite sports journalist going – John Feinstein.  As always, he gets right to the point and does so using solid words, as well as skewering the notion that what athletic administrators are doing “is for the student athletes.”

Here is his most recent column.

**********

It’s not even a huge story anymore:  Big-time college programs switch conferences nowadays the way most of us change our socks.  It happened so much in the past week that it became hard to keep track of who was on the move and where they were moving.

Let’s recap:  Oregon and Washington are abandoning the Pac-12 (10? 9? 6? 4?) to join the Big Ten.  Once that conference recruits two more teams, which it will no doubt do in the not-too-distant future, it can call itself “the Big Ten Twice,” which will at least be accurate.

Meanwhile, Colorado and football coach Deion Sanders also left the Pac-?? to move to the Big 12, and were followed soon after by Arizona, Arizona State and Utah, meaning the Big 12 — which has had 10 teams recently — now has 16 teams, since it lost Texas and Oklahoma, but is bringing in Brigham Young, UCF, Houston and Cincinnati to replace them.

Most of these moves will actually take place a year from now.  But there is, undoubtedly, more to come.  If it is to stay alive, the Pac-?? will have to go on a desperate raiding and pillaging tour of its own.  It could target schools such as San Diego State in the Mountain West — which was close to joining the league earlier this summer — along with other Mountain West schools such as Boise State, Fresno State and Air Force.  The league might also go after schools from the newly restructured American Athletic Conference such as SMU, Tulane, and Rice.

Or, it might just fold, after being in business in some form since 1915, and let its remaining members grab financial life rafts wherever they can find them.  Stanford and California are already flirting with the ACC, but who knows what will happen to that conference if Florida State leaves — entirely possible — and Clemson follows. ‘

That would leave the ACC with a bunch of mediocre football schools, courtesy of former commissioner John Swofford, who thought raiding the Big East for Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami would somehow change the culture of the ACC.

It did exactly that:  Transforming the most iconic basketball conference in history into just another league, while creating a bloated football conference that loves to brag about how many of its teams reach second-tier bowls every year.

Swofford also made a remarkably one-sided deal with Notre Dame, giving the school full privileges in every sport except the one that mattered:  Football.  The Irish play five conference games a year — meaning they play Clemson and Florida State once every three years — and don’t have to play in the conference championship game when they’re good.

To quote then-men’s basketball coach Mike Brey at the time of the deal, “I’m not sure why Swofford would make that deal unless we agree to bring the gold helmets full time.”

Now, Jim Phillips, Swofford’s successor, may have to fight for the ACC’s survival.

The funniest — and most annoying — thing about all the announcements from school presidents, athletic directors and conferences were the constant references to “student-athletes.”  Let’s put aside my argument that the term is the single most hypocritical (not to mention redundant) phrase in all of sports.  My question is this:  Who do these guys think they’re fooling at this point?

No one — no one — thinks any of these moves are about anything but money.  There’s nothing wrong with following the money in today’s world, but let’s not turn this into a stand-up act by claiming it’s “for the student-athletes.”

The Pac-12 fell apart last week when the best TV deal commissioner George Kliavkoff could come up with was with Apple Sports.  The money wasn’t awful — about $25 million a year per school, with escalators based on subscriptions, according to the AP — but the lack of exposure was a huge hindrance.  There was no guarantee in the deal to get the Pac-12 games onto more traditional networks, and the conference, already hurting in recruiting in recent years, would undoubtedly lose much-needed exposure.

When Kliavkoff presented the potential deal to the conference membership, the schools began scrambling like the proverbial rats deserting a fast-sinking ship.  All in the name of their “student-athletes,” of course.

The college football season begins in two weeks, with the NCAA’s euphemistic “Week Zero” a way to try to hide just how long the season has become.  By then, it is entirely possible there will be more change.  No one knows exactly how the four remaining Pac-?? teams will react:  Recruit or run?

There’s no doubt that the SEC, which has been quiet since Texas and Oklahoma agreed to join the league two years ago, is going to jump back into the re-alignment pool at some point soon.  Florida State and Clemson, as football powers, would make sense, although Florida would certainly balk at FSU joining the league and sharing in its TV package.

Those two schools will probably make a move for the door, because the ACC television money isn’t close to that enjoyed by the SEC or the Big Ten. For better or worse — mostly worse — the ACC is locked into its contract with ESPN through 2036.  The better is that the deal can’t get worse; the worse is that it can’t get better.

As someone old enough to remember when the Southwest Conference champion hosted the Cotton Bowl every year and Indiana represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl — “Punt, John, Punt!” — I’ve reached the point in which it really doesn’t matter who plays in what conference.

The presidents are going to chase the money until it runs out — which will probably be never.  What happens to the non-revenue “student-athletes” who do not travel by charter is a question that will have to be answered later.

Don’t expect to see Maryland and UCLA playing soccer or Rutgers and USC playing volleyball on a regular basis.  How about a Penn State-Oregon dual meet in swimming?  Ever try to get from State College to Eugene on a commercial flight in January?

The money justifies anything and everything.

I see one ray of hope.  The Ivy League will never change.

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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The Wall Street Journal showed up the other day with a column I imagine was designed to impress someone like me – a person who loves words.

Better than charts, graphs, or numbers.  Even photos.  Give me words and I’ll be satisfied.

The Journal’s word:  “Still.” 

Columnist Carlos Lozada said President Joseph Biden uses the word all the time to send an important message:  The United States still has the potential to outlive the bad news of one Donald Trump.

Here, according to Lozada, is the bottom line of the Biden message: 

“This is a Biden line — a single word, really — that also stands out, and it comes up whenever this president reflects on that American soul, on what the country is and what it might become.  It is still.”

More from Lozada:

“Presidents are forever linked to their most memorable lines or slogans, phrases that become inseparable from their passage through history.  Ronald Reagan proclaimed morning in America.  Barack Obama promised America hope and change.  Donald Trump pledged to make America great again.

“Our leaders also utter words they might rather take back — say, about lip-reading (George Herbert Walker Bush) or the meaning of “is” (Bill Clinton) — but their go-to lines can capture their message, signal their attitude, and even portray their worldview.”

Biden, Lozada writes, has long settled on his preferred pitch.  

“We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation,” he wrote in 2017, after the darkness of Charlottesville.

“Biden highlighted the battle for that soul again in his 2020 and 2024 campaign announcements and has revisited it in multiple speeches.  It is ominous and a bit vague — John Anzalone, Biden’s 2020 pollster, complained during that race that no one knows what ‘soul of America’ means and that the line ‘doesn’t move the needle.’”  

But it does provide the rationale for Biden’s candidacy and presidency.  Under Trump, Biden contends, America was becoming something other than itself.

Examples of Biden’s use of the word “still:”

• “We have to show the world America is still a beacon of light,” Biden wrote in a post-Charlottesville essay.
• “We have to prove democracy still works — that our government still works, and we can deliver for our people,” he said in a speech to a joint session of Congress in April 2021.
• “We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities,” the president said in a speech in September at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where he asserted that the foundations of the Republic were under assault by MAGA forces. “We are still, at our core, a democracy.”

There is an implicit assumption in Biden’s use of the word “still.”  It is his belief that many Americans no longer believe in the nation’s professed virtues or trust that they will last much longer, and that we must be persuaded of either their value or their endurance.

These are the persons – the disaffected and irritated – who are the exact political stratum to which Trump appeals.

Lozada:  “To say that America is a democracy is to issue a statement of belief.  To say that we are still a democracy is to engage in an argument, to acknowledge — and push back against — mounting concerns to the contrary.”

The contrast between Biden saying America is still a democracy and Trump vowing to make it great again is more than a quirk of speechwriting, Lozada contends.

“What presidents say — especially what they grow comfortable repeating — can reveal their underlying beliefs and basic impulses, shaping their administrations in ways that are concrete, not just rhetorical.

“Biden’s ‘still’ stresses durability; Trump’s ‘again’ revels in discontinuity. ‘Still’ is about holding on to something good that may be slipping away; ‘again’ is about bringing back something better that was wrested away.

“Biden’s use of ‘still’ is both soothing and alarming.  It connotes permanence but warns of fragility.  The message of ‘still’ is that we remain who we are, but that this condition is not immutable, that America as Biden envisions it exists somewhere between reality and possibility. 

“‘If we do our duty in 2022 and beyond,’ Biden said ahead of the mid-term elections last year, ‘then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith.  We preserved democracy.  We heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels.  And we proved that for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world.”

So, in all of this, I am “still” in Biden’s camp.  I will never support Trump “again.”

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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Last Sunday was a day of contrasts for me.

On one hand, I attended church with my wife here in Salem, Oregon and was able to see a spirited, welcome scene – refugees from Africa performing on the church platform, wearing colorful native garb and singing to the Lord – their Lord and my Lord.

On the other hand, I came home to an e-mail challenging me and others to come out against “immigration,” a word that, unfortunately these days, has come to describe a movement that asks everyone to make new people in this country “the enemy.”

One Donald Trump is the basic architect of this “movement,” which he hopes will make people he doesn’t like enemies and chart his way to another term as president of the United States.

But just think of this:  All of us are immigrants in this country, perhaps a generation or more ago, but still immigrants.

I have written about this before, but it bears repeating.

What happened Sunday in our church was due to the work of a great new “program,” Salem for Refugees, which is more than just another “program.” 

It is an effort to welcome refugees to Salem because they are moving here in greater numbers from more than 20 countries around the world, including Afghanistan and The Ukraine, but also, as we saw Sunday, from Africa.

Those people – yes, they are “people” – on our church platform Sunday sang songs to the Lord in about seven languages, their own, English and others.

It was thrilling for me to watch them illustrate that they are children of God, just as we have the potential to be.

So, I say, welcome refugees.  Don’t tarnish them with a broad political “immigration brush.”

Recognize that God loves them.  Just as we should.

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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

“The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.  When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity, he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

So said Alexander Hamilton in 1790.

He could have been talking about Donald Trump.

The headline I used for this blog was written over a Wall Street Journal essay that appeared over the weekend.  It was written by Jeffrey Rosen, and it was a great piece of investigatory journalism.

The subhead was this:

“This week’s indictment of the former president outlines the sort of demagogic challenge to the rule of law that the Constitution’s architects most feared.”

Talk about being prescient!

More from Rosen:

“The founders designed a constitutional system to prevent demagogues from sowing confusion and mob violence in precisely this way (the way Trump is doing).  The vast extent of the country, James Madison said, would make it hard for local factions to coordinate any kind of mass mobilization.  The horizontal separation of powers among the three branches of government would ensure that the House impeached, and the Senate convicted corrupt presidents.  The vertical division of powers between the states and the federal government would ensure that local officials ensured election integrity.

“And norms about the peaceful transfer of power, strengthened by George Washington’s towering example of voluntarily stepping down from office after two terms, would ensure that no elected president could convert himself, like Caesar, into an unelected dictator.  ‘The idea of introducing a monarchy or aristocracy into this country,’ Hamilton wrote, ‘is one of those visionary things, that none but madmen could meditate,’ as long as the American people resisted ‘convulsions and disorders in consequence of the acts of popular demagogues.’”

The quotes from more than 200 years ago illustrate the woes of exactly Trump.

According to the federal indictment issued this week, Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election by conspiring to spread drivel or worse — discounting legitimate votes and subverting election results,  perpetuating three separate criminal conspiracies:  To impede the collection and counting of the ballots, Congress’s certification of the results on January 6, 2021, and the right to vote itself.

Rosen reports that J. Michael Luttig, former U.S. Court of Appeals judge, has said that “I do not believe there is anything that approaches this in American history.”

I am nowhere near the student of history that Luttig is, but I agree. 

The question facing all of us:

• Whether the actions by Trump – “subverting the republican system of government and flattering the prejudices of the people, exciting their jealousies and apprehensions “– will tear this country to shreds, which, I submit, is exactly what he wants.

• Or, that the country and its institutions will remain intact despite the intentional turmoil of Trump.

I vote for the latter.

Once again, Washington Post Associate Editor Ruth Marcus performs a service in a column that appeared over the weekend.

She lays out the specific charges against Donald Trump, then gives her opinion about how each will fare in court.

She started her column this way:

“Now the legal wrangling begins.  The indictment of Donald Trump lays out four felony counts:  Conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against voting rights.”

Without surprise in her voice, she says that “Trump’s lawyers will surely move to challenge the legal sufficiency of the case, arguing that the allegations, even if true, don’t amount to a crime and filing a motion to dismiss the indictment even before the case goes to trial.”

She adds, “I think they’ll lose, even if some charges are knocked out or pared back, prosecutors will be able to proceed on others.”

Below is what Marcus reported — the rationale against the charges based on comments from Trump attorneys, though some of them may have to recuse themselves because they also could become witnesses:

Argument #1:  The statutes governing conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding (Counts Two and Three) don’t apply here, because that prohibition only covers destruction of evidence and other forms of evidence tampering.

The relevant law [18 U.S.C. 1512(c)], Marcus writes, provides that whoever “corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

Argument #2: Trump lacked the requisite intent to break the law or to act corruptly, because he believed that he won the election and was only taking steps to vindicate his rights as the supposedly victorious candidate.

The intent question is a complicated one, Marcius writes.  “The indictment repeatedly asserts that Trump knew he lost the election and sets out a mountain of evidence to that effect — his own statements, the conclusions of his top advisers, the unanimous findings of numerous courts.

“At the same time, it recognizes that Trump had every right — whether he was lying or merely deluded — to argue that he had won. He just didn’t have the right to use illegal means to effectuate that victory.” 

Argument #3: Trump relied on advice of counsel in pursuing his quest to remain in office.

Marcus writes that former attorney general, William P. Barr, has said “I don’t think that dog is going to hunt” – and she agrees with Barr.

“Reliance on advice of counsel is an affirmative defense available to Trump, but the lawyer actually has to be acting as the counsel (there’s no evidence that, for example, Trump retained John Eastman for this purpose) and, even more important, that reliance has to be reasonable. “

Argument #4: The federal civil rights statute under which Trump is accused of conspiring to interfere with the right to vote does not cover the conduct at issue here.

The Reconstruction-era law [18 U.S.C. 241], originally used against groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, prohibits conspiracies “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”  

The indictment alleges that Trump and co-conspirators sought to interfere with “the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”

So, what all this indicates is that we’re in for a long fight over what the law means and how Trump will be affected by it.

Now, I know there is a precept in law that you are “innocent until proven guilty.”  Thus, I guess, Trump deserves that protection.

But, in the court of public opinion, different than a court of law, Trump has proven himself unworthy of support.

If it weren’t so serious, it is almost comical to see Trump want to run the government he sets out to destroy at every turn.

Marcus concludes:

“If Trump knows anything, it’s how to manipulate the legal system to his advantage, which in this case means throwing up a lot of arguments to see what will stick, in the hope, above all, of delaying a trial.

“After all, Trump’s winningest legal strategy would be to return to office and order the prosecution dismissed.”

Perish that thought.

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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The headline on this blog says it all.

Donald Trump is now under at least four indictments for criminal conduct and more could be coming.

Still, he wants to be president.  And, for me, there is little question but that he should be prevented from running for the office.

What could happen is that Americans could vote for and perhaps even elect a felon to the nation’s highest political office.

If it happens, what would that say about our values?  Not much.

As indictments keep coming, Trump turns them all into fundraising opportunities, though recent statistics show that he has spent a lot of what he has raised on defending himself in court, not on campaigning for president.

For him, the two – fending off indictments and campaigning – are one and the same.

Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus had it right when she wrote in the Post under the headline I borrowed for this blog.  Here is how she started her recent column:

“United States of America v. Donald J. Trump is the most important indictment in the nation’s history.

“And the caption of the case says it all.  Most federal prosecutions have the government defending the interests of society writ large — against drug trafficking, or corporate fraud, or gun crimes.  This prosecution is different.  The United States is defending itself, recoiling against an effort to undo the democracy that Trump swore an oath to protect.

“’The indictment tells the story in clear, unsparing terms. ‘The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election,’ it states at the start, 45 pages that unspool a story that is at once familiar and newly shocking.  ‘Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power.’”

I continue to be troubled about how this narcissist continues to believe he should be president…again.  I suspect one reason is that, if he wins, he would pardon himself and many of his allies who helped him try to overturn the country on January 6.

More from Marcus:

“The former president now stands accused — not by political opponents, not by opinion columnists, but by a duly constituted grand jury that has heard the evidence against him.  As the indictment spells out, Trump tried to commit a crime against democracy.  The country and its voters are his intended victims.

“Trump’s lawyers will almost certainly mount challenges to the legal sufficiency of these claims, but these charges do not have the air of a prosecutorial stretch.  Special counsel Jack Smith, for instance, held off, as expected, from charging Trump with seditious conspiracy, which would have required evidence that he intended the violent overthrow of the government.”

Regarding a charge of sedition, I was surprised that, at least for the moment, Trump escaped such a charge.

What is sedition anyway?

Well, the definition is simple and straightforward, this:

“Incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government; any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.”

This is exactly what Trump did and continues to do.  He should have faced such a charge, as have some of his sycophants.

I suspect he escaped because such a charge would have roiled the country anew and, though prosecutors disavow including political perspectives in their decisions, they may have in this case. 

This conclusion from Marcus:

“Speaking of the voters, can we dispense with the idea that the proper and sufficient punishment for Trump’s behavior should be at their hands, at the ballot box in November 2024, if it comes to that?

“Where, exactly, was that deep respect for the will of the voters when Trump, as the indictment sets out, was conspiring to prevent their will from being respected when it came to the 2020 results?

“As to supposed (but unproven) double standards, how could it be fair to have more than a thousand of those whose behavior Trump incited face prosecution and let the individual behind it all go uncharged?

“If Trump’s behavior is allowed to stand, if it is not called out for the crime that it appears to be, the message to future presidents seeking to retain power at all costs would be:  The coast is clear.  Do what you need to remain in office.

“Prosecuting Trump on these charges is a grave, even perilous, step. Condoning his behavior by ignoring it would be far worse.”

Agreed.

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 as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

One thing I learned when I was a lobbyist in Oregon for more than 25 years was this:

Be hesitant to boast about achievements in one legislative session because another one is just around the corner.

So, if you consider golf for just a moment, my boast is this — the industry avoided any calamities in the most recent Oregon legislative session, which concluded on June 25.

The chief result:  Legislators did not consider an aggressive takeover of municipal golf course land to turn it into housing.

That’s important because such a tactic emerged in the last couple years in California.  As a lobbyist, I learned that both bad ideas and good ideas often move north and south along the West Coast.  So the “land takings” issue could have moved north.  It did not.

Avoiding this result in Oregon was especially important because it occurred – or, more accurately, did not occur — even though more housing was a major issue at the Capitol.  For example, it was a major priority for Oregon’s still-new governor, Tina Kotek.  But she didn’t go after golf course property to achieve her objective.

At one point during the session, some legislators got on their high horse and advocated doing away with two private golf course properties in Washington County (Pumpkin Ridge and the Reserve) and turning those properties into housing.  That, they said, was a way to avoid taking farmland for housing.

The idea, which generated headlines, was only a one-day story.  It appeared that generating media coverage was the goal because the screwy had nowhere to go.  Of course, no surprise to learn that these legislators did not talk with the private golf course owners about their idea.

Otherwise, for golf, there also were no negative environmental or land use proposals in the session.  A proposal to subject small engines, such as those on golf course, also died.

So, this is where the golf industry will be content to lie:  Tout the economic benefits of golf, along with important recreational opportunities, and leave it at that.

The industry will continue to keep its eye on future issues because the Oregon Legislature meets again for a short session in February 2024 and a long session in 2025.