Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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 mistake mentioned in this blog headline is that Oregon legislators approved a change in the state’s public meetings law that many of them knew was flawed even as they voted for it.

The “it” is House Bill 4177 that was designed to correct confusion stemming from changes in the public meeting law originally passed by lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session.

HB 4177 may have been a well-intentioned fix, but passage indicates at least two things:

• First, it is risky in a short legislative session of only about 30 days to make a complicated changes in a long-standing law in Oregon that requires government to reach decisions in public.

• Second, the changes made in HB 4177 could make it possible for governments to set the stage for taking action in secret.  At least opponents contend that is true.

Regarding the notion of a mistake:  The judgment is mine.

Even as I write this, let me provide this disclosure.  I am deeply aware of the issues in the public meeting controversy because I dealt with them when I served as a member of Oregon Government Ethics Commission.  My second four-year term closed at the end of December and, for the last year in office, I served as commission chair.

During that year, we dealt with complaints against many local government officials who had been alleged to have violated provisions of the 2023 law that required they not engage in “serial public meetings.”

The word “serial” refers to the fact that, if two public officials talk to each other outside of a public meeting, that conversation could ramp up into discussions by a quorum of the specific public body involved, even if the first two officials had no idea a quorum would eventually be involved.

So, in a way, as I have put, they could be trapped by a quorum.

Thus, the conundrum:  How to allow local elected officials to talk to each other without establishing a quorum in advance of a public meeting.

If it were up to me, I’d do something pretty complicated.  I would allow elected officials to talk outside of a public meeting – otherwise there is only silence – and then at the ensuing public meeting, if their conversations came to light, ask those officials to attest, perhaps even under oath, that they did not intend for a quorum to result.

Possible?  Perhaps.

Hard to administer?  Yes.

Hard to regulate?  Yes.

Legal?  Not sure.

But, outside of a better solution, either mine or someone else’s, what HB 4177 does, according to opponents, is to create loopholes that “allow public officials to discuss, deliberate, and make decisions in private, without public notice, recordings, or media awareness, thus violating the spirit of open government.”

For this reason – the prospect of government secrecy in violation of Oregon’s long-standing public meeting law – various journalists testified against the bill.  To no avail.  The Legislature still passed it.

A sidelight here.  The Ethics Commission’s jurisdiction does not routinely extend to the Legislature itself, so, there, elected officials are allowed to talk privately without any restraint, even if those private talks establish a quorum and lead to a decision in public.

At least so far, Governor Tina Kotek has not signed the bill into law and that means various interests, including journalists, are calling for her to veto it.

Who knows if a veto will occur, but even if it doesn’t and HB 4177 becomes law, there is no doubt but that the issue will come up again in the next legislative session next year as individuals on all sides of the issue look for a better fix.

Stay tuned.