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Posts published in “Day: September 10, 2009”

A study in motivation

September 10, 2009

Jeff Mapes of the Oregonian calls the story "truly disturbing," and it is. One of the disturbing aspects of it is a question of both private and public import that ought to be raised by now.

Today's specific case is that of Tony Marino, in 2008 a Republican candidate for the state House in the suburban Portland district based around Tigard. A comment on one Republican blog: "I got to meet Tony at Dorchester this year, and was very impressed. We need more candidates like Tony Marino." He was swamped in the fall (64%-36%) by Democratic incumbent Larry Galizio, who recently resigned the seat to take a state job. Marino described himself as a "Business Consultant; Author; Radio/TV Broadcaster; Web Designer; Online TV & Radio Producer."

But by the time of the general election, he had more to report: "bankruptcy, divorces plural, a federal tax lien and a degree from an on-line university that's not accredited in Oregon." Also emerging later: He ran an on-line religious seminary that offered ordination as a minister for $95.

During the middle of the legislative campaign, in August 2008, Marino and his adult daughter stayed at the Emerald Queen Casino and Hotel in Fife, Washington. This February the daughter told local police that during that stay, "her father had nonconsensual sexual intercourse with her while she said she was intoxicated." Marino has pleaded guilty to second-degree incest, and is in the Pierce County Jail; sentencing is in a couple of weeks. The original charge was rape.

You could say all sorts of things about this appalling case. Here's one question: What is the seeming magnetic attraction in so many recent cases around the country (and the Northwest has had its share in recent years) between major sex scandal activity, often (not always) involving illegality of some sort, and the intersection of politics, religion and "family values" activism? These cases keep arising with stunning regularity (you've surely heard just earlier this week about the hot-microphone bragging by the now-former family-values California state representative). The occasional instance, the unusual case of someone who breaks bad, should be dismissed of having larger meaning; but this is a powerfully and repeatedly recurring pattern. What is going on in the minds of these people?

A serious psychological study, if none has been done yet, is badly needed.

A home of one’s own

September 10, 2009
John Bradbury

John Bradbury

Yesterday Multnomah County Sheriff Bob Skipper said that he will resign from that job effective in a couple of months because he failed to pass a test which he had to take - under state law - like that administered to newly-minted cops, on law enforcement. Skipper, who had to take it because he had been away from law enforcement for a number of years before agreeing to take over the troubled department a couple of years ago, led it successfully for many years and capably in his recent stretch. The test, which has to do mainly with beat cop work, has little to do with the Multnomah Sheriff's Office, which mostly runs the county's jail.

The Oregonian this morning commented that "in other words, Bob Skipper is being pushed out of a job for which he was duly and overwhelmingly elected because he doesn't have a basic certificate that is more or less irrelevant to his actual job." It is happening not because of any political battle, but simply because that's the way the law is. Which suggests more problem with the law than with Skipper

The case, and that latter point, come to mind in reading the Idaho Supreme Court decision out today in John Bradbury v. Idaho Judicial Council, an unusual case of a lawsuit between a district judge and the state's judicial oversight board.

John Bradbury, a Lewiston who became a 2nd district judge in 2003, was elected to the judicial seat for Idaho County, though his actual judicial work would range elsewhere too, as to Lewiston, Moscow, Orofino and Nezperce. He bought a house in Grangeville, the Idaho County seat, and changed his voter registration from Lewiston to Grangeville.

In May 2006 the Judicial Council started an investigation into whether he really lived in Idaho County. (Of note: Bradbury has run crosswise with a number of people and institutions around Idaho law, having once sued the Judicial Council in 1998 and run, nearly winning, for the Idaho Supreme Court in 2008. Bradbury maintains that key people in the system were prejudiced against him, but we'll bypass that argument here.) While acknowledging he had a home in Grangeville, had a homeowner's exemption on it and voted there, it also said that "he spent practically none of his nights in Grangeville, or, that in the prior six (6) months he had spent fewer than ten (10) evenings in Grangeville.” Bradbury acknowledge in one interview that he spent few evenings in Grangeville, licensed his cars in Lewiston and got his personal mail there. The Judicial Council proposed to suspend Bradbury until he "resides" in Grangeville. Bradbury appealed.

So what it mean to "reside" in a specific place? (more…)