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Posts published in “Day: October 16, 2021”

The honest ire of Betsy Johnson

October 16, 2021

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A refreshing gift to political moderates came on Thursday when Oregon state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) announced her long-considered candidacy for Oregon’s governor. Johnson, a blunt-spoken, middle-of-the-road Democrat with 20 years of service in the Oregon Legislature, is ditching her caucus for the moment and running unaffiliated. In this wide-open race, Johnson is a welcome addition.

Of course, with rigid political ideology all the rage these days, ideological purists on both sides of the aisle will ignore Johnson’s well-known record of bridge-building and downplay her importance in this race. That’s okay for now. But Johnson’s no-nonsense voice will be difficult to disregard the closer we get to the primary.

“Having to choose between another left-wing liberal promising more of the same or a right-wing Trump apologist — is no choice at all,” Johnson stated in an email to her supporters. “Oregonians deserve better than the excesses and nonsense of the extreme left and radical right… That’s why I have decided to run... as an independent leader unaffiliated with any party and loyal only to the people of Oregon.” In the Democrat caucus, such words would most often be glibly spilled in an effort to win an election. Republican, too, for that matter. But when Johnson says it like that, I have no trouble believing her. She’s frank, she knows what she’s doing and she means what she says.

Johnson caught my attention when she ran the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) aeronautics division back in the 1990s. She was chosen for this role for a reason — it wasn’t a random assignment. Why? Because Johnson was the first woman certified by the U.S. Forest Service to fly external loads on forest fires. Yep, Johnson is a licensed helicopter and fixed-wing pilot and the Forest Service certified her to fly helicopters carrying an airborne dump tank used to fight forest conflagrations. This is no small achievement. She flew as a commercial pilot and then, in 1978, established the company which became Transwestern Aviation. The firm now serves as the fixed base operator (FBO) at the Scappoose airport.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Johnson earned her undergraduate degree in history from Carleton College before attending the Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College, where she was awarded her Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1977.

After working for ODOT, Johnson moved over to the Oregon Pilots Association (OPA). As vice president of legislative affairs for the lobbyist, she pushed legislation to create the Oregon Department of Aviation. Johnson has played key roles for the Oregon Health & Science University Foundation, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, the Oregon Public Broadcasting Foundation and the High Desert Museum. Johnson currently serves on several boards including the Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College. In addition, she is the current president of the Samuel S. Johnson Foundation.

Johnson was first elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2000. Representing the southwest corner of Oregon’s District 1, Johnson quickly made a name for herself as a consensus-builder who got things done. Two years later, she moved north and handily took District 31, earning a landslide victory when she was reelected for her third term.

Johnson’s third term was interrupted when she was appointed to the empty seat of Oregon Senate District 16. She was reelected to four terms — once in a fairly close race and thrice by huge margins, in what’s almost become a Betsy Johnson trademark.

Johnson’s two decades as a Democrat in the legislature produced a voting record that’s about as centrist as it gets. Her tenure was marked by leadership roles in several key committees — her low-key style never seeking headlines but her achievements keeping her in Oregon news anyway. Notably, Johnson has served on the powerful Ways and Means Committee since she was first seated in the Senate.

It quickly became known that, if you testified before one of Johnson’s committees, you’d better have come prepared or you’d face her withering wrath. That honest ire, by far, is my favorite Johnson attribute — but, then, I’ve never been on the receiving end of it. Johnson is possessed of a refreshing blunt-spokenness, a penchant for telling it like it is in language that is exceptionally, um, direct.

Johnson comes from a timber family so she’s got long-time ties to the state’s lumber interests. Her moderate Republican father, who served six terms in the Oregon House, influenced Johnson but she abandoned the GOP when it tacked too far right. In recent months, Johnson has aligned herself with a broad swath of disaffected voters who are disgusted with the mess in Portland and troubled by the state’s current lack of strong leadership.

If you know me well, you’ve probably heard me say I’ve met every Oregon governor who served during my lifetime except Tom McCall. I’ve known and followed some better than others but one characteristic nearly all of them shared was their unyielding commitment to this state, above everything else. Oh, yes, there have been several opportunists among the lot — don’t get me started on the one occupying the governor’s seat right now — where the commitment to the state is well down the list. But most of them loved this state and its people. Clearly, this doesn’t mean I agreed with them on matters of policy or practice but I genuinely admired their sense of responsibility and duty to Oregon.

Johnson will unquestionably join the august ranks of those governors totally committed to our state. She has nothing to prove to anyone, least of all herself.

Naturally, Republicans will eye Johnson’s independent campaign as an opportunity. Will a Johnson campaign act as a spoiler to split the left-hand vote? Will Johnson’s campaign achieve the momentum to garner enough centrist support and be a serious contender? Could the Democrats eventually coalesce around a candidate like Johnson? Can enough moderate voters come together to overpower the ideologically unyielding true believers on both sides? Or will a red tide roar in, securing a successor to Vic Atiyeh and washing out a Johnson campaign?

I believe I know the answer to a couple of those questions. But I could be wrong and the others are anyone’s guess. Whatever the case, this race will likely be the most interesting Oregon gubernatorial contest of my lifetime. And Betsy Johnson jumping in just made it even better.

The great erosion

October 16, 2021

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By one accounting, more than 2,100 U.S. newspapers closed between 2005 and 2020.

We’ve all heard the stories, many pretty bleak.

Smaller newspapers are purchased by large chains, which cannibalize newsrooms in order to squeeze the last cents – and sense – out of “the product.” Hedge funds with track records of slashing costs – meaning jobs – and maximizing returns for a handful of already really wealthy people are buying up newspapers.

Alden Global Capital is one such hedge fund. The group recently purchased the Tribune Company, owner of the venerable Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News, among other papers.

“The purchase of Tribune reaffirms our commitment to the newspaper industry and our focus on getting publications to a place where they can operate sustainably over the long term,” said Heath Freeman, the president of Alden. Separately it was reported that at least ten percent of already depleted newsroom staffs at Tribune were taking financially slim buyouts, while senior top editors were replaced.

Freeman, the hedge fund guy, is doing great, however. He recently plunked down $19 million for a modest little six bed, six bath joint in an exclusive neighborhood in Miami.

More is at stake here than the survival of the local paper. As local news has been crushed under a variety of burdens from declining ad revenue to non-discerning readers and viewers who gravitate only to “news” outlets that serve only to confirm own ideological opinions, democracy has taken a hit, as well.

The non-profit Niskanen Center, a think tank doing first-rate, deeply researched work on a range of public policy issues, has produced an important new report on the links between local news and the health of American democracy.

“As local news has withered,” the authors of the new report noted, “so too has citizens’ ability to monitor the effectiveness of state and local officials. This has been a key driver in the ‘nationalization’ of politics, which refers to voters only drawing on preferences regarding national politics to evaluate politicians and policy at all levels of the federal system.”

Or put another way, as we increasingly frame all our thoughts about politics at every level around a question of “Biden or Trump” we ignore many of the really vital issues in our own communities. When the local newspaper shrinks or goes away this reality becomes even more pronounced.

As dire as the local journalism situation seems – and it is dire – there are some flickering signs of hope out there.

States Newsroom, a non-profit, now offers free online and first-rate coverage of state capitol and other news in 22 states. In every state with a States Newsroom – Idaho, Montana and Oregon have such outlets – the newsroom leader is a veteran “local” journalist doing superb work.

The Daily Montanan recently broke a blockbuster story, reported by Keila Szapaller, about sexual harassment at the University of Montana law school. The expose forced the resignation of the school’s dean and his deputy.

The Idaho Capital Sun and reporter Audrey Dutton have provided the very best statewide coverage of the state’s pitifully inadequate response to Covid-19. (Full disclosure: I have contributed opinion pieces to both organizations.)

In Arizona, as another example, the Arizona Mirror, reported this week on Congressman Paul Gosar’s recent trafficking in neo-Nazi and white supremacy images. A story larger news organizations missed.

Another potentially promising local news development is the union of legacy news organizations with public broadcasters. This type of union is unfolding in Chicago where WBEZ, the local public broadcast outlet, is fixing to acquire the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Initial plans contemplate no layoffs, but instead the addition of more staff.

Authors of the Niskanen Center report offer another intriguing idea: “Political donors could redirect their financial support to local media.” A deep pocketed contributor to political campaigns might spend thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a candidate or cause never knowing if the contribution had any real impact. By contrast, the same amount of cash supporting a hyper-local news gathering effort could produce immediate and obvious results, and “could be a better return on investment for those who are alarmed by the state of our politics.”

A proposal in Congress contemplates creation of a national endowment for local journalism, something akin to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or the long-established national endowments for the arts and humanities. The effort might be limited to “non-profit” news organizations and supported by individual taxpayers choosing a “check off” on their tax returns in the same way that millions of American provide public funds for presidential elections.

There are many reasons for the troubled state of American democracy – toxic cable television shouting matches that feed on fear and division, bald faced lies and conspiracy theories elevated by candidates, and a demonizing of legitimate news organizations and their reporters as “enemies of the people.” By any measure, the drastic decline of local journalism in so many communities, and the companion inability to focus on real and important local issues has to be part of the cause, as well.

We need to get on with addressing this.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “it expects what never was and never will be.” It’s worth remembering in light of our fractured, tribal politics that Jefferson champion a free and critical press even as he was often viciously attacked in print by his political opponents.

“For most of American history, localism came naturally,” the Niskanen Center report says. “But that’s no longer the case in our age of national and international connectivity. And while much has been gained in this changed environment, that connection to the local that our political system takes as a given has been severely undermined. Recapturing that type of community connection would help America’s political institutions function as intended. And a robust local media landscape is a prerequisite for a reinvigorated localism.”