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Posts published in May 2022

Lessons in party politics

May 22, 2022

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Discerning through lines in elections where each campaign has its own distinct story can be a problematic exercise, but you can make an argument for this in the Oregon primary election just concluded:

You’re most likely to win a party’s nomination if you most closely resemble and appeal to your party's core.

The two most noteworthy results from Tuesday, in the Democratic primary contests in the fifth and sixth U.S. House districts, make the point.

These two races got the most national attention, for good reason.

Sitting members of Congress rarely lose renomination elections, and it hasn’t happened in Oregon since Democrat Robert Duncan in 1980 lost his party’s nod in the third district in an upset by a first-time candidate named Ron Wyden. A Washington Post article at the time said Wyden’s “campaign was bolstered by some important endorsements from unions, including the major state teachers' organization. Some labor leaders were unhappy with Duncan's votes against a federal Department of Education and deregulation of the trucking industry and the congressman's support of oil deregulation.” Duncan, in other words, had moved away from the emotional core of his party (or, he might have argued, it from him).

There’s something rhyming with that in the current fifth district primary between five-term Representative Kurt Schrader and challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who picked up support from a number of core Democratic groups including county Democratic organizations. Schrader has been a middle-road blue dog Democrat, breaking from the majority of the caucus on a number of key issues, and his Democratic base back home has noticed (as Duncan’s did).

At this writing significant votes are still out but Schrader is far behind, losing 38.4 percent to 60.9 percent. Because of the slow vote count in Clackamas County, final numbers aren’t expected until Thursday, but Schrader will have a hard slog making up his current deficit (albeit that it is likely to shrink).

The brand new sixth district, where since it is new there is no incumbent, got as much attention, for a different reason.

Conventional wisdom is that next to incumbency the best thing a congressional candidate usually can have going is money, preferably lots of money. One Oregon candidate in particular tested that idea this cycle.

Carrick Flynn, running in the Democratic primary, had almost no local contacts or organized support, was known before the campaign hardly at all locally and showed no distinctive issues or talking points. But his candidacy was supported by money - mountains of it, amounts most House candidates would never dream of. A cryptocurrency billionaire contributed millions to a pro-Flynn political action committee, and a national Democratic PAC added in with more - totaling $12.2 million according to the most recent campaign finance reports. Flynn did not control that PAC money, but the funds spent on his behalf were enough to cast a deep shadow over the funding all the other eight candidates had available.

The leading conventional candidate in that primary, Andrea Salinas, was well-funded by usual standards but brought to bear only a fraction as much. Pro-Flynn ads (and toward the end, anti-Salinas ads) swamped the district. Salinas did however have plenty of endorsements, a strong campaign organization and some familiarity with the district through work in the legislature and in advocacy organizations. Voters heard a message appealing to the Democratic base.

The result? The count is not finished at this writing, but the result seems clear from Wednesday morning numbers: Salinas at 37.6 percent to 18.9 percent for Flynn. (Flynn has conceded the race.)

Running toward the party’s base seemed to help quite a few other candidates on Tuesday, too.

House Speaker Tina Kotek’s win of the Democratic gubernatorial primary was no shock, but her margin was notably large; she had been running with the support of much of the state Democratic establishment and support network while her opponent, Treasurer Tobias Read, had been running as an outsider.

In the sixth District Republican primary, legislator Ron Noble picked up loads of endorsements and lots of votes in his home legislative district but trailed Mike Erickson, who was an unsuccessful Republican nominee in 2006 and 2008 but ran hard to the Trump-flavored base. That approach (which she sometimes moderated) also may have helped former legislator Christine Drazen. It almost certainly gave Q-anon supporter Jo Rae Perkins her narrow edge for the U.S. Senate nomination against Wyden.

Hewing to the party base isn’t always a prescription for winning primaries. But our times are notably polarized, and evidence of sticking close to the party core in this season seems to be more asset than liability.

This article originally appeared in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle.

The crazy continues

May 21, 2022

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Idaho avoided a full-on political catastrophe this week as the state’s Republicans largely decided who will hold public office.

But by no means has Idaho shed the ongoing influence of an ultra-conservative, authoritarian Republican Party.

Pick your metaphor. The bullet was dodged, but the glass is half empty. Consider:

Brad Little, an incumbent Republican governor, riding a wave of economic expansion and sitting on massive budget surpluses, won renomination with, hum, less than 53% of the vote. Not exactly a ringing endorsement from his party, particularly when you consider that the governor’s principal opponent is a serial embracer of the most odious positions floating around the alt right universe. At least take heart that there will not be Proud Boys providing security at the inauguration next January.

A competent, serious, civil secretary of state candidate, Phil McGrane – you should thank your lucky stars – was selected to oversee Idaho’s elections. McGrane’s two election denying opponents garnered 57% of the primary vote. Had this been a two-way race – a sane and sober conservative versus a Trumpified “stop the steal” clown – the clown would have won. This bullet was caught in the teeth.

A very conservative speaker of the house, the longest serving speaker in state history, received just over 51% in a contest for lieutenant governor against a candidate so loathsome her own colleagues censured her for misconduct in a rape case.

A mostly invisible state school superintendent lost to a much more competent challenger who received less than 40% of the vote in a race where the second-place finisher, a former Democrat turned alt right favorite, was cited in April by a Washington state judge for “contempt of court on four occasions related to the custody agreement with his ex-wife.” The ex-wife also accused him of child abuse.

And one of the longest serving congressmen in Idaho history commanded 54% in a contest against a truly mediocre line up of no names and a guy the incumbent had to vilify as a corrupt medical debt collector who wasn’t Trumpy enough.

And that was the good news. There is ample bad news.

The state legislature seems almost certain to be as radically right as it has been and depending on leadership elections and committee assignments a swing farther right seems entirely possible. While it is true that some of the most irresponsible right wingers lost in what was generally a blood bath for incumbents, and support for public education may – may – have been bolstered, the trend line of crazy stuff was hardly bent and certainly not broken.

Idaho will come to rue the day it handed over the attorney general’s office to a political provocateur who made his reputation, such as it is, by repeatedly battling his party’s leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. Raul Labrador really doesn’t want to run state government’s law office, he wants to be governor and he will spend the next four years employing every scheme he can devise to make Governor Brad Little’s life miserable.

The state’s expensive penchant for quixotic but performative legal battles will now only increase. Labrador will surely move out many of the career lawyers who have made the office a largely non-partisan source of legal advice and representation. His chief argument against long-time incumbent Lawrence Wasden, who will be remembered as one of the most effective and least political AG’s in recent history, was that Wasden refused to sign on to the bogus legal challenge Texas mounted against the 2020 presidential election.

Labrador will enter office running for governor and he’ll bully and bluster his way to the front of that line. Few politicians in recent Idaho history have been so thoroughly disliked by his peers, but now he again has a platform. Watch him use it, use it to the determent of the state and its taxpayers.

So, what should a Brad Little do now to lead this troubled party and divided state ?

Well, he’s entitled to a few moments of satisfaction that he defeated an opponent who openly courted white supremist support, denied a deadly pandemic, did her part to destroy public education, brandished her Bible like a light saber and was endorsed by the malignant force from Mar a Lago, but then what?

Barring some remarkable and exceedingly unlikely outcome in November, Little will have four more years to make his mark on Idaho. What will he do? After all, there are only so many regulations you can eliminate, tax cuts for the wealthy you can engineer, or draconian abortion bills you can sign.

He might take his “mandate” as a call for a return to sanity in the state’s conservative world. He could use the presence of militant, government hater and independent gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy on the general election ballot to isolate Bundy and his type. Call them out for what they are – a threat to democracy. It’s past time for yet another reckoning of Idaho’s reputation for harboring dangerous nuts like Bundy. Little could lead the repudiation, and at no cost to his political future.

He could address, forcefully and candidly, the intolerance and ignorance that goes with banning books in school libraries, and he could shame the alt right efforts to intimidate educators and health care workers. He could speak out against the shameful targeting of trans kids.

He could disown the Idaho Freedom Foundation and its blatantly disruptive and dishonest agenda. They hate him. He should make them an example.

The governor could make an early trip to Coeur d’Alene to meet with the new board of the venerable community college there that, momentarily at least, has been rescued from the clutches of the crazy wing of his own party.

A governor who cared about Idaho could appeal to the better angels that certainly must be lurking out there. If he wanted to, he could.

Like most of America, much of Idaho is crying out for real, principled political leadership – from the right and the left. Not slogans or appeals to the worst in us, but real substance about real things.

The Idaho primary settled nothing about the overall direction of the state’s politics, which will, barring real leadership, continue to wander, neck deep, in a swamp of conspiracy and grievance.

Rejoice for a moment that some of the absolute worst did not happen this week but take no comfort for little is likely to change.

The undercard

The undercard

May 20, 2022

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Those on one side of the great 2022 Republican primary split - those mainly championing statewide incumbent and major office holders like Governor Brad Little and Representative Mike Simpson - understandably felt celebratory as the results rolled in.

After all, Little was re-elected decisively, as was Simpson, both in the wake of very high-profile and bitter campaigns. The open secretary of state’s office went to a mainstream Republican, as did the superintendency of public instruction (to a mainstream-backed challenger, in that case).

But in looking at what’s next, don’t stop with the top lines of the election result. The overall picture is a lot murkier than those headlines would have you think.

Start with the vote counts which, considering that these are experienced, well-funded, well-organized and well-known office holders in the majority party, with mostly positive headlines and even some good luck coming their way in recent months, were not all that great.

As I write this (the numbers still could jiggle slightly) Little won renomination with 52.8 percent of the vote, a mediocre showing for an incumbent, achieved with some assist (we could discuss how much) from non-Republicans. Simpson’s win of 54.6 percent, for a member of Congress nearly a quarter-century in office, carried no shock or awe either.

The secretary of state’s contest, which featured well-established Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane running (chiefly) against an obscure-until-highly-controversial legislator named Dorothy Moon, was close, with barely a percentage point and a half separating them. Of note: If a third candidate, Mary Souza, whose positioning was essentially similar to Moon’s, had not been on the ballot, McGrane would have lost.

In the superintendent’s race the establishment preference, Debbie Critchfield, won - with just 39.6 percent. Notable also in that race was the total for Democrat-turned-insurgent-Trumper, Branden Durst, who placed a very respectable second.

But let’s not forget the insurgency’s big win of the night, for attorney general. Five-term AG Lawrence Wasden, winner of past primary contests, lost to former U.S. House member Raul Labrador. True, Labrador’s number was 51.6 percent (not shabby for a challenger), but consider that there was also a third anti-incumbent candidate in the race, Art Macomber. A two-way Labrador-Wasden faceoff might have resulted in a 60-40 Labrador win.

I know, this isn’t horseshoes. But if you’re looking down the road, consider also the message from the legislative front.

One of the top insurgent targets this year, Jim Woodward, lost his Panhandle seat, decisively. So did Grangeville Senator Carl Crabtree and Twin Falls senator Jim Patrick, and Boise Senator Fred Martin, none recently controversial in any real way. Other targets were nearly taken out, including Senate president pro tem Chuck Winder; even House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, seemingly as cemented in the legislature as any member, wound up with a respectably close challenge. One of the most angry senators of recent years, Dan Foreman of a Moscow-based district (he famously called his own county a “cesspool”) won renomination to a seat he was thrown out of several years ago. The Idaho Senate is about to become a more hard-line place. (The House may be something of a wash.)

House members like Ryan Kerby and Greg Cheney (note the remarkably vicious billboards in the Caldwell area targeting him) were knocked out as well.

The insurgency feeds on anger and division. They had as much cause on Tuesday to celebrate as anyone: They may have lost a bunch of races - though not all - but there’s plenty of material to keep the anger and division going at full throttle. It’s a lot easier to keep doing that when you’re on the outside than when you actually have to govern.

They’ll be back.
 

Break

May 19, 2022

schmidt

I took a break from posting this last two weeks. I thank my employer for the time off, I thank the editor for the respite, and I thank my wife for the adventurous time we shared.

By the time you read this the nail-biting Idaho primary election will be over. I’m not going to make any predictions about the outcome of the races. Such would be foolish. But I can confidently predict the direction Idaho will be headed in the coming few years. We will continue in about the same direction. Our state will continue to grow with lots of folks moving in, looking for their own Private Idaho.

And these transplants will want more “freedoms” and less taxes. Don’t we all?

And they will look longingly at our public lands, thinking private ownership is the answer. I respectfully disagree.

You see, that was the adventure we took these last couple weeks. We explored some western public lands.

I’ve fixed up a 1985 Volkswagen camper. It climbs the grades at a modest pace. But it sleeps us warm, keeps the beer cold, and makes good coffee in the morning.

Our first stop was on Idaho’s beautiful Salmon River. Then we stayed in a Forest Service campground on Brownlee Creek amid some old growth red firs. Then, while visiting our daughter in Caldwell the first weekend we toured the Owyhees. There was a chill wind and snow on the peaks, but it’s an arid land. The ranches there are pretty far apart.

But our goal was to visit the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon, outside Burns. We had been there before, but this time we took binoculars and the bird book.

The natives found the place friendly, with food and water enough to support their small population. But with white settlement the natural corrals of the Blitzen valley walls were recognized by an enterprising cattleman in the 1850’s. By the late 19th century, it became the largest cattle ranch in the US, 160,000 acres. The cattle baron acquired some land by federal programs, some by purchase and some through legal battles. There must have been some bitterness since the ranch manager got shot by a disgruntled evicted homesteader.

The water flowing into marshes was key to the millions of migrating birds, but private property demands productivity, and water was diverted for fields and pasture. The marshes dried up and ducks died. And the surrounding farms were barely sustained.

Teddy Roosevelt was persuaded to make the area a wildlife refuge in 1908. Water rights were finally purchased for the Refuge in 1934.

Ammon Bundy chose to make a stand here a few years back. He called for the privatization of the federal lands and expected local ranchers to rise up in support. Like Putin misread the Ukrainians, Bundy got no groundswell of local support. His Sagebrush Rebellion fizzled.

But it’s still a stump speech dog whistle in this public land dominated state.
Martha and I enjoyed the birds; some we have never seen before. A quiet morning walk along the riverbank was memorable.

On the trip back up to the Palouse we passed through three National Forests. We pulled off a forest road and dispersal camped by the North Fork of the John Day River.

It’s a beautiful place up here in this sparsely populated corner of our country.

I own land. I do my best to maintain it and improve it. I expect the same for our publicly owned land. I don’t mind paying the fee for USFS or BLM campgrounds, and I appreciate that you can camp, hike, fish, or hunt on public lands. I can’t imagine the West without them.

Risch on Ukraine

May 18, 2022

malloy

It’s painful for me to see President Biden talking about what’s happening in Ukraine.
His tough talk about Russian President Vladimir Putin committing war crimes, along with waves of economic sanctions, seems to have the effect of an angry parent taking away a teenager’s monthly allowance. His actions have done nothing to slow down the bombings and killings in Ukraine.

What’s missing to me is a show of strength – the kind displayed decades ago by Ronald Reagan in bringing down the Soviet empire. Biden could get Putin’s attention by pushing for Ukraine’s membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – and dare the Russian thug to take one more inch of Ukraine. But, no, Biden doesn’t want to offend the Russian president. Instead, our president he given the Soviets an outline of what he won’t do – which includes not pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine.

Well … I’m just an old guy who writes political columns. But Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has plenty of expertise in foreign policy and can talk about the Ukraine crisis from almost every angle. He, too, thinks that Biden has not done a good job overall standing up to Putin.

As Risch told me, “There’s only one thing that Putin respects, and that’s strength. The main thing he is most disrespectful of is weakness. If you show weakness, he will come after you like a shark to a bleeding dolphin.”

Risch gives the president more credit for his recent statements and actions, but says they should have come sooner. “They are trying to make up for that to a degree, it has been like somebody wanting to jump in a pool, but couldn’t make up his mind about putting a toe in the water for backing away. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

Risch is not shooting from the hip. He has talked with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various diplomats and NATO allies. Risch has hashed out the issue with colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee, where he sees a bipartisan commitment to resolve the crisis. Members have different ideas and approaches, but not on a party-line basis.

“I have a pretty good handle on this, and the only one that is happy with what’s coming out of the White House is the White House,” Risch says. “(The president) needs to rachet up the rhetoric, with a blend of good old-fashioned strategic ambiguity. Make Putin wonder what we are going do to do. Don’t telegraph what we are not going to do.”

And keep a sharp eye on other potential trouble spots, such as China, North Korea, Iran and Cuba.

“Regardless of the country you’re talking about,” Risch says, “if they see that we will stand by with our hands in our pocket while they decide to take over another country, that’s something that will go on and on.”

Of course, there’s no telling how long the conflict will continue or how it will end, but the senator thinks the economic sanctions are working without sending American troops to fight the battle. Americans would be widely opposed to having boots on the ground, he says, “and secondly, with our technology, we don’t need to do that in order to engage.”

One immediate impact in Idaho, and across the nation, is that people are feeling the pain at the gas pump. But Risch says that Idahoans should appreciate the plight of the Ukrainians.

“These people are going through exactly what we went through in 1776. They want their freedom. They want to govern themselves. They want to be a democracy and they want a rule of law. Those are our kind of people,” Risch said.

“This war is not just about Ukraine. The fight in Ukraine is a strategic challenge with long-term implications for the free world,” he said. “Ukraine is the opening move to tip the balance of power toward Russia and China to dominate the world for the next century or more. For the sake of our country, and the sake of the free world, the administration needs to get serious about supporting Ukraine with war-fighting materials so we can prevent a more sweeping conflict from coming to our shores.”

The stakes that Risch outlines are about as high as they can go.

ctmalloy@outlook. Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com

Watch the smile

May 17, 2022

rainey

A smiling lady from Liger
rode on the back of a tiger.
They returned from a ride
with the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tigerThat old doggerel comes to mind when watching Donny Trump try to keep up with the disreputable Republican contraption he’s put together.

SPOILER: He can’t.

One of the unchanging truths about right-wing politics is the unfailing trait of distrust. It’s always present.

Consider: Nearly every nut-case GOP group got started by folks who were angry/fearful of what the original group was doing/saying. Birch society. Liberty Lobby. The “break-aways” always think of themselves as the “truth keepers” i.e. the ones “keeping the faith.”

Distrust is the single most important element that’s saved the rest of us from a major societal disruption by a single nutball group. Groups like the Birch Society, Oath Keepers, etc.. The rest of us have survived this long because, at some point, distrust/anger/fear erupts among ”the faithful” and there’s a splintering or morphing as the “faithful” bunch breaks away.

Trump is facing such a quandary at the moment.

Since exiting the White House, he’s been proudly gathering his “faithful.” Some individually; some as groups. Remember, to Trump, loyalty to him is the most basic requirement of association. Loyalty to him and him alone. So far, to the wandering “faithful” looking for a new leader on the right, Trump has appeared to be the logical choice.

For these many months, it’s worked. He’s headed his legions of “faithful” with little trouble. His style of continual lying, defending 20 or so legal actions, his mercurial temperament, his non-stop “politicus interruptous” way of doing things - all have seemed acceptable to his followers.

BUT - now, as the primaries are underway - and with the general election some four months hence - his legions are beginning to crack. Seems some of the “basics” of the far-right dictum of Trumpism aren’t really “one-size-fits-all.” After all.

As Trump has scattered his endorsements of certain candidates from state to state, some of the “baptized” have lost their primaries. And, in some cases, the winners have strayed from the MAGA line when polls showed such adherence damaging to their candidacies.

There are, it seems, individuals who are, while generally following the Trump line, creating their own “legions” of followers. Absent Trump.

Case-in-point: Take Florida’s governor. Please.

Ron DeSantis has been acting like Ivan the Terrible in modern-day Florida. Banning books. Making life tougher for LGBTQ folks. Running roughshod over people’s lives. With or without legislative concurrence.

In Texas, there’s also been very little influence from Trump. Governor Greg Abbott, much in the DeSantis mold, has been operating as a political “free spirit,” enacting policies similar to MAGA but not exactly the same.

Then, there’s Mike Pence. He’s actively campaigning for the guy DJT did NOT endorse in Georgia’s primary. Bit of a split there, it would seem.

In just these three cases, Trump is not the central figure. Which is the requirement for MAGA membership. DeSantis and Abbott have created their own “local” movements; each with some MAGA guidelines. But not all.

If polls are borne out in Pennsylvania, the primary victor there won’t be Trump’s endorsee - Mehmet Oz. And Trump’s pick in Georgia is in deep trouble and could be another loser.

One thing Trump is not is flexible. One thing the far-right is not is flexible. So, if there is some change in Trump’s MAGA “philosophy,” or if the loss of several of his “preferred” candidates creates doubt about his leadership among “the faithful,” his grip on them may be loosened.

Trump likes to be “out front.” He needs to be the leader in anything he’s involved in. But, as the political profiles of other folks rise and fall, Trump may find himself challenged for that front position. His reign may be challenged. By an Abbott or a DeSantis. Or a Pence.

Remember the lady and her tiger. And the smile. Watch for the smile.

A message for independent voters

May 16, 2022

jones

Article 1, section 19 of the Idaho Constitution boldly proclaims: “No power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere with or prevent the free and lawful exercise of the right of suffrage.” The right to vote is one of the most important tools we citizens have to shape the future of our State for ourselves and our children. All parents want a better life for their kids, but it won’t happen if we sit on our hands on election day.

Today, about 83% of eligible Idaho voters do not participate in our primary election. In a one-party state like Idaho, most elected public officials–Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, members of the Legislature and many others–are chosen in the Republican primary. The May 17 Republican primary is where people must vote, if they hope to influence the future of Idaho.

Why is it then that so few Idahoans vote in the GOP primary, leaving the selection of important public officials to a relatively small number of party loyalists, including a solid base of political extremists? Is it lack of knowledge of the fact that almost every Idaho citizen of voting age can register and vote in the Republican primary through the close of the polls on May 17?

Seriously! Every registered voter, except those now registered with another party and felons whose rights have not been restored, can lawfully take part in the Republican primary. We think of those who have not selected a party as independents but the State calls them “unaffiliated” voters. Idaho Code section 34-411A says an unaffiliated voter may select a political party affiliation on election day “by declaring such political party affiliation to the poll worker.” That is, independents can choose to vote in the Republican primary on election day. Don’t let anyone, even an election worker, tell you otherwise.

Unregistered persons can register for the Republican primary when they arrive at their voting location, which they can find through their county clerk or by going online to voteidaho.gov. They do have to provide proof of residence, such as a driver’s license.

This primary election may well decide the future course of the Gem State for many years to come. There are essentially two slates of candidates–one composed of reasonable, pragmatic community members dedicated to problem-solving government and another consumed by conspiracy theories, manufactured issues and confrontational tactics.

The problem-solving slate includes Governor Little, Speaker Bedke, Attorney General Wasden, Phil McGrane, two reasonable School Superintendent candidates and a supportive cast of responsible legislative candidates.

The disruptive slate includes Janice McGeachin, Priscilla Giddings, Raul Labrador, Dorothy Moon, Branden Durst and a cast of extremist legislative candidates, who have tried their best to make it harder to vote, proposed sending librarians to jail, tried to do away with the initiative and referendum, underfunded and made false allegations against public education and taken every opportunity to turn Idahoans against one another.

It is a stark choice, calling for all eligible voters to weigh in. The Republican primary election is more important to the fate of this State than this year’s November election. We are truly at a Benjamin Franklin moment in Idaho. When that revered gentleman walked out of Independence Hall in 1787, after having completed work on the U.S. Constitution, he was asked whether we had a republic or monarchy. He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” We can only keep our reasonable, problem-solving government if everyone exercises their right to vote on May 17.

Questioning Roe

May 15, 2022

meador

I have been dreading writing this column, although I’ve known I had to write it eventually. My reticence stems not from an inability to sort my mind — on the contrary, I have strong and clear thoughts on the matter. But how can I respectfully write about a topic that often devolves into hateful vitriol? How can I address a subject about which most people — including me — have very strong feelings without insulting or disrespecting those who disagree with me? How can I be true to my morals without damning the other side?

I don’t know the answers. But I am going to forge bravely or foolishly ahead.

The abortion debate is one I rarely address. I have strong and simple feelings that are immutable yet I recognize others have the opposite feelings about which they’re equally passionate.

Why am I weighing in now?

I believe the debate reaches well beyond women’s health care because it asks an existential question affecting all of humankind. If it was strictly a matter of women’s health care, I’d have nothing to say.

At its root, the question of abortion has less to do with a woman’s body than it does defining the moment when a human life attains value. Although women’s health care makes for a much easier argument, the body is arguably incidental to the disagreement since part of the overarching issue asks whether that “part of a woman’s body” is in fact, a separate human life.* No, the fundamental debate is establishing the moment a human life becomes a human life, worthy of the full protection of the law. Both sides know this but, since there will never be an earthly answer putting the issue to rest, the debate has shifted to something we can answer: women’s health care. It makes for heated — if pointless — back-and-forth while the real question remains answered only by current arbitrary law.

Here’s where I see disturbing logical disconnects under existing policy: What real difference exists between a fetus moments from emerging and a baby freshly born? Or two babies delivered prematurely where human worth is assigned to the one who’s wanted while the one who’s not is nothing more than waste? Or that a fetus killed by a drunk driver can earn a wrongful death charge as long as it’s wanted? Would any D.A. in his or her right mind bring charges against a drunk driver who killed a fetus destined to be aborted? Human value assigned solely based on whether a life is wanted seems to echo inhuman eugenics policies of monstrous regimes we’ve seen before. I find this deeply unsettling.

As I’ve often said, if you parsed me politically, I am about one-third liberal Democrat, one-third conservative Republican and one-third Libertarian. I am quietly proud that none of my positions conflict with any other. I am also an Anglican Catholic. My faith is a crucial component of my feelings on abortion. As a white male and member of the honorary patriarchy, I recognize many people do not want my opinion on a procedure I will never undergo.

If pro-choice people are right and I am wrong, then there really is a reasonable point when a human life gains worth and current laws might well define that. If pro-choice policy is right and I am wrong, then a fetus is no more or less than a part of a woman’s body and it’s absolutely none of my business what she elects to do with it.

If, on the other hand, I am correct and pro-choice people are wrong, bluntly speaking, we are killing our young in the name of circumstance and we will have to answer for this later.

The unexcogitable problem of this debate is we will never be able to settle this question in earthly terms to quell the issue — the debate cannot be satisfied until the God of my faith settles the matter on his terms or until human knowledge advances to the point it can prove beyond a doubt there is no god.

In the 1980s, I got tired of seeing letters to the editor smugly quoting scripture, invariably aimed at people who believe scripture is fantasy — I thought it a pointless effort, akin to putting out fire with paper. But it did pose a question I could not ignore: could I learn to debate the entire Republican platform on wholly secular terms? To my surprise, after some exploration and experimentation, I found I could defend the entire conservative platform with no religious or biblical reference, wholly secular terms. I learned to be good at it.

I cannot do that now because it’s disingenuous to pretend my faith plays no role in my position.

My faith is an integral part of my conviction. As I said a moment ago, you won’t find me addressing this issue often and you won’t hear me calling hellfire and brimstone upon those who disagree with me. I am offended when people from my party immediately and loudly label progressives “baby killers” — this tactic brings nothing useful to the conversation.

As unacceptable as I find it, abortion is not a deal-breaker issue for me. In other words, I can work politically with Democrats who support choice. In fact, I believe strongly we must work with those who disagree with us or we’ll continue down this hateful, suspicious, tribal path we’ve taken. My progressive friends and I agree on many other issues just like my conservative friends know I’m with them, too, on many issues.

But there is another reason I won’t shun my progressive friends: women close to me — people I deeply love and respect — have undergone abortions. They did so for profoundly personal reasons, agonizing over their decisions, often entangled in unspeakable circumstances. I cannot begin to imagine the anguish accompanying such situations. So I rarely speak about abortion and I do not now intend this essay to condemn them.

It makes me physically sick to my stomach to think I should have anything to say about what a woman can or can’t do with her body or that I should hold sway over her health care. If that’s what this was, the answer would be easy. But as outlined above, a debate defining the moment a human life attains value is existential, transcending a woman’s body to envelop the entirety of the human race. Put another way, if an unborn fetus had the same value as a newborn infant, most of us would be horrified if a parent sought to harm it.

I must emphasize I believe there are moral exceptions to bans on abortion. I understand there are circumstances I cannot possibly understand that would affect a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. Plus, the women I know who’ve gone through hell as they decided their only solution was termination — I am a male who will never be faced with such a decision. This, alone, usually convinces me to stay quiet on this debate even though I have deep convictions — and it is why I now take pains to weigh in quietly, with empathy and respect.

My innately sinful nature as a flawed human leads me to a dark confession: even though I believe life begins at conception, I would have a much easier time denying life to a ten-day-old cluster of cells than I would a one-term baby. I will also admit that, had I created a surprise pregnancy back in the reckless days of my youth, you can bet abortion would’ve been on the table, if I had had any say in the matter.

These failings on my part aren‘t entirely in vain. They are part of the complicated equation that gives me empathy for women who are confronted with a situation I will never experience. This is another reason why I do not often declare my opposition to abortion — I, too, have had conflicted feelings, if I am brutally honest. I have questioned people who loudly decry abortion yet fail to contribute to alternatives. I’m jarred when a robust defense of the unborn goes silent once the unborn are born. I have considered the cynical argument that we’ve spared children from unspeakable poverty and abuse. I’ve pondered the equally cynical question of why it’s such a big deal from a Christian perspective if, by Christian logic, the souls of the departed get a fast pass to paradise.

Abortion is nearly always argued in stark black-and white terms. While I agree it’s a clear-cut question, no one can say it’s not surrounded by a chaos of swirling grey.

I have been labeled a left-leaning Republican, which is not entirely inaccurate. But I remain committed to many conservative ideals and my opposition to abortion is one of them. My position is based on the fundamental issue of arbitrarily assigning value to human life — to me, a baby newborn and a baby about-to-be-born should have an identical innate worth but in Oregon they do not.

If nothing else, the disconnect is jarring.

Photograph © 2022 Maria Oswalt via Unsplash. Matthew Meador is a former food and wine writer, senior editor and a rare moderate Republican who now writes political commentary. Previously, Matt was an award-winning graphic artist who often put his skills to use during election seasons. Matt has served in various capacities on political campaigns, for pollsters and for elected officials. Contact him at matthewmeador.com.

Measuring homelessness

May 15, 2022

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The old saying among business consultants is that you can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.

That’s not true of managing everything. (Measures of quality don’t always reduce easily to numbers.) But it does seem true for at least one of Oregon’s most difficult problems: homelessness.

We know it’s a big problem. But we don’t know exactly what the problem is.

On May 4 the three Portland-area metro counties delivered a new point-in-time report (federally mandated, and conducted on January 26) on the numbers of homeless people. Those numbers by themselves point to a problem big enough to justify the widespread concern it’s getting: “6,633 people were counted as experiencing homelessness on the night of Jan. 26, 2022,” more than 5,000 of them in Multnomah, with several hundred each in Washington and Clackamas.

The numbers were up by about a quarter since the last report, which was taken in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. But big numbers and increases aren’t unique to the Portland area. Only a quarter of Oregon’s documented homeless people are located there. In central Oregon (mainly in the Bend area), the numbers were up by about 17 percent (to about 1,300 people).

“The results, which will be reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, also make clear that people of color continue to face disproportionate rates of homelessness. In Multnomah County, for example, people of color made up almost 40 percent of everyone counted this year,” the Tri-County report added.

It also, though, acknowledged its limits: “This year’s data, like with every Point in Time Count, should be considered an undercount of people experiencing homelessness. Because of federal rules, the Count does not include thousands of people who did not have a home of their own on the night of Jan. 26 but were ‘doubled up,’ staying with friends or family. Culturally specific providers tell us that people of color are more likely to experience homelessness this way and are underrepresented in the Count as a result.”

Even with that, many people may be missed. Consider the people incarcerated but who have nowhere to go when they get out?) And, “As a one-night snapshot, the federally structured Count also isn’t designed to reveal how many people move in and out of homelessness over the course of a year, either losing their housing or gaining it back with support services.”

So we don’t know the real size of the real homeless population: But that’s just one dimension. We also have little information about the people, why they’re unhoused and what it might take to get them into shelter.

Stereotypes abound: They’re drug or alcohol addicts. They’re mentally ill. They’re financially irresponsible, or just unable to focus on keeping their lives together. They were evicted from living places made abruptly too expensive to afford. Race may be a factor. And there are other explanations.

These stereotypes didn’t emerge from nowhere: You can easily find case studies in support of them. But opinions have differed on what factors account for how much of homelessness, and what that would mean for solutions. If, for example, a tenth of people without a permanent residence got in that position because they were unable to fund or afford a residence, then a path to solving the problem might be clearer - for them. But that would leave a large majority of the homeless population still unaccounted for.

The stereotype often suggests a single man, but many reports have suggested a majority of unhoused people are women, and many children are among them. Exact information, again, is hard to come by.

The idea of a mix of responses was hinted at in a statement from Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury: “I believe in both/and responses to homelessness. That’s why I’ve led work to add hundreds of shelter beds, from villages to motels, before and during this pandemic. It’s also why I championed our Behavioral Health Resource Center, opening downtown later this year. But I’ve also worked to ensure we don’t give up on work that will help people leave those shelter beds, or avoid them in the first place: housing with support services.”

Still: Finding more beds under roofs to provide space for people off the street would be useful for some segments of the homeless population, but not much for others.

Next time around - presumably, next January - the point-in-time counters might try something more ambitious: A deeper dive of not just the top-line numbers of homeless, but a greater inquiry into the specific circumstances that got these people to where they are, and what combination of solutions might help get them somewhere better.