Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Stapilus”

Flavors of freedom

Flavors of freedom

December 1, 2023

In Idaho politics the word “freedom” continues to be batted around a lot by people who seldom bother to explain what they mean by it.

Your definition and someone else’s may vary.

One of the most impactful political organizations in Idaho is the Idaho Freedom Foundation, which purports to base its work around expanding “freedom”; but their conception of the idea is, to be generous, highly selective. Freedom for one person to do something can mean less freedom for someone else, if you aren’t careful … which ideologues often aren’t.

The meanings of some of the many flavors of freedom comes clear in a recent release of the libertarian Cato Institute, called “Freedom in the 50 States: An index of personal and economic freedom.” It is as flawed and cherry-picked as most such surveys, but a combination of two elements make it worth some pause and consideration.

First, it breaks down types of freedom in 25 varied categories which do cover a lot of ground, under the umbrella categories of “personal” and “economic” freedom. There’s plenty of weighing going on within and among the various subcategories (Cato being what it is, the group’s heart seems to be more on the economic side), but a look at the variations is worthwhile.

That’s because, second, the survey also breaks down the various types of “freedom” by state.

Overall, Idaho ranks 14th in the survey, out of 50. It follows New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas, among others.

It does best on “economic freedom,” which you could translate to “freedom to transact business activities unencumbered by regulation or taxes,” coming in seventh.

On “personal freedom,” Idaho’s ranking was not so hot: 49th, ahead only of Texas.

The Cato survey gives Idaho some rankings you might not expect. On state taxation, Idaho ranks 38th, worse than Oregon (36th: it does not have a sales tax) and Washington (19th: it does not have an income tax). Idaho ranks 4th best in the country on local taxation, a suggestion that local governments really are being squeezed by the state as much as they say. It also ranks second highest in the nation in government debt, though the highly technical approach used in measuring it may be hard to translate to practical impacts.

Idaho ranked first in the nation on “health insurance freedom,” though the criteria are a little vague and certainly idiosyncratic. The key rational sentence seems to be, “Community rating and the individual mandate get the highest weights because they represent a large transfer of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy of approximately $10 billion a year.” Try applying that to your personal “freedom” when it comes to obtaining and using health insurance.

On the “personal freedom” side, where Nevada ranks on top in the nation (Arizona is second), Idaho scores less well.

It ranks 46th on incarceration and arrests, 44th on gambling, 28th on marriage freedom (“driven mostly by cousin marriage, which is more important in our rankings than covenant marriage and vastly more important than blood tests and waiting periods”), 39th on cannabis and salvia, 49th on alcohol.

And it comes in 24th on travel freedom. Much of that measure last relates to “the use and retention of automated license plate reader data and the availability of driver’s licenses to those without Social Security numbers (such as undocumented workers).” You wonder how the ranking might have been affected if recent abortion laws had been considered.

Abortion, generally, didn’t appear to figure in the rankings, at least not substantially.

Idaho does rank third highest, however, on “gun freedom.” That should come as no shock.

So who’s free? To do what? What’s important to you?

(image)

 

A union forges its own path

A union forges its own path

November 26, 2023

Is Oregon’s largest private-sector union going its own way politically?

It’s too early to say conclusively, but as it’s said in journalism, three instances make a trend, and a string of instances this year suggest the organization is already there.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 represents more than 30,000 workers, the core working at grocery stores but many in other businesses as well. Over the years, its political activities usually have aligned with those of most other Northwest union organizations in generally supporting Democratic candidates. It has been going through some changes, including by expanding.. It has long covered Oregon and southwest Washington, but in 2021 it merged with the local in southern Idaho, so that it now reaches from the Pacific to Jackson, Wyoming.

It also has sought to expand into the legal cannabis business sector. Since Oregon’s legalization, the local has tried to organize its workers and has pressed legislation to mandate cannabis businesses sign “labor peace agreements” as a condition of licensure.

When the local took the idea to the Oregon Legislature as House Bill 3183 (Cannabis Workers Rights), it drew questions about whether it would survive a court challenge. Rep. Paul Holvey, who chaired the House Committee on Business and Labor where the measure was assigned, shared that concern and, with time running out in the session, diverted the rules committee, where it died.

That result came amidst what probably felt to the local like a reversal of fortunes. As one labor newspaper noted, “from 2015 to 2017, Local 555 was a big player in a string of wins in the Oregon Legislature, including the 2015 paid sick leave law, the 2016 minimum wage law and the 2017 fair scheduling law. But in the last few years, Local 555 has had a tough time getting its proposed legislation passed.”

After the cannabis measure failed, Local 555 officials struck back. They targeted Holvey, a Eugene Democrat long close to the strong labor organizations in his district, for recall. Local 555 cited “a long list of Holvey’s anti-worker actions and questionable conduct that warrant his removal, including Holvey’s dishonest framing of his opposition to pro-worker legislation, his long-standing double standard advantaging big business interests over those of working people, a chronic lack of engagement and other instances of poor conduct.”

But they got no real support among other labor organizations. While umbrella groups like the state AFL-CIO stayed out of the fight, 14 other labor organizations in the area – including the Ironworkers Local 29, Lane Professional Fire Fighters (IAFF Local 851), Oregon AFSCME, Oregon and Southern Idaho District Council of Laborers, Oregon Building Trades Council, Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs and the Oregon Nurses Association – sided with Holvey.

With the help of paid signature gatherers, Local 555 did get the recall on the ballot. But the voters supported Holvey by a stunning margin: About 90% voted not to recall him, a number far larger than that in most contested races.

But even before that election the local was back into ballot issues, saying on June 23 it would try to reverse the recently passed House Bill 2426, which opened the door to self-serve gasoline dispensing across the state.

Oregon was known for many years as one of two states – the other is New Jersey – requiring that attendants pump gas, a rule imposed in 1951 and long thought to be immutable. It has been eroded steadily in recent years, however, first with exemptions for rural areas and then broader pandemic-era allowances. Polling showed steadily growing support for self-serve gas.

HB 2426, passed and enacted this year, did away with the self-serve ban statewide, though it still requires businesses generally to provide a staff-service option. That latter provision may keep some service positions intact. Advocates also point out that Oregon has been experiencing a labor shortage in recent years.

Local 555 does have an interest in this issue, since it said it represents “nearly 800 workers at 63 grocery store fuel stations in Oregon,” though there’s little clear information on how many jobs have been lost through the law change, and in its statement on the initiative the local didn’t offer an estimate.

Local 555 spokesman Miles Eshaia said, “We have fuel stations within some of our bargaining units and we have seen not necessarily layoffs, but job loss to attrition so people who quit, they just don’t replace them because they don’t necessarily need to, because the new law allows for half of what they had before.”

Local 555 would need to collect about 117,000 signatures by next July to get a proposed reversal on the ballot. If it succeeds at that,  the odds of passage are not good, especially considering that other organizations haven’t jumped on board. While it probably would get more than 10% support, the measure seems to be trying to swim upstream.

The local also is taking on the statehouse with a series of other ballot proposals, which aim to revamp the ethics commission, end some closed door meetings, require some financial transparency for hospitals and pass into law a measure along the lines of the cannabis worker bill that failed in the last session.

Local 555 appears to be going its own way. Will others join in?

 

Higher ed in the community

Higher ed in the community

November 24, 2023

The dividing line used to be clear between community colleges as one thing, and four-year colleges and universities as another.

Community colleges were two-year institutions. People sometimes used them to take lower-level collegiate courses, and then transfer to a four-year college or university, sometimes getting an associate degree in the process. Or they might take technical and vocational courses and training there, or do other preparatory work.

The four-year institutions, in this frame, would be where you find “higher education,” courses specifically leading to undergraduate or graduate degrees (“college degrees” in the usual sense).

The lines seem, of late, to be blurring.

It’s a national development, but it’s becoming increasingly visible in Idaho, and lately has erupted into some controversy. You can expect talk around the subject to grow.

Part of it has to do with community colleges beginning to offer bachelor’s degrees, which traditionally are the province of four-year institutions. The College of Southern Idaho at Twin Falls offers an Operations Management BAS Degree, which is a bachelor’s (intended for people who already have completed qualifications for an associate degree), but has been an outlier.

On November 9 the board of the College of Western Idaho (Meridian-Nampa, founded in 2007) voted to provide a business administration bachelor’s at the community college - now Idaho’s largest college by overall enrollment, and its fastest-growing. The decision would be effective only if the state Board of Education agrees.

The addition was in a sense market-driven. The Idaho Ed News reported that, “trustees pointed to a workforce demand. Within the past year, employers within 100 miles of CWI’s Nampa campus posted 18,000 listings for business-related jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.” Idaho higher education isn’t meeting nearly those numbers.

The four-year institutions apparently do not approve. All four of Idaho’s four-years offer comparable (not exactly the same) business administration degrees, and three of them (Boise State University, the University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College) specifically asked the Board of Education to deny the request. (Idaho State University seems not to have weighed in.) BSU said that some of CWI’s arguments for the expansion were “inaccurate, unsupported and frankly outright misleading.”

This has turned into a squabble, with the institutions starting to throw shade at each other over graduation rates and other data points. (The objection from the University of Idaho, given its proposed affiliation with the mostly online University of Phoenix, is of special interest.)

Whatever happens in this specific issue, social and economic pressure is likely to move toward the community colleges in expanding their offerings, and this pressure point may become an education and political flash point in years ahead.

One reason is money. Community colleges almost always are far less costly for students to attend than are four-year institutions, and that seems to be true (speaking generally) in Idaho as elsewhere. CWI has reported that its estimated tuition cost for a student to obtain the bachelor’s would be about $20,000, well below the four-year institutions.

Writ large - imagine this proposal for a bachelor’s degree expanding into a number of others over time - this could start to have a serious effect on the older Idaho colleges and universities, with overall ripple effects unclear. But one of them is likely to be money, if students begin drifting away toward the less-expensive and more convenient community colleges. If you can get many of the same results at the less costly community level, why not?

The state Board of Education is expected to consider, and probably decide, on the College of Western Idaho proposal at its December meeting. There are some indications it’s favorably inclined, but some of those indicators came before the other institutions began weighing in.

But this could mark the start of a reshaping of Idaho higher education. In the shape of college to come, the lines between different institutions, and different kinds of institutions, may become less clear.

 

Going its own way

Going its own way

November 19, 2023

Is Oregon’s largest private-sector union going its own way politically?

It’s too early to say conclusively, but as it’s said in journalism, three instances make a trend, and a string of instances this year suggest the organization is already there.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 represents more than 30,000 workers, the core working at grocery stores but many in other businesses as well. Over the years, its political activities usually have aligned with those of most other Northwest union organizations in generally supporting Democratic candidates. It has been going through some changes, including by expanding.. It has long covered Oregon and southwest Washington, but in 2021 it merged with the local in southern Idaho, so that it now reaches from the Pacific to Jackson, Wyoming.

It also has sought to expand into the legal cannabis business sector. Since Oregon’s legalization, the local has tried to organize its workers and has pressed legislation to mandate cannabis businesses sign “labor peace agreements” as a condition of licensure.

When the local took the idea to the Oregon Legislature as House Bill 3183 (Cannabis Workers Rights), it drew questions about whether it would survive a court challenge. Rep. Paul Holvey, who chaired the House Committee on Business and Labor where the measure was assigned, shared that concern and, with time running out in the session, diverted the rules committee, where it died.

That result came amidst what probably felt to the local like a reversal of fortunes. As one labor newspaper noted, “from 2015 to 2017, Local 555 was a big player in a string of wins in the Oregon Legislature, including the 2015 paid sick leave law, the 2016 minimum wage law and the 2017 fair scheduling law. But in the last few years, Local 555 has had a tough time getting its proposed legislation passed.”

After the cannabis measure failed, Local 555 officials struck back. They targeted Holvey, a Eugene Democrat long close to the strong labor organizations in his district, for recall. Local 555 cited “a long list of Holvey’s anti-worker actions and questionable conduct that warrant his removal, including Holvey’s dishonest framing of his opposition to pro-worker legislation, his long-standing double standard advantaging big business interests over those of working people, a chronic lack of engagement and other instances of poor conduct.”

But they got no real support among other labor organizations. While umbrella groups like the state AFL-CIO stayed out of the fight, 14 other labor organizations in the area – including the Ironworkers Local 29, Lane Professional Fire Fighters (IAFF Local 851), Oregon AFSCME, Oregon and Southern Idaho District Council of Laborers, Oregon Building Trades Council, Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs and the Oregon Nurses Association – sided with Holvey.

With the help of paid signature gatherers, Local 555 did get the recall on the ballot. But the voters supported Holvey by a stunning margin: About 90% voted not to recall him, a number far larger than that in most contested races.

But even before that election the local was back into ballot issues, saying on June 23 it would try to reverse the recently passed House Bill 2426, which opened the door to self-serve gasoline dispensing across the state.

Oregon was known for many years as one of two states – the other is New Jersey – requiring that attendants pump gas, a rule imposed in 1951 and long thought to be immutable. It has been eroded steadily in recent years, however, first with exemptions for rural areas and then broader pandemic-era allowances. Polling showed steadily growing support for self-serve gas.

HB 2426, passed and enacted this year, did away with the self-serve ban statewide, though it still requires businesses generally to provide a staff-service option. That latter provision may keep some service positions intact. Advocates also point out that Oregon has been experiencing a labor shortage in recent years.

Local 555 does have an interest in this issue, since it said it represents “nearly 800 workers at 63 grocery store fuel stations in Oregon,” though there’s little clear information on how many jobs have been lost through the law change, and in its statement on the initiative the local didn’t offer an estimate.

Local 555 spokesman Miles Eshaia said, “We have fuel stations within some of our bargaining units and we have seen not necessarily layoffs, but job loss to attrition so people who quit, they just don’t replace them because they don’t necessarily need to, because the new law allows for half of what they had before.”

Local 555 would need to collect about 117,000 signatures by next July to get a proposed reversal on the ballot. If it succeeds at that,  the odds of passage are not good, especially considering that other organizations haven’t jumped on board. While it probably would get more than 10% support, the measure seems to be trying to swim upstream.

The local also is taking on the statehouse with a series of other ballot proposals, which aim to revamp the ethics commission, end some closed door meetings, require some financial transparency for hospitals and pass into law a measure along the lines of the cannabis worker bill that failed in the last session.

Local 555 appears to be going its own way. Will others join in?

This column appeared originally in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Max Black

Max Black

November 17, 2023

Max Black, who was an Idaho state representative from 1992 to 2006, and who died at Boise on November 10, was a good state legislator.

I knew at the time, as I watched him at the Statehouse, that  he was a good legislator, but only years after he served did I piece together some of the important reasons why, and those reasons had nothing to do with the legislature as such.

Max was cheerful, enthusiastic, seldom critical or downbeat (in my observation), and unlike many elected officials did not seem to be a great self-promoter. He was a well-regarded legislator, though, across the chamber and among people (such as lobbyists and reporters) around it. His reputation was made on the basis of careful work and maintaining good personal relationships. Throwing shade or red meat was nowhere near his style.

So what drove Max, if not the usually expected personal aggrandizement?

I got my first clue of that one day in 2012, years after his days in elected office, when my cell phone rang while I happened to be walking through the Idaho Statehouse. It was an out of the blue call from Max, who I hadn’t seen for some years. His reason for the call: Knowing that I published books, he wanted to talk about a book proposal he had.

(A disclaimer: I am the publisher of the book I’m about to describe.)

I’ve fielded a number of such book pitch calls over the years, but this one was different from most. After leaving the legislature, Max became deeply interested in regional history, to the point of taking extensive efforts to research it from original people and materials. He became captivated by the well-known southern Idaho murder case, from the late 19th century, of “Diamondfield” Jack Davis, who was convicted and nearly (and more than once) hanged for the killing of two sheepmen.

Books had been written before about Davis (I had even read one), and their writers included ample speculation but also lots of blank area when it came to important facts of the case and Davis’ life. I asked Max why he wanted to write a new one.

His answer was stunning. He had investigated the case from scratch, walking the desert landscape and visiting people in the region to find obscure clues. His persistence led him to the point of locating the firearm and one of the bullets involved in the murder case, and unlike anyone previously he had pieced together the evidence that Davis not only did not but could not have committed the crime - and he had developed nearly conclusive evidence about who did. He even unearthed new information about what became of Davis in his later years, and scotched a number of spurious stories.

He convinced me.

We brought the book, called “Diamondfield: Finding the Real Jack Davis,” into publication the next year, and from that year to this Max has been a tireless promoter of it: His enthusiasm for the work he does has been as great as anyone I’ve known.

He also has been doing ongoing research into other obscure corners of western history, and he often has shared unexpected tales from the old, and sometimes not so old, intermountain west.

His persistence and ingenuity, and ability to find help and leverage information, was remarkable.

That’s not all there was to him, of course. An obituary said that, “He found joy in creating pens, trains, violins, boxes and really almost anything out of wood and giving his creations away or donating them for others to enjoy.” That too would fit with the Max Black I saw in the context of his book.

His enthusiasm, persistence and refusal to accept anything less than the best evidence before deciding on what the story really is: These are useful qualities for a state legislator, or anyone in a position of public responsibility.

 

Local election influences

Local election influences

November 10, 2023

Local elections, like those last week in Idaho cities and school districts, often are decided because of local considerations and concerns. A city mayor or school board member may be long-established and uncontroversial and thereby win another term, or may be the subject of hot debate (for good reason or not) and be dropped by the voters.

Some other patterns do turn up, though, and one this year in Idaho and other places involves candidates promoted by far-right groups or local Republican Party organizations. In last week’s elections in Idaho, quite a few of these candidates didn’t succeed.

These cases, all involving offices officially non-partisan, involve different kinds of stories.

The Boise mayoral contest, for example, had partisan overtones. The city has become increasingly blue over the last couple of decades, and the incumbent mayor, Lauren McLean, has long been identified as a Democrat. Her opponent, Mike Masterson, has said he formerly was a Republican but is no longer; nonetheless, an informal R seemed attached to his name as a D was to McLean’s.

All other factors aside - many concerns and issues were raised, and some may have affected a number of votes - the vote McLean received is not far off from what most credible Democratic candidates normally receive in the city. Seen in that way, Boise followed a partisan pattern.

Although the state’s second-largest city, Meridian, is a far more Republican place, the dynamic actually looked similar. Mayor Robert Simison, like McLean seeking a second term, has been relatively centrist and mostly uncontroversial. His chief opponent, Mike Hon, described himself: “I’m a conservative. And I think Meridian is mostly a conservative place. So that’s why we want to focus on family values.” Simison won with about  70% of the vote.

There aren’t many other large population centers around the state where the dynamic works that way. But an informal R label this election proved less useful for a number of candidates than it often did in recent years when, for example, candidates for the North Idaho College Board and the West Bonner School District board have ridden those endorsements to wins.

In the West Ada School District, two incumbents, Rene Ozuna and David Binetti, were challenged by well-funded challengers with strong local Republican connections. Both incumbents won, however.

The Idaho Ed News reported that the two highest profile contests for the Coeur d’Alene School Board resulted in losses for the two candidates supported by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee; the two winners apparently (to judge from their fundraising and lists of supporters) appear to have gone into the contest with eyes open and strong organization.

The story was similar with the Coeur d'Alene city council election; one observer snarked, “Frankly, after this, maybe #idgop #KCRCC should persist in "rating and vetting" and producing lists of candidates to put in front of voters. It's the kiss of death.”

In Nampa, the connections to party organizations are thinner, but you can suss them out. In one faceoff, Stephanie Binns, an educator, took what would look like the Democratic side on hot issues, and contractor Jay Duffy took the Republican side; Binns won with 60% of the vote. In the other hot race in the district, the result went the other way, though the “informal R” got just 51%, in a very Republican community.

On the eastern side of the state, results in the Idaho Falls School District were strikingly similar.

In Caldwell, all three incumbents, facing challenges from the right, prevailed.

You can cite countervailing examples, but the number of centrist winners in this week’s contests were notable and may amount to a serious pattern.

There’s been talk over the last year of more centrist voters, groups and candidates pushing back against the strong campaigns from the right. Such efforts succeeded at the community college board level (in some places, not all). And they may have succeeded again this November.

 

OR 3 will stay blue, but what shade?

OR 3 will stay blue, but what shade?

November 5, 2023

In the broad picture, the departure after next year of longtime U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer will mean a change of personnel rather than a change of politics for Oregon.

The biggest immediate impact may be on how much more junior, in seniority terms, the Oregon delegation rapidly has become. After Blumenauer’s departure, the senior House member will be Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who has held the office just over a decade, and after that Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz, now in his second term. The other three members of the delegation all were elected for the first time just last year. Oregon has built significant seniority in its senators, but will have less in the House for years to come.

Seniority aside, Oregonians shouldn’t expect dramatic change in the representation of the 3rd after next year.

That’s not a commentary on Blumenauer but rather on his district. The Oregon 3rd has been for generations centered on Portland, and for the last couple of generations it has solidified as solidly liberal, much the most partisan district in Oregon in recent years. Even after the recent census-driven reapportionment, the 3rd is more Democratic than the eastern-Oregon 2nd district is Republican. In the Northwest overall, it is second only to the central Seattle district in Democratic lean, and is more Democratic than any Northwest district is Republican, including those in Idaho.

Blumenauer, who won the seat in 1996, following Ron Wyden’s move to the U.S. Senate, has had no tough elections since the day he was sworn in. He has not fallen below 67% of the vote in any general election in that district, and primaries have been no problem for him either. Considering the party registration in the district, Blumenauer was, if anything, slightly underperforming, but on the evidence of numbers, the district seems satisfied.

So let no one suggest that he has decided to retire at age 75 because of political difficulties; he was there for life if he’d so chosen.

But, given a fresh choice, what kind of representative might the district want at this point?

The question doesn’t relate to the usual broader issues, the way it does, for example, in the competitive Oregon 5th, which next election might choose a nominee of either party. But within the context of left-of-center Democratic prospects, variations exist.

As Bluemenauer was quoted as saying, “There are literally a dozen people salivating at the prospect of getting in this race.” And why not? Once past the primary, without any major errors, the Democratic nominee is likely to hold the seat without difficulty for a long time, as Blumenauer and Wyden did.

But different candidates – and none formally has announced plans to run yet – could bring different approaches.

You could illustrate that through two of the first names to be circulated broadly as prospects for the race.

One possibility is Deborah Kafoury, formerly chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. Much like Blumenauer, she has been deeply involved in Portland-area government – and in the state Legislature – for many years. It’s easy to imagine that her service in the district might look a lot like Blumenauer’s: Unmistakably liberal, supportive of much that’s on the metro area’s agenda, but not particularly cantankerous or high profile. A candidate like her might be seen as an establishment choice in the same sense Blumenauer has been.

Another name being bounced around is that of current Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, whose sister, Pramila Jayapal, represents that super-Democratic central Seattle district. Pramila Jayapal is more a national political figure, more an ideological leader in Congress, than Blumenauer has been; she chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

That’s not to say that Susheela Jayapal would follow exactly the same path; many of the headlines around Susheela Jayapal have concerned homelessness, budget issues and other local concerns.

But Portland voters may take note that the Seattle representative has been a strong supporter for the Multnomah candidate. She remarked, for example after her sister’s election to the Multnomah commission, “I am really proud of her. She did a lot of work listening to organizations dealing with housing and homelessness and she has very clear values. We have very similar values around treating people with respect and giving people a hand up.”

So, expect the next representative from Oregon’s 3rd to be a liberal Democrat. As to what kind of liberal Democrat the district will prefer, we have yet to see.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

The dam fight at thirty-something

The dam fight at thirty-something

November 3, 2023

When the Snake River Basin Adjudication was begun in 1987, no one expected it would be completed quickly. Water adjudications in western states often have taken decades, and the SRBA may have been the largest ever, covering six figures worth of water rights across almost nine-tenths of Idaho.

Nonetheless, it has been completed - at least in general terms - and it only took a remarkably brief 26 years.

That bit of history prowled around the back of my mind this week when I saw the latest court developments in the legal action aimed at breaching the four lower Snake River dams, located in southeastern Washington state. The dams are the Lower Granite (closest to the Idaho border), the Little Goose, the Lower Monumental and the Ice Harbor (near the confluence with the Columbia River).

The news involves a delay in further developments, which is to say, another in a long list of delays of anything resembling final action. Specifically, the parties involved asked the court for another 45 days to negotiate, following up on an earlier delay of 60 days.

Those are a pittance. The legal action over the four dams started in 1993, which means attorneys have been kept busy on the subject for 30 years - three years longer than it took to adjudicate the highly complex and contentious water rights across most of Idaho.

It’s hard to conceive that there’s much new left to talk about.

The issues associated with the dams (and I’m not going to try to relitigate them all here) mainly concern preservation of declining salmon runs on one hand, and the electric power the dams generate, and concerns about impacts on commercial river traffic (you’ll hear this a lot at Lewiston) on the other. Environmental, tribal and some governments have been on one side, and a number of federal agencies, economic interests and others have filled the other. The region, and many of its top elected officials, have been split - and within the parties as well as between them.

One report from the University of Washington said “Despite research and knowledge of the effects of the LSRDs on salmon and steelhead populations, river ecology, and tribal sovereignty there remains resistance at the state and federal level. The barrier to remove the LSRDs for Governor [Jay] Inslee (D) of Washington is the fact that the dams produce renewable energy, recreational, and economic benefits. However, both Gov. Inslee and Senator [Patty Murray] have been open to exploring the possibility of removing the dams if the benefits and services the dams create can be replaced by alternatives.”

Yale School of the Environment noted that over the last three decades, “On at least five occasions, federal judges ordered the agencies to consider removing the lower Snake River dams, and each time the agencies responded with delay and diversions, once going so far as to call the dams immutable parts of the landscape⁠ and therefore not subject to the Endangered Species Act.”

Neither side seems inclined to quit.

Still, after 30 years, the context of the legal battle has changed, and the changes may suggest where this is heading.

First, in the last decade, the debate has taken place in the context of demolition of a number of other dams in the region.

Second, the dams need repairs if they're going to continue in service, and that will be costly.

Third, renewable energy, notably solar and wind,has taken off in a big way in the inland Northwest, and the argument that the dams are needed for their electric power generation has become less central in the debate.

It could be that if the parties come to accept some of the trend lines, and not just the starting and hoped-for ending points, the case could be resolved before another 30 years has passed.

 

The numbers and party attitudes

The numbers and party attitudes

October 29, 2023

The midway point between the midterm election of 2022 and the presidential election of 2024 makes for a useful benchmark for examining the hardest political numbers, outside of actual elections, Oregon has to offer: Its voter registration statistics.

They tell a story of rise and fall, but not between Democrats and Republicans: Rather, between those willing to identify with a party and those who are not.

Overall, Oregon voter registration over the last five years has been growing steadily, in line with the population and maybe beyond that – from October 2018 to now it grew 8.4% – to just under three million people statewide  or 2,999,871 to be exact. Picking numbers from monthly reports in October or September of each year avoids upticks in the parties from people who only temporarily switch to vote in a contested primary, and comes before the point when general election ballots are sent out.

Even then, the growth has not been even, and some categories of voters showed sharp declines.

Part of the political story of 2024 will be told in how that roller coaster is shaped next.

All of Oregon’s counties except the smallest, Wheeler, grew their voter registrations over the last five years, but some much more than others. The three fastest were Crook, Jefferson and Morrow, not among the top suspects for developing big electorates. Because of their small sizes, they don’t change the picture drastically. Oregon’s largest county, Multnomah, was one of the slowest growers. Registration declined some years, but is now up 5.1%.

Much more striking has been the roller coaster of party registration in the last few years.

Democratic Party registration this month stands at 998,380, which is almost 15,000 lower than in 2022, which was 13,000 lower than in 2021, which was a stunning 30,000 lower than in 2020. That’s not a happy trend line for the party. But there are some mitigating factors.

One of those happened just before those years: During the year leading up to the 2020  election, Democratic registration grew by a whopping 82,277. Considering that increase and the more gradual erosion in the years since, the party’s registration level today is about where it was in 2019 if you account for population increase.

The second mitigator is Republican registration, where the picture, though also mixed, looks rougher. This month, 721,530 Republicans are registered in the state – fewer than three-fourths the number of Democrats. That, too, is a decline from the 2020 numbers, when 764,216 Republicans were registered. (Both parties seem to have gone all out to register party members in that presidential year, then lost many afterward.) Since 2020, Republicans lost registrants two of the last three years, with the largest share of losses coming in 2021.

So if lots of people have left the two big parties since 2020, but overall voter registration has remained generally stable, where did they go?

Some went to the Independent Party of Oregon, which has gained about 6,000 members since 2020. But by far the largest number went to the nonaffiliated voter category: It picked up about 14,000 registrants in that time. While the parties gained members in the year prior to 2020, those in the unaffiliated category diminished by 9,184 voters.

There’s some recent history backing the idea that Oregon voter registration is like an accordion, with the parties puffing up when presidential election year comes around, then losing a significant chunk of their members in between.

What’s happening?

The numbers reflect the trend of people becoming  disenchanted with major parties in a non-presidential election year while turning towards them when the office of president is on the ballot.

It also shows that as steadily Democratic as Oregon can seem on a surface level – and generally has been when voters weigh in with their ballots – that the blue majority rides rising and falling tides.

Watch the registration numbers month by month and see whether Democrats start picking up in the year ahead, leading up to the 2024 presidential election. If they do, traditional results are likely to appear. But the parties will have to work for support. It’s soft enough that it could falter if it’s not well tended.

This article originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.