Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:

The (Eugene) Register-Guard, Dec. 26, on a sixth congressional district for Oregon

Oregon is solidly on track to gain a sixth congressional district as a result of the 2020 Census. In nearly all of the period since statehood, Oregon’s population has grown more rapidly than the national average - and that trend has continued since 1980, the last time Oregon added a member to its delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s not too early for state officials to begin thinking about how to divide Oregon into six geographically coherent districts of equal population.

A sixth district looks likely for Oregon partly because the state was close to gaining a new district after the last Census, in 2010. Oregon’s population growth has been relatively robust since then. More than halfway through the decade, most of the population changes that will be used to adjust congressional representation among the states have already occurred. According to an analysis by RealClearPolitics, among the states that might qualify for an additional House seat, Oregon’s position is relatively strong.

Figures from mid-2016 show that Oregon was home to 1.24 percent of the nation’s population. With a five-member U.S. House delegation, Oregon has only 1.15 percent of the nation’s representatives. The addition of a sixth member would give Oregon 1.38 percent of the 435-member House. The state would probably remain over-represented for a decade or two, and then would become under-represented until it gains a seventh House member in 30 or 40 years.

All House districts are redrawn every 10 years to ensure that each of a state’s House members represents the same number of people. No district can be divided between two states, so House members from some states represent more people than members from others. Wyoming’s lone House member, for instance, represents 584,000 people, while each House member from Oregon represents more than 800,000.

In Oregon, redrawing political districts is a responsibility of the state Legislature. If legislators can’t agree on a redistricting plan, the job is assigned to the secretary of state. After the Census of 2010, the Legislature successfully completed a redistricting plan for the first time in several 10-year cycles.

Most of Oregon’s current congressional districts are geographically coherent. Rep. Peter DeFazio’s 4th District, for instance, covers the timber-dependent southwest quarter of the state, while Rep. Greg Walden’s 2nd District takes in all of Eastern Oregon and Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s 3rd District is centered in Portland. The most awkwardly shaped district is Kurt Schrader’s 5th, which extends from the Portland suburbs to the coast. The 2020 Census is likely to offer an opportunity to draw more compact districts in fast-growing Washington and Clackamas counties.

Nationally, current population growth patterns suggest that the long-term shift of political power from the north to the south, and from the east to the west, will continue. Along with Oregon, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina are each considered likely to gain a House seat. Florida could gain two, and Texas three. Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia can expect to lose one seat apiece.

The effect on the partisan balance in the House is likely to be minimal. In Oregon, however, a sixth district centered in conservative-leaning Clackamas County could present an opportunity for Republicans, who currently hold only one of the state’s five House seats. Schrader’s 5th is currently Oregon’s closest to being a swing district, but after 2020 the state could have either two swing districts or a second one that leans Republican. It’s a safe bet that partisans on both sides of the aisle in Salem are already eyeing the possibilities.

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The East Oregonian, Dec. 21, on the importance of a state forensics lab in eastern Oregon

We know we give up a few things when we choose to live in Eastern Oregon.

We trade in some convenience, some comforts of urban life in exchange for a little elbow room. If you wonder why there isn’t a Costco, amusement park or hospital with a neurosurgeon at the ready in Umatilla County, it’s simply a numbers game. We don’t have the population to support them.

The same goes for state services. It only makes sense that state funding, taken in from taxpayers, is spent as proportionally as possible among the population.

But when it comes to matters of public safety, the state has an obligation to protect its citizens as equally as possible, regardless of geography.

Yet again, the state forensics lab in Pendleton has been placed on the chopping block in an effort to save some money in the state budget. And that threat, yet again, doesn’t take into account the impact that would ripple through our justice system.

In the modern age of investigating and prosecuting crimes, science labs play a critical part in the process. “CSI” and its various television show spinoffs would lead us to believe those labs are some kind of magic factory, turning a strand of hair, drop of blood or patch of cloth into a surefire conviction within a matter of minutes - or at least in time to advance the plot before the commercial break.

In reality, they are bureaucratic entities that collect, sort and examine evidence on a need-to-have basis, which often takes weeks and sometimes months. Forensic scientists are also needed to testify if the case goes to court.

The case of Nika Larsen - a lab tech in Pendleton and Bend who pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the labs - should help prove the point. The labs where she worked stopped testing drugs as a precaution while prosecutors gathered evidence against her and the backlog of needed tests now goes back to the spring.

A lab in Eastern Oregon should be considered an essential service. Local agencies should not be expected to bear the cost of transporting evidence all the way to Clackamas (212 miles away) to be processed, or wait those extra hours for lab techs to arrive from the metro area to collect evidence at a crime scene.

We’d like to think the question of whether the Pendleton lab is necessary could be answered once and for all, rather than it being pulled in as a bargaining chip each time the state budget is looking a little tight. But instead our district attorney, police chiefs, sheriff and county commissioners will again have to spend time explaining the value of having a lab on the eastern half of the state, and wait for legislators to decide if it’s an amenity or a necessity.

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The Daily Astorian, Dec. 22, on the state Motor Voter program

Every state has its quirks, and some quirks come to define that state in the national consciousness.

Florida, for instance, is part retirement community, part Deep South, part Disney World, part Latino immigration hub and part swamp, with an annual hurricane or two. The other 49 states aren’t sure exactly what to make of it.

Texas, which is not to be messed with, has an outlaw Western spirit and wide open spaces, but is also home to six of the 20 largest cities in the U.S.

California is the magnet for show business and tech development, Michigan is the sputtering frame of a once-great economic engine and Delaware is a state, too.

Oregon’s place in the national consciousness is as a liberal testing ground for progressive policies, rooted in Portland’s firm seat as the state’s thought center.

Sometimes this doesn’t work out. Promising our public employees a Rolls-Royce retirement package must have sounded great at the time, but its had long-term financial consequences. Every new iteration of the state’s education plan, touting a better future for our students, seems to pan out as more style than substance.

Initial success

But sometimes that striving for progress pays off. Oregon’s innovative Motor Voter law, given its first real test drive this election, is an example of creative thinking that solves a real democratic problem. Given its initial success, we also believe Motor Voter can be tweaked to make it even better.

The state already allows everyone to vote by mail, a rarity in the country, and state legislators passed a measure in 2015 to automatically register residents through the Department of Motor Vehicles unless they specifically opt out. In essence, this means it’s more difficult to opt out of getting a ballot for a general election than to register to receive one.

While lawmakers in other states have contrived ways to make voting more difficult, which always disproportionately affects poor and minority citizens, Oregon has made equal voter access a priority.

Improvements

Creating even greater equal access is an area where the Motor Voter program can be improved. Oregonians who are registered through Motor Voter are automatically classified as nonaffiliated/other until they return a follow-up postcard from the state and re-register with a party affiliation. To date, 272,702 people have been registered through Motor Voter, and of those, 78 percent have remained nonaffiliated/other. Where the problem arises is that by remaining unaffiliated, those new voters are locked out of voting in partisan primary elections because of Oregon’s closed primary system, and for practical purposes because of the demographic makeup of Oregon’s state and county voting districts, many of the seats are decided in the primaries and are not contested in the general election.

Additionally, research shows that unaffiliated voters in Oregon account for 34 percent of the state’s electorate, and that percentage has been trending upward for four decades. If the trend continues, unaffiliated voters will outnumber either Democrats or Republicans, which means fewer voters - rather than more voters - will be filling out ballots in those primaries and will have a potentially disproportionate influence on the outcome.

Greater efforts need to be made either at the initial registration point or in the follow-up to reach unaffiliated voters so that the closed primary system and the Motor Voter registration system are working in sync for all elections rather than just the general election. Another possible alternative is changing the primary system from closed to open primaries. State lawmakers should study both options and work to get the most inclusive result.

Oregon had 97,000 new voters cast ballots in the general election this year, about 44 percent of those registered through the new law. That’s a lot of people newly enfranchised in a cornerstone of our democracy. That engagement, while maybe a drop in the bucket in the wider scheme of, say, the presidential election outcome, can have a great effect on statewide and certainly local politics.

A state can’t choose its reputation on a whim. Or-E-gawn will always be seen as full of tree-hugging hippies if you ask a random resident of Florida, Texas, California, Michigan or Delaware. But by proving automatic voter registration can work in the best possible way, we’ll give those other states a reason to again follow our lead.

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The Bend Bulletin, Dec. 24, on problems with rent control

Oregon’s housing shortage cuts across economic lines in many ways, but it can be those at the lower end of the economic scale who suffer most when there’s not enough housing to go around.

That reality helps explain why state Rep. Tina Kotek, D-Portland and speaker of the state House of Representatives, is pushing to have the Legislature enact a “rent stabilization” - rent control - bill when it meets next year.

Yet if Kotek and others who think rent control will actually improve the state’s housing problems did even the most rudimentary homework, they’d discover how destructive the policy could be. It’s so bad, in fact, that many economists say it’s worse than the disease it seeks to cure.

Among rent control’s problems: It tends to drive money out of the rental housing market. If a builder cannot charge what he believes his building is worth, he’ll put his money elsewhere. That’s true for even expensive buildings that are not subject to rent control laws. There, economists note, potential landlords worry that someday controls will apply to them, too, and so go elsewhere.

Owners of existing buildings, meanwhile, can find themselves with repairs and maintenance needs they cannot afford to pay for, meaning the quality of rent-controlled housing declines. Rent controls have proven themselves an effective way to lower the quality of the housing to which they’re applied.

Rent control also holds landlords responsible for Oregon’s affordable housing challenges. That’s just not fair. Depending on how rent control is structured, it can also help people who don’t need help.

Meanwhile, Kotek and her cohorts fail to understand or selectively forget that Oregon’s housing shortages and high costs also have to do with the availability of buildable land, not just with “greedy” developers and landlords. With plenty of land available, the price of land does not face as much upward pressure. That helps hold down the price of housing.

Rent control does not increase the supply of housing. It’s likely to discourage new housing to correct the housing problem.

It’s simple, really, so much so that everyone in the Legislature should be able to understand it.