We've got issues.
Former state Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove is a retired state employee.
The Oregon Legislature fizzled to a halt as expected. Now the real fun starts. You think paid sick leave for workers and carbon emission standards will not exact a price at the ballot box in 2016? The lack of compromise and the partisan fights over a transportation package and the minimum wage now spill over into the next initiative season, and it’s going to be an expensive ride. Continue reading
I submitted this column at 9 am Monday, July 6. I just got off the phone with Val Hoyle, who has not been recalled … yet. As of 9 am the Oregon Legislature has the capability, but not the will, to be done. The last major roadblock was the bonding measure that passed on Friday, July 3. The Republicans threatened to skip work that weekend because, after all, they don’t really have to adjourn until July 11, and to work on the 4th of July would be unpatriotic. Republican legislators still get paid you see, not to work, but to work on the 4th of July is unpatriotic. Continue reading
The tension in Salem at the end of any legislative session is attractive if you’re an unrelenting sociopath who loves pain and heartbreak. With the preceding five months of plodding public process behind them, partisan legislators will finally cast their votes in stone in early July. The game will only finish when the budgets are decided. It’s one of the things I miss most about being out of the Legislature for the past 12 years. I loved counting votes. Continue reading
I’m a little nervous here, a little distracted. But don’t worry, I’ll cover the slug-like inactivity of the Oregon Legislature in a moment. Frankly, a bigger issue looms at the moment. We may be headed for a global theological/scientific Mongolian clusterfluck — not to be confused with climate change or global warming or the Sixth Great Extinction. This is much seriouser! I can see the donnybrook coming. Continue reading
June is a tough month for Oregon legislators for a variety of reasons. There’s pressure to get out of the building by the 4th of July. Since it is a citizen Legislature, many of the members are missing work, and employers want their employees back. And, five months into session, members have listened to their colleagues’ positions and those of the other three caucuses ad infinitem and ad nauseum. Continue reading
This first week of retirement has been pretty uneventful so far … except for my new top-secret assignment from Gov. Kate Brown. But more about that later. Continue reading
No, unfortunately for you, dear readers, it’s not “Last Writes.” Yes, sports fans, the geezer moment has come. If you open your May 28 EW and read this after 5 pm, I will officially be free at last! Continue reading
I’m worried about the future of one of our local newspapers. Granted we all have our obsessions and addictions, some healthy, some not. My parents, tough Catholic conservatives that they were, forced me to read our local newspaper early on. As I’ve told my young nieces and nephews: Third grade was the hardest four years of my life! Anyway, for the last 50 years, because of my parents’ unrelenting insistence on literacy, I resorted to newspapers — a total junkie. Continue reading
During the last six regular sessions of the Oregon Legislature, I have had the honor and privilege of serving with Marla Rae and Jon Chandler — two of the most profanely funny bipartisan lobbyists in the business — as a judge in the Golden Gobbler Awards honoring the worst bills introduced each session. This party has been around forever, hosted by Pamela Jones, Mark Nelson and his lobby firm, Public Affairs Counsel, at their beautiful home on the Willamette. Mark invites legislators, staff and lobbyists, and the price of admission is a sense of humor and a bill that should not be. Continue reading
As this column goes to print, yours truly will be a whole new person in approximately two weeks. No, no, this isn’t a Bruce Jenner moment, about his transgenderfication and his alleged dedication of his balls to Obama. Continue reading