Op Ed:
Ethics-Breakers Need
Painful Consequence
To Force Realistic Reform in Oregon

Rapidly End Huge-Hole/Easy-Payoff “Campaign Contributions”

"Conscience" Courtesy: dlibrary.acu.edu

(SALEM) - “New ethics-regulation rules for this Legislature"? Where are they? What’s different this time-around?

"Campaign contributions" still legal? "Just mark 'em up as so much 'travel costs' for lobbyist lavishing and you collect when you show up"? Collecting meal-checks will never do it while allowing such huge loopholes that those lavish corporate-cash givers can literally “fly a travel-tour airplane” right through --to a safe landing!! AND it remains "legal"??

Just so long as overly patient Oregonian taxpayers stand for ANY ongoing “campaign contributions” loophole: That’s how long this silly “transactional lobbyist” transfer of cash for access and private-gain impact will continue.

“Painful consequence” properly administered rapidly is the single, simple, practical (and also "legal") answer for such denigration from the State leadership we once enjoyed. “Ten-times multiplied” first-fine (to $15,000), followed by second, tougher fine ($25,000) and automatic expulsion from Oregon political-career privileges --including involvement with Legislative contact at all levels-- will do this now-tough job nicely.

As one famous national political leader stated: "First you gotta get their full attention!!"

If our Arena “workers” can deal with the death penalty for others, this political death-penalty for murder of voter-trust should be easy. Anyone found guilty by colleagues or court twice-around on this one deserves natural and "attention-getting" disaster.

Action at that level simply superimposes what the American Judicial system has been doing ever since establishment by our Constitution-- and thus surely includes all Constitutional safeguards.

After decades of dangerous, damaging disintegration into the current “could NOT care less!” attitude of some still-lavishing, this remains the No. One problem for this Legislature: Seeking desperately to restore public confidence in the whole process plainly underway, right out there in the public eye, at “the Salem Arena.”

The Big O “told it true” in a small but potent essay by Pulitzer-winner Doug Bates on their Edit Page Thursday 2/8: Set in beautiful, lavish resort surround, reminiscent of those realities recently experienced by some still active in “the Arena”, this satiric essay mirrors the malign manipulations always involved in continued “corporate campaign contributions”.

Those are collected, on this satirical trip to a "blast-furnace industry" conference (in Hawaii, naturally!), by fact-of-attendance.

The entire point re "corporate campaign contributions" is entirely made --several times, in fact-- by the skillful tone and tenor of what Bates wrote.

One must experience such strong, sensitive performance to the notes of reality to feel the true potency of what it states.

Anyone knowing from whence cometh that perverted/distorted reflection of what the Founders intended in their First Amendment will understand the Boyd piece and its sharp insights; and feel strongly and correctly the message-meant about Ethics Commission strength, principle and rigor in action --yet to be achieved by this Legislature.

It would be well to also include “When” with some substantial safeguard against canny contrivance for “suspended” payment, lavished out only after policy-sought has been produced and delivered. The Founders meant “free speech” to be “for humans only”, shown by their writings at the time and the fact that such corporate brute-force contrivance did not then exist. -- except as the “royalism” denied and defeated in 1776. A corporation does not BREATHE, WALK, EAT or otherwise equate into human-form, despite long-argued legal myth now under attack nationally.

Common court-currency otherwise worships one of the many well-recognized legal errors committed over decades by “the Supremes”; here equating in damage and danger with their long-continued support for slavery. Which, please note, was wiped away by the wit, wisdom and the overwhelming will of “the people”, when demanded, accomplished by our bloodiest-ever Civil War.

Let us hope it will not demand another Civil War to set this one, too, to rights; preserving the potent force of individual free speech while denying that impact to dollars-piled overwhelmingly by corporate contrivance and constant employment vs “the people”. The corporation is a legal format for organization, developed and disciplined over centuries to provide ONLY for private profit.

Thus it cannot --and until recent decades, never was-- meant to overwhelm and undermine and denigrate and deny representative governance by elective choice --the “way of freedom” clearly chosen by our Founders. By definition it exists “only on paper” as contract between persons-- which is where the “human rights” involved reside, by nature and common sense. No physical body presents itself for any possible “human responsibility” and therefore no “human rights” can possibly exist without the recognized moral and ethical “other side”, acknowledged for ANY “right” in all modern societies.

That is the “heart of the matter” in the well-known “social contract” which is, literally, the operational heart of any civilized society today.

IF these Arena-runners cannot do the job --the people will do it for them soon --and even more painfully for lavish layers-on and their corporate cohorts; whose only source for the lavish life must come from dollars derived from the same public whose policies for wise self-governance are being constantly and crudely manipulated and “managed”.
(Editor's Note: Senate President Courtney has now cut off easy access by lobbyists, formerly allowed to pass notes to Senators, be present on the floor during the sessions, and mingle with Members just outside the Chamber. Courtney called it "disruptive" and unseemly" for elected officials to step outside the Chamber to hobnob with the lobbyists. "Our conduct on the floor is under more scrutiny", Courtney stated. OREGONIAN, Harry Esteve "Inside The Capital" 2/8/07)