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TH E BULLETIN• TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014
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n 2010, Oregon voters approved annual legislative sessions to allow lawmakers to react to emergencies and deal with vital services in a timely way. Previously, the legislators met every other year, with emergency special ses-
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sions as needed. The 2010 measure limited the sessionsto 160 days in odd-numbered years and 35 in even-numbered years. The idea was to deal with urgent, changing issues in the short sessions, while tackling more complex problems in the longer ones. That's not how it's playing out. Legislators this year have filed bills on a wide range of new and old topics, many of which are neither urgent nor suitable for quick action. Some lawmakers andlobbyists have complained that the short sessions, occurring in election years, have become hyper-partisan and campaign-focused. There's worry that complex issues aren't getting the attention they need, and that things are moving too fast for the public to react and be heard. Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, has proposed shifting 10 days from the long session to the short one, accordingto The Oregonian, while Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, suggests dumping the short sessions or placing sharp controls
on the number of bills introduced and requiring supermajority votes to pass them. While we share concerns about what's happening, we don't think dumping the short session and going back to the old way is the answer. The state has grown since the days when legislators could meet every two years. The executive, judicial and regulatory arms of government are in full swing all the time. Jumping in with special legislative sessions on an emergency basis isn't enough in today's world. Shifting a few days from the long to the short session might help a little, but almost certainly not enough. And nothing will prevent legislative sessions from beingpartisan, election year or not. It may take a while to sort out the best meeting schedule for the Legislature, but in the meantime, we like McLane's idea of limiting the number and type of bills that can be introduced in the short session. That would restore the concept behind the voters' 2010 decision to add an even-year session.
Misreading Putin, and history WASHINGTON-
ne hundred years after a spark in Central Europe igGEORGE nited a conflagration from WILL which the world has not yet recovered and from which Europe will never recover, armed forces have crossed an international border in what "self" was he speaking? SomeCentral Europe, eliciting this anal- times he spoke of the self-determiysis from Secretary of State John nation of "nations," at other times of Kerry: "It's a 19th century act in the "peoples," as though these are syn21st century. It really puts at ques- onyms. Wilson's secretary of state, tion Russia's capacity to be within Robert Lansing, wondered "what
O
A step closer to promise
of 'opennessprevails'
O
n President Barack Obama's first full day in office, he ordered government agencies to administer the Freedom of Information Act "with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails." But that's not what happened. Rejections, delays, inaction, requests for high fees are what people got instead when they requested public records from the federal government. The level of cooperation on FOIA requests varies widely from request torequest or agency to
agency. Journalists who cover the White House — and it's not just liberal or conservative journalists — say this is the most secretive administration they can remember. It's at least encouraging, then, that last week the House of Representatives unanimously passed HR 1211, the FOIA Reform Act. If
it becomes law and is carried out, it would be the first meaningful reforms to the federal FOIA in seven years. Many things in the legislation hold promise. It would create an online portal, making it easier to track requests. More things should be automatically disclosed by the government. It codifies the "presumption of openness" concept. It may also make it easier to track how wellgovernment agencies are complying with the law. That's all encouraging. Journalists pay close attention to this issue. But it's not just about journalists. The public has a right to know what its government is doing. Government shouldn't be able to conceal information because it might be embarrassing,because mistakes might be revealed or because of indefinite fears. Let's hope this time when it is said that openness prevails, openness prevails.
sula where Putin is now tightening his grip. Conservatives who should know better have often said the Yalta Conference "gave" Eastern Eu-
rope to the Soviet Union. Actually, the Red Army was in the process of acquiring it. This process could no more have been resisted militarily by Stalin's allies, which the United States and Britain then were, than
Putin's aggression can be. Barack Obama, who involved the United States in seven months of
war with Libya, perhaps because that "certain phrases" of Wilson's the project was untainted by U.S. peace has been regularly broken be- "have not been thought out." But national interest, is seeking dipcause national borders do not tidily they resonated. In the Atlantic Char- lomatic and especially economic coincide with ethnic, linguistic and ter of 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and leverage against Putin's ramshackle religious patterns. This problem was W inston Churchill a ff irmed t h e nation in order to advance the enorintensified by World War I, which rights of "peoples." The U.N. Charter mous U.S. interest in depriving him demolished the Habsburg, Romanov endorses the self-determination of of Ukraine. and Ottoman empires. Ukraine is a "peoples." Which became a third inUnless Obama finds such levershard of the first two, and a neighbor gredient, ethnic self-determination. age, his precipitous slide into Jimmy of a remnant of the third. Wilson had sown dragon's teeth. Carter territory will continue. As an The problems bequeathed by that While Wilson was making phras- expression of disdain for a U.S. preswar were aggravated by a peace- es in 1918,a German corporalrecov- ident, Putin's seizure of Ukraine's maker, one of Kerry's precursors ering from a gas attack was making Crimean peninsula is symmetrical among American progressives ea- plans. And on Sept. 27, 1938, the cor- with Leonid Brezhnev's invasion of ger to share with the world their poral, then Germany's chancellor, Afghanistan late in Carter's presexpertise at imposing rationality said "the right of self-determination, idency. Large presidential failures on untidy societies. Unfortunate- whichhad been proclaimed by Pres- cannot be hermetically sealed; they ly, Woodrow Wilson's earnestness ident Wilson as the most important permeate a presidency. Putin's conabout improving the world was larg- basis of national life, was simply de- tribution t o t h e m i n i aturization er than his appreciation of how the nied to the Sudeten Germans" and of Obama comes in the context of world's complexities can cause im- must be enforced. So Czechoslova- Obama's self-inflicted wound provers to make matters worse. kia was dismembered. Still, the war Obamacare, which simultaneously Wilson injected into diplomatic came. shattered belief in his competence discourse the idea that "self-deterThree months from the end of and honesty, and may linger as rumination" is a universal right and the war in Europe, the architects inously for Obama as the Iranian "an imperative principle of action." of the impending victory — Roos- hostage crisis did for Carter. the G8." For many centuries, European
unit has he in mind" and warned
Several of his Fourteen Points con-
evelt, Churchill and Stalin — met
cerned self-determination. But of
at a town on the Crimean penin-
— George Will is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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Could Founding Fathers solve today's political gridlock? By Joseph J. Ellis
white males gathered in Philadelphia, imposed complete censorship over hen I appear at book festi- the deliberations, regarded slavery vals or give readings, lots as the ghost at the banquet (it could of folks want to know what not be openly debated), and then had the Founding Fathers would do or say the audacity to send the document to about our currently dysfunctional the states under the rhetorical mantle Congress. There seems to be an un- "We, the people." If ourmodern values spoken but widely shared assumption of inclusiveness, transparency and that the most prominent members of diversity were imposed on the foundthe founding generation represent the ers, the Constitution would never have gold standard in political leadership, happened. and our contemporary politicians are Lately, however, I have been having the epitome ofdebased currency. As some second thoughts, prompted by one commentator put it, "Once you recent arguments linking the gridcompare then and now, you've got lock in Congress with the purportedly to believe that Darwin got it exactly outdated and anachronistic character backward." of the Constitution itself. Those arguMy standard response to all such ments lead to the conclusion that we comments is to warn the audience need a second Constitutional Conventhat makinghistorical comparisons in tion to rectify the problem. For The Los Angeles Times
w
such a straightforward then-and-now
But, seriously, a second Constitu- on any bill that does not have the mational Convention? It could never suc- jority support of his or her party. ceed, chiefly because the secrecy, elitAgain, neither of these procedurism and the rest of 1787 reality could al principles is anywhere to be found never be duplicated in our time. (And in the original text or subsequent ought not be.) Besides —and here I feel amendments to the Constitution. So an obligation to defend the legacy of we cannot pin our gridlock problems the founders — the current gridlock in on the founders. Congress is not a function of anything But let's push it to the next level. Neiin the language of the Constitution. ther the Senate nor the House, under Gerrymandering and primary elec- the administrative pretense of contion politicking are surely part of the trolling its own procedural rules, has problem. So too is the plutocratic char- the authority to alter the meaning of acter of our political culture in what the Constitution. The only way to do
swoonish swings in popular opinion. Nothing in the Constitution gives the Senate the authority to redefine the Constitution as it sees fit.
The current Congress is dysfunctional, then, largely because it has adopted procedures that systematically deny the rights of the majority in ways that violate the original intentions of
the founders. The proper place to adjudicate this issue is neither the House
nor the Senate but the Supreme Court, which is the ultimate arbiter of what has become, in effect, a second Gilded that is by a constitutional amendment. the Constitution says and what the Long-standing members of the Sen- founders intended. Age. But the core problem in getting legislation through the House and the ate will cry foul at any argument that If by some miracle we could bring Senate areprocedural rules adopted questions their discretionary author- Madison back to testify to the high
by both bodies over the last century. In the Senate, the culprit is the filibuster. Its history is long and labyrinIn truth, most of the prominent thian, but, in the form it has assumed founders, induding Jefferson, Mad- overthelast30yearsorso,asupermaison and Adams, would probably jority of 60 votes is required for pasnot object to such a proposal — insage of any and all legislation. (The deed would be surprised that their "nuclear option" weakened the filibus-
fashion is misguided, and that bringing the founders into the present is like trying to plant cut flowers. Moreover, canonizing and capitalizing the Founding Fathers is more hagiogra- 18th-century creation had lasted as phy than history. long as it has. Jefferson thought that For example, once you understand the Constitution should be redone how the Constitution was created, everygeneration, meaning every 20 all rosy myths evaporate. Fifty-five years or so.
terms, making them less vulnerable to
ity. They have exercised that author-
court in just such a proceeding, the
ity for so long, and their convictions
"Father of the Constitution" would
about the special status of the Senate apprise the justices that the current are so embedded in their hearts and modus operandi in Congress is not minds, that they sincerely believe the what he and his colleagues had in founders designated them as Delphic mind. In short, he would declare it orades. unconstitutional. Not so. The great and not-so-great
ter when applied to some presidential
men in Philadelphia indeed wanted
appointments, but not to legislation.)
the Senate to serve as a check on the democratic excesses of the House.
In the House, the source of gridlock is the unwritten code that gives the
But they believed that goal would be speaker the authority to block a vote achieved by giving senators six-year
— JosephL Ellis is the author of "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" and "Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of AmericanIndependence,"among other books. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.