[Oregon Politics]
Quick: Who's Your State Rep?
Without consulting any reference material, answer these questions: who is your state rep; who's your state senator? I have an excuse for not knowing mine--I moved last week. But I actually had to stop a second to recall who they were two weeks ago (Margaret Carter and Chip Shields). People care about city politics and they care about national politics, but state politics--it's the worst of both worlds. It's local, but bureaucratically so. The issues lack the specificity of a good Wal-Mart battle, but the personalities lack the big stakes and fame of national politics. Yet in terms of how policies affect citizens, state politics are arguably the most important.
For the past decade, blue-state Oregon has been held hostage by petit Norquistas in the Oregon house. The effects of this coup have been profound. Our schools have been gutted, famously ridiculed in Doonsbury. Our elders were literally thrown out on the street when we went through a budget crisis two years ago. Our criminals were given get-out-of-jail free cards at the same time. Meanwhile, the state's own perverse system of Republican bribing, whereby the state refunds any dollars beyond what state forecasters expected--all the while abandoning rainy-day funds. The past four years have been one, slow Katrina of rainy days, and yet the GOP still holds the House hostage (we prized the Senate from the GOP in '04).
A group of bloggers (including me) are now charging themselves with helping to "take back the house." Funny thing is, I haven't a clue how to do that. As a blogger trying to help Dems take back the (White) House, I at least had avid support from the national-politics junkies. There are no state-politics junkies, and anyway, we lost the White House. So, for Oregonians and anyone else: how do you motivate people to care about local politics?
It's like a koan: if you have a candidate and no one knows you have a candidate, how do you elect him (her)?
7 comments:
in the immortal words of Einstein (paraphrased):
"i never memorize anything i can look up"
Which is to say: "I dunno."
I have big plans which have yet to be crushed by the weight of the world, to build a Bucks County internet community along the lines of Philly Future using CivicSpace. I have no shortage of ideas and online advisors - everyone is so generous with their ideas. The problem will be dealing with the face-to-face people. If I think of that for more than a minute, I want to bag the whole idea.
Onward!
Sheesh, Alworth, here in the Kremlin it's Diane Rosenbaum and Kate Brown. Welcome to the 'hood.
p.s. If you want to help Oregon lefties take back the house, just go here
It might be interesting to compare the party dominance inside and outside the state.
For example, Wisconsin is a blue state externally, but the Wisconsin legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. The Govornor is not, but I'm afraid that's only because Tommy Thompson, when he went to Washington to be head of HHS, left behind a leutenant govornor who makes Bush look like a rocket scientist and a billion dollar hole in the budget. The guy ran on a platform of cleaning up the statehouse - where he had served for a long, long time. And somehow, during the campaign, a boat was made available to him, which he assumed was a perk of the Govornorship, but which everybody else considered a bribe.
The current govornor wasn't so much voted in as the last guy's "throw the bums out" campaign succeeded, with him as the top remaining bum.
horseshit you did your part to get rid of the shrub! you bailed monthes early. talk about lazy press. anyhoo, keep up the good writin--
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