A coincidence. I’m sure that’s all it is. These
things happen all the time. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
On Oct. 29, 2003, Diana Goldschmidt spends a tough day
persuading the Oregon Investment Council to take $300 million
from the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund and drop
it into a hot plan by the Texas Pacific Group to purchase
Portland General Electric. Until now, hubby Neil, one of
the most powerful men in the state, has been working overtime
to torpedo a grassroots campaign to create a people’s
utility district. The following day, Neil is offered a piece
of the action by Texas Pacific Group, a piece that could
translate into millions for the ex-governor. The offer comes
a day before a Goldschmidt op-ed in The Oregonian levels
both barrels at the PUD measure.
Coincidence. That seems to be what Attorney General Hardy
Myers and his team of gumshoes are going with after conducting
23 witness interviews, and going through thousands of documents,
including telephone logs and e-mail. Myers happily announced
no evidence of criminal activity by any of the parties concerned
at a Jan. 21 press conference where the full investigative
report was released.
I suppose it should come as no surprise. Myers, after all,
seems to view his duty as attorney general in a strange
way. Take something like gay marriage and he’s ready
to weigh in against the county that chose to start issuing
licenses. Immerse him in an environment that makes the Gilded
Age look like an Amish town meeting and he can’t see
a single thing wrong.
Of course, Myers isn’t alone here. The idea that government
should be serving a real regulatory role over corporations
and moneyed interests is becoming an increasingly alien
concept here in Oregon (a wellspring of the progressivism
that gave us our first round of regulatory agencies a century
ago). What does it say when the Environmental Protection
Agency earlier this year criticized our Department of Environmental
Quality of being too willing to accommodate polluters? Remember,
that’s the Bush-led EPA saying progressive Oregon is
going soft on pollution.
Things aren’t much different closer to home. The City
Club just finished a review of the Portland Development
Commission. Three decades ago, the City Club recommended
disbanding the commission because it was an appointed body
that showed little interested in being accountable to the
citizens of this city. As this issue goes to press, the
Club has revised its judgment in a new report. It seems
the Club sees a need for a certain amount of autonomy now
so the commission can carry remain involved in the public-private
deal-making it so enjoys. Forget the fact that they use
federal dollars tagged to create local businesses in depressed,
low-income neighborhoods to add a new theater and a bit
more luster to the Brewery Blocks development. Also forget
the fact that the PDC had to get approval from the Port
of Portland to move forward with their tax deal for many
of those Brewery Block improvements, one of the Port votes
being cast by Michael Powell, whose City of Books sits right
in the middle of all that activity.
What’s going on here? As Oregon moves into the 21st
century, we’re seeing the final retreat of Oregon liberalism.
Never really comfortable with the masses served by the social
welfare programs they protected, Oregon liberals are joining
with their counterparts elsewhere in the nation to find
and cross that political centerline.
What the rest of us are getting in return is an increasingly
unresponsive form of government that is happily facilitating
the transfer of tens of millions of dollars from public
coffers into private ones. Liberals, those who still feel
any responsibility to the people who voted for them, may
add on a bell and whistle here and there to give the impression
of public participation. Just don’t ask the wrong questions
or try to go inside those back rooms where the sweetheart
deals are being cut (you’ll recognize them because
those boys aren’t being fed the stale cookies and tepid
coffee the “citizens panel” receives.
I don’t think there’s much difference between
being mugged quickly but roughly or more gently and slowly.
The end result is the same. So as our favorite liberal politicians
go on about working together with the opposition party,
coming up with “win-win” solutions and bringing
civility back into our political world, we’re left
with only two choices. We can let them continue to lead
us down the path and hope they will have an epiphany along
the way, or we can start taking direct action now. There’s
no shortage of targets: the PGE takeover, police accountability,
criminal justice reform, reorganizing city government, real
enforcement of workers rights. The list is very long. All
we need to do is take that first step.
It’s a lot better than hoping for coincidence to take
care of things.
—Dave Mazza