Charter Update Group meets petition goal

Denise Krause: "Today's signatures put us over our goal."

Jackson County for All initiative logs in over 10,700 signatures -- 3,300 more than the required number.

Denise Krause was busy last night, and every night for the past week, logging in petitions. This was the final push to get more than enough signatures to assure they could get the three proposals on the ballot. The required number is 8,351. The extras were to make sure that there were ample reserves in case of duplicates, unregistered voters, or unverifiable signatures.

Krause, Tuesday evening, 7:00 p.m.

About 200 people were involved in gathering signatures. Many came in by mail from people who downloaded and printed each of the three petition pages.  Everyone involved with the Jackson County for All initiative is a volunteer.

Two days' mail this week.

Regina Ayars and John Littleton log in signatures

Measure one changes the county commission office from partisan to nonpartisan. Every other office in Jackson County government is nonpartisan. All the city council and school board offices in the county are nonpartisan. 

Measure two increases the number of commissioners to five from the current three. Oregon Territory established a three-person governing body in 1853 when the county’s census was fewer than 4,000 people.

Measure three reduces the salaries of the commissions to about half their current salaries. Current salaries are in excess of $143,000 per year, by far the highest of any of Oregon's 36 counties -- and $45,000 more than Oregon's governor. The initiative reduces commissioner salaries to help cover the expenses of adding two new commissioners.

Krause said she would be attending the commissioners' Study Session on Thursday morning when County Administrator Danny Jordan will report on the fiscal effect of this change. Krause expects Jordan to come in with high numbers to reflect new offices, perks, and benefits for five commissioners instead of three. He will be allocating systemwide charges for computer access, software licensing, HR, building maintenance, electricity and other utilities, and sheriff deputy pensions, as allocations to the two new commissioners.

Krause is undaunted. She expects Jordan to recommend an additional secretary, which is another cost. "I'm not surprised that an additional administrative position might be justified," she said. "There will be more representation, more citizen engagement, and more work getting done. Possibly that will mean more clerical work to provide the additional public service. That is a good thing."

In a conversation with Jordan two weeks ago, Jordan told me to expect a significant figure for substantial remodels to accommodate a larger board. They would need offices, desks, and computer terminals, he said. He cited an example of the facilities changes that would be required: He said the county Budget Committee may choose to continue to hold meetings in the County Auditorium. In that case, he said the current elevated dais would not comfortably fit 10 members while it does fit the current six. (A Budget Committee consists of a public member for each elected official.) I considered that a heads up to expect a stretch number, since a free alternative is readily at hand. The dais need not be remodeled at all. Budget committee members could sit at tables in front of the raised dais, not on it, as we did back when I was a commissioner -- a thriftier era. 

Krause said she thought Jordan would be high-balling numbers to give a cost estimate that would please the incumbent commissioners, each of whom oppose making changes to their current jobs. "The county has other auditoriums and the commissioners don't need palatial offices barricaded behind the locked doors on the 2nd floor. Don't we want commissioners out in the community?"

Krause said she has been trying to get the figures that Jordan will present on Thursday and will be happy to see them. "The public has a right to know how much the commissioners are costing us, the taxpayers who are footing the bill."

She added, "This can be expensive if the county wants to do things in the most expensive possible way. That is the problem with the county that these initiatives are trying to change. The commissioners have got a sweet deal and they are trying to hang onto it."

The initiative organizers expect to put the issue on the May primary ballot. No formal opposition to the ballot measures has yet emerged, but the incumbent county commissioners have registered their opposition, and have been in contact with the local Republican party. Curt Ankerberg and Randy Sparacino have both expressed opposition to the measures. They are candidates for the Republican nomination to fill the position currently held by David Dotterer, who is not seeking re-election.

[Note: I support these measures. I consider them long overdue. I have contributed money to their campaign and have purchased cookies at a fundraising auction supporting their effort.]

 

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Goodbye NATO

What Trump said.

Trump's real message.

"One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, [Voice of supplication] 'Well, sir, if we don't pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?' 

I said, [Decisive. Firm] 'You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?' 

He said, 'Yes, let’s say that happened.'

[Impatient] 'No, I would not protect you. [Faux anger] In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.'”

I remember learning about coded messages when my parents tried to teach me to play the card game bridge. Bidding "one club" likely meant that you had a biddable hand but did not want clubs to be the suit. Your bid was really a question. If your partner responded two spades -- a skip over one spade -- it didn't mean your partner wanted a contract at two spades, it meant that the partner wanted to end up at a far higher contract than two spades. One must look past the obvious meaning to find the real one. 

On its surface Trump's speech in South Carolina was just another moment of Trump showing off and entertaining a rally crowd. No need to overthink this. The story fit the Trump narrative. He was the disciplinarian. The leader of some "big country" in Europe was a fearful supplicant, calling him "sir." It tells the story that Trump demands and gets respect. As Trump tells it, Democrats want to be buddies with everyone so America gets taken advantage of. Not Trump. Not America.

This is the Trump that made the words "You're fired!" a trademark. The audience cheered this. Some in the audience may have been flashing back to memories of the 1930s and 1940s, but in the present moment the story was about a strong leader who protects American taxpayers.

Like bidding in bridge, there was a lot more communicated.

First, it was a message to NATO that Trump sees it as a transaction. It is not a united front because aggression against one nation is an attack on democracy itself. NATO is a deal and deal terms get examined constantly to evaluate our interests in the moment. We might find conditions or loopholes in the contract that void it. What's in it for us?

There is a message to Putin. Invasion by Russia isn't anathema to Trump. Indeed, it might serve U.S. interests. Historic Russia is not contained in its current boundaries. Poland is a Slavic country whose territory from time to time has been part of Russia, as has Ukraine. Putin mentioned Poland multiple times in his interview with Tucker Carlson, and Putin made the extraordinary and false claim that Poland's aggression started World War II. Germany and the Soviet Union had acted out of necessity when they invaded Poland, he said. If Putin were to claim that Poland attacked Russia, then under the contract the U.S. has no obligation. 

There is a message to the world. NATO is no longer a resilient bipartisan American guarantee. It is now a partisan promise. NATO will last in name until Trump is elected or until Republicans in Congress defund it. NATO isn't a marriage; it is a domestic partnership where each party keeps separate bank accounts, asks for separate checks when they dine out, and where each person dates other people. Trump is openly flirting with a rival. The marriage is over. Europe needs to make other plans.

Democrats find parallels between this moment and the fascism of the 1930s. It is alarming to them. Not so much to Republican voters, who see Trump as a corrective to globalism in diplomacy and trade. Trump represents a muscular America and an America that respects self-interested muscularity in other countries -- Russia, Hungary, China, North Korea. The catastrophe of World War II was a long time ago. Carl Sandberg wrote The Grass in 1918, after The Great War:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. 

Shovel them under and let me work— 

                                          I am the grass; I cover all. 

And pile them high at Gettysburg 

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. 

Shovel them under and let me work. 

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: 

                                          What place is this? 

                                          Where are we now? 

                                          I am the grass. 

                                          Let me work.

It took longer than two years and ten years, but a great many Americans have forgotten the lessons of muscular nationalism.

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Dr Seuss: Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!

     "For a while now, I have been convinced that Biden's age is such an electoral handicap that he should bow out in favor or a younger, more dynamic Democrat. That appears impossible at this point. If Biden remains the candidate, he will likely commit more gaffes and stumbles during the course of a grueling campaign and the Republicans will have a field day exploiting the age issue. Some seem to think the brouhaha over Special Counsel Robert Hur's politically-motivated characterization of Biden as a doddering old codger will fade by election day. I disagree. I think Hur has killed him. (But I pray I'm wrong!)"

           Tom Sancton

Nothing I write in this blog makes commenters angrier than words like these. 

I agree with Tom Sancton's sentiments. 

The complaint isn't that I am wrong in acknowledging Biden's vulnerability. It is that the vulnerability is so great that Democrats must pretend we don't see it. Critics say I am being disloyal, and am failing to recognize Biden’s many accomplishments. There is a reason voters aren’t crediting Biden’s accomplishments. They can’t get Biden’s feebleness out of their minds.

Sancton is a college classmate, a former Rhodes Scholar, an author, a former bureau chief for Time Magazine, and an accomplished jazz clarinetist. His most current book is The Last Baron. On January 6 he posted here about plagiarism and his book The Bettencourt Affair, which deals with the issue of the diminished mental capacity of an elderly heiress.

Published by Dutton

Yesterday I wrote that old farmers and old politicians don't know when to let go. Old farmers get backaches and it gets harder to climb up and down into the tractor seat. Politicians don’t get those signals. Indeed, the seniority system makes their jobs better as they age in place. 

Old politicians use their incumbency to entrench themselves. Trump did it very successfully. He used his control of the RNC and the Republican nominating process to make almost all Republican primaries winner-take-all. He turned a plurality into a majority. Trump was helped by a successful with-me-or-you-are-a-RINO approach that silenced dissent. A great many Republicans see Trump's manifest flaws, but they dare not speak up. Trump has one other asset in dominating his party: A significant number of GOP voters are thrilled by him.

Biden also had control of the nominating process. Democrats arranged to forbid an Iowa caucus and to disempower the New Hampshire primary. Those would have allowed members of the Democratic bench to test the water. The Democratic Party sent out a warning to those potential rivals: It is Biden and no one else, period. Support the president. Support the party. Any Democrat who challenged Biden is an enemy and will be held responsible if Biden loses. Potential candidates heeded the warning. 

Democrats were given a "party line" message that Biden is not infirm, forgetful, or tongue-tied. He is 100% up to the job of being president. If you have doubts, keep them to yourself. 

Biden's candidacy does not have majority Democratic voter support. Most Democrats tell pollsters they are uncomfortable with Biden and are eager -- even desperate -- for an alternative. That is why Biden and the DNC were adamant that there be no alternative. It was a dangerous, irresponsible, and undemocratic policy. I am disappointed that Biden arranged this and that the Democratic bench fell into line. Biden badly mistook his place in history. 

The stakes have grown higher. Trump is getting more manic, more sloppy, more contemptuous of the rule of law and the justice system. He is increasingly open about his authoritarian plans domestically and his support for Russia's designs on Ukraine and NATO. Trump is deteriorating faster than Biden, but his unfitness for office is better disguised. Trump "reads" as stronger and more alert. 

Democrats are hoping nothing happens to pierce the curtain of denial. It is too late. It was pierced long ago and the Hur comments were just another iteration. Democrats are fielding a weak candidate -- and they know it. They act resigned to a dismal fate. They act stuck. Biden would consider an insurgent revolt against him this spring or at the Democratic convention to be disloyal. I am OK with that revolt if it comes. It would press reset. It would be better sooner than later, so that Democrats can get comfortable with a new leader and spokesperson. As Macbeth said: 

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well 
It were done quickly.

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Easy Sunday: Melon seed catalogs

It is seed catalog season. 

Mid-winter is the season of boundless ambition and opportunity.

Santa Claus Melon

Melons. Beautiful melons. New melons. Exotic melons.  Heirloom melons. F1 hybrid melons. Orange-flesh. Green-flesh.

I have been growing melons nearly every summer since I was about 11 years old. It was a good summer job for me and my younger brother, David. Our father did most of the work at first, of course, but even elementary school-age kids can weed, move irrigation pipes, then pick and carry four-pound cantaloupes and 20-pound watermelons. He let us keep the proceeds from the sales. Both my brother and I had savings accounts at JCF -- Jackson County Savings and Loan. We each made a few hundred dollars per summer at first. 

As we got older, the melon fields got bigger. More melons, more money to bank for college. When I could drive at age 16 the harvest, packing, and delivery part of the job became something my brother and I mostly handled. Blunt's ranch market at the north end of the Phoenix, Oregon city limits was a primary customer. Mid-season, starting about Labor Day and lasting for four weeks, we needed secondary markets. Sherm's Thunderbird Market was a high-volume grocery store, and they took time to deal with local growers. 

I stopped growing melons to sell four years ago, when I turned 70. Sellable units of cantaloupes are boxes sold as weighing 40 pounds. They weigh 44 or 45 pounds, since I give "good weight." To have commercial quantities one lifts and carries around 40 to 50 pounds of melons several hundred times day. Too much.

Now I grow them to give away to friends. Grocery customers buy what they know. "Hales Best" variety cantaloupes are familiar to shoppers. They are excellent when picked ripe and handled properly, which is possible to do in season, and impossible out of season. Every reader has seen Hales Best melons.

Another common melon is the Tuscan variety. It was exotic and new 65 years ago when I first started selling them to Mr. Blunt and Sherm's Thunderbird. Here is an image of Tuscan melons from the True Leaf catalog.

Tuscan melons are sweet, with a Brix of about 15 instead of the 10 of traditional cantaloupes. (Brix is a measure of sugar content.) That means they can be picked less ripe than traditional melons and still meet customer expectation. Look closely at the very left edge of the melon in this photo. There is a stem remnant. It means it was picked before the "full slip" that would have left a smooth concave navel. That is how the melon would have looked had it been left on the vine and become "vine-ripe." Vine-ripe is far superior, but the Tuscan variety melon lets growers get away with picking  underripe melons that customers will accept. A melon picked underripe has a longer shelf life.

The seed catalogs become temptations for people who aren't trying to sell melons. One can experiment with melons one is giving away. My favorite is this Santa Claus melon, also known as the Piel de Sapo. It is very sweet, with an intense taste I can only describe as "melon-y." Here is another photo of that variety.

You will rarely see the French Charantais melon in supermarkets or even at fruit stands. They are thin-skinned and delicate, so they don't ship well. Many of them split at the blossom end and are ruined in the field. They need to be picked under-ripe. But when you get a good one, it has a strong, concentrated flavor.

The seed companies tempt gardeners with new varieties. Here is a Kajari Sweet from Urban Garden seeds:

Here is a Snow Leopard from Johnny's Seeds:

Here is a melon called "Collective Farm Woman":

Here is a Tam Dew melon, sold by Mountain Valley Seed Company:

There are lots more like these. These look like fun to me. I am tempted to try them all and plant just one more row of each. It is hard to know when to stop shopping for seeds and planting more rows and to accept one's limitations. The more one plants the more one needs to tend. Old farmers, like old politicians, have difficulty knowing when to stop.

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Remind people of what they already know

    “The most damaging things in politics are the things that confirm people’s pre-existing suspicions, and those are the things that travel very fast. It’s a problem.”

          David Axelrod, political strategist and senior advisor to Barack Obama

I was not a good high school debater. I lacked "fluency" in unscripted situations. I groped for words. I was a giant frustration to myself, and surely to my friend and debate partner, Jon Stong. 

I'm the boy with glasses on the left. Jon is the tall boy in the middle.

I was sort of like Joe Biden is now, only worse. I agonize when I watch Biden try to express himself in unscripted situations. I feel his pain.

I developed two workarounds back when I was in high school. I liked being the "first affirmative" speaker when possible, which meant I had a prepared speech to start out, rather than solely spontaneous ones. If I could practice what I was going to say a few times and get the kinks out of the words, I was fine. I watch Biden use a version of that device -- his teleprompter speeches.

The second workaround was a persuasion technique. I discovered something. I considered it a crutch and a debate "equalizer" -- my secret weapon. When being assigned the "negative" or opposition side of a debate or in the "affirmative rebuttal" slot, which are the positions in which the debater spoke spontaneously, I mostly stopped trying to present new evidence. I didn't try to change the mind of a debate judge. Instead my approach was to frame my argument (haltingly presented, alas) by reminding the judge only of things the judge already knew and believed. That's it.  As I said to my debate partner, "I can't change anybody's mind when I talk. All I can do is try to remind people that they already agree with our side."

David Axelrod's quotation at the top of the page makes that point. He was talking about Biden and the comment by special prosecutor, but it applies generally. The idea relates to issues this blog brings up repeatedly because it is central to politics. First impressions matter. Voters make snap decisions with their intuitions -- their guts. Voters profile politicians based on appearances. Voters fit politicians into already-existing templates of identity. Voter support is dominated by appearance, presentation, and body language. 

The standard high school debate method of persuasion would be quickly to rattle off a checklist of facts and positions which might persuade a voter to support someone. People may think they make voting decisions that way, but they are fooling themselves. My debate workaround way -- the Axelrod way -- would be more like showing this image of the Montana Democratic senator Jon Tester.

He is, at first glance and for real, a Montana farmer. He does not look like a city boy dressed in a farmer costume. There is no set of facts that can better make Jon Tester a credible farmer-senator than how he looks at first glance. If any Democrat can win in Montana, it will be a stout guy with a crewcut and an ill-fitting suit.

Special prosecutor Robert Hur wrote that Biden had "limited precision and recall."

At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.

It was an outrageous thing to put into his report, but the deed is done. I expect it to have political traction. The idea is already out there in the political zeitgeist that Biden is elderly. There is no arguing that he is young and articulate. There is no changing minds. There is only the frame and from which direction to see it. Is he old but OK? Or is he old but not-OK?

The Republican special prosecutor put his weight behind what people already knew, and then took the side that Biden is not OK.

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Up Close at the Supreme Court yesterday

Prediction: 

Expect a 9-0 decision to reject the Colorado decision.

That is what attorney Conde Cox told me in a vigorous discussion this recent New Year's Eve. 

He said if and when there was an oral argument on the case in front of the Supreme Court, he would be there to witness it up-close. He was there yesterday. He wrote me to reiterate his prediction: 9-0 to reverse Colorado.

Courtroom Sketch by Bill Hennessy for PBS

I took the other side of the friendly argument at the holiday party. My predictions were based on a presumption that the Supreme Court majority would cloak a rankly political decision in a veneer of legal justification. They are expected to reverse Colorado, I argued, because they want to help Trump, and because they don't want the controversy that would come from deciding ballot access state by state. But they just might surprise us, I argued. The majority is more intent on helping Republicans and conservative policies than in helping Trump, and they see that Trump is now a liability to the GOP.  So watch for them to affirm Colorado so Republicans could replace Trump with a less-flawed candidate who would defeat Biden by a landslide. 

Conde Cox said I was wrong. He argued with the advantage of  expert knowledge of the law generally and of the Supreme Court in particular. Cox is a commercial and business dispute litigator, with deep experience in arcane federal bankruptcy court procedure. For the last decade he has been named by his peers as a Thomson-Reuters 'SuperLawyer' in the field of Business Bankruptcy. He now lives in Ashland, Oregon.

From his website

Guest Post by Conde Cox

 I was personally in attendance at the Supreme Court today for the Trump Colorado ballot disqualification case for nine hours. During the nearly three hours of oral argument in the Court’s relatively small courtroom (indeed, smaller than most courtrooms in Jackson County), I sat right behind Jonathan Mitchell (Trump’s lawyer), in a seat “inside the Bar.” As a member of the Supreme Court Bar (for 28 years), I am permitted to sit there for any case heard on any given day by the Court, even if my clients’ cases are not that days’ Court docket. 

 

My reaction, as a 43-year lawyer and as a 29-year member of the Supreme Court Bar, is that the Justices will issue a 9-0 decision in this case to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court. Even Justices Jackson and Kagan and Sotomayor I predict will vote to reverse. I predict that Justice Jackson will write a concurring opinion. This was made possible and perhaps inevitable, in my view, by the DC Circuit Court opinion that was issued on Tuesday in the Jack Smith-prosecuted criminal case against Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding (by Pence to count electoral college votes.) That decision declared that Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution for any and all potential crimes relating to his activities on or before or after January 6, 2021. I predict that the Supremes will deny cert in that DC criminal case against Trump (and thereby decline to review the DC Circuit opinion). This way, the Supremes can punish Trump via the criminal system, and yet do so without kicking him off the ballot in the Colorado case.  

 

My impression is that none of the nine Justices was enamored of the idea of resolving, in this novel and very impactful Colorado Section Three of the 14th Amendment case, the disqualification problem from the perspective of permitting each state to separately address (in potentially 50 different cases) the insurrection disqualification issue. They want a national approach, which only Congress can provide by way of a new statute. Congress has the right to adopt such a statute under Sections Three and Five of the 14th  Amendment, thereby telling all of us what sort of national procedure must be followed in any and all current and future attempts to disqualify a candidate for national office. This is a punt, but not an unreasonable one in my view.

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Historians look at the 14th Amendment

"This guy is delusional."

An attorney sent me a link to the article below with that sole comment. The article argued that the Supreme Court should affirm the Colorado decision.

Politico

The article said that by the standards of "originalism" and "textualism" the Supreme Court should affirm the Colorado decision -- but it might not.

Trump and his allies assume that his appointees will vote in whatever way is best for the former president. They argue that, for democracy’s sake, the court shouldn’t deny voters the chance to choose the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. 

That is the familiar argument: America should ignore the Constitution in order to protect the supposed real purpose of the Constitution, democratic choice. Critics call out the presumed hypocrisy of Democrats who claim to want to protect democracy from Trump while they try to stop a democratic majority from voting for him if they so choose.

There is a problem with that argument. This is a republic. The Constitution was designed to protect itself by confounding democracy. It is full of prohibitions on majority rule, including on the issue of who is eligible to be president. Barack Obama was the most popular politician in America in 2016 -- far more popular than either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. But the Constitution blocked the popular will. There was a reason for that provision. After the long presidency of FDR, the public worried about the risk to our democracy of open-ended re-elections of a popular president. 

A president must be aged 35.  Age requirements eliminated a risk observed in Europe of father-son political dynasties, a timely concern. William Pitt the Younger took office as Prime Minister at age 24 in 1787, the year the Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia. 

The native-born requirement for a president eliminated a democratic choice for the purpose of protecting us from famous or popular Europeans riding that popularity into America government.

Requirements for lifetime tenure for federal judges is profoundly un-democratic; the idea was to protect our the independence of the judiciary. 

The Bill of Rights is all about stopping popular majorities to protect rights and liberties. We could not have a durable democracy without freedom of speech, of religious expression, a free press, and the right to assemble. Democratic majorities were forbidden to end the right of militias to bear arms, or to require citizens to quarter soldiers in homes, or to impose cruel and unusual punishment. 

The 14th Amendment's Section Three is entirely consistent with the Constitution's effort to protect democracy from itself. After the civil war there was a practical risk that politically popular southern politicians, people who had proven themselves disloyal to the federal union, would re-enter government as southern states were re-admitted. They would repeat an oath of loyalty -- the one they had already broken. They were untrustworthy. Democracy might not survive if people willing to subvert democracy were voted back into the government.  

I offer below links to two briefs sent to the Supreme Court in support of the decision by the state of Colorado. This first brief was submitted by a group of distinguished historians. They write that the historical record is clear that a disloyal former president is exactly what the Constitution protects itself from.  

Historians brief

Two brothers, both law professors, Akhil Reed Amar and Vikram David Amar co-authored a brief I found very readable. In the months after the election of Lincoln, but prior to his inauguration, President Buchanan's Secretary of War, James B Floyd, carried out the first insurrection, one that took place prior to the Civil War. His goal was to scatter and weaken the army. The authors of the 14th Amendment understood there was more than one way to carry out an insurrection.

Amar brothers' brief

The Supreme Court will do what it will. I don't expect them to affirm Colorado's decision. The lunacy would be to presume this court would risk surprising and angering Americans.

Each of these briefs require a reader to invest more time and energy than fits a format like this blog. It is more of a "curl up with a good book" situation. But the briefs each make a point. There is a strong case to be made that the Supreme Court should affirm Colorado's decision for the simple reason that it is what the Constitution directs them to do.

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