Letting Go: a look at Senator Alan DeBoer

He gave up his Senate seat. He isn't dropping out.

70 is the new 50.

Even people too old to be Baby Boomers don't want to let go. And why should they?  Nancy Pelosi is a young 78. Diane Feinstein is a young 85. Bernie Sanders is a young 77. Joe Biden is a young 75.  

DeBoer at North Medford High

Thad Guyer wrote a comment saying that power is not willingly given up. It is seized. The next generation is ready for the power only when they can take it from the grasping hands of their elders. "Leaders, accomplished people, they don't surrender power for the sake of advancing the political or career ambitions of more youthful aspirants. To the eager replacement who says 'stand aside,' the incumbent says 'earn it yourself.'"

This blog wrote that the presence of the older generation perpetuated the old grievances of the past. Hillary Clinton needs to disappear so that the public debate within the political left is about the problems of present and future, not the past.  And besides, some people have simply gotten tired of the old and want something new. Another commenter, a man of Sanders' age, called Bernie and Biden "the "B team" and "too old like Nancy and Chuck. Blowhard Biden stands for nothing. Bernie has one song and he has driven it into the ground." 

Alan DeBoer wasn't a State Senator long enough to have become tiresome. He will have served in office for two years. He was perhaps the only Republican who could won the special election in 2016 or kept the seat in Republican hands at this time of strong partisan fealty. Democrats vote for Democrats, Republican vote for Republicans, and his Senate District had a 13 point Democratic edge. 

He had developed credibility in Ashland as a civil leader, having been on the Ashland School Board and been the City of Ashland Mayor. He is a Republican but his language is moderate and bi-partisan. It is the non-Trump style of Republican, one that is sufficiently Republican on issues like taxes and abortion funding to keep Republican voters' support, but mild enough that he had a shot at crossover party-switcher votes, if any of those still exist. 

He says he thinks he can have more influence out of office.  

Listening to Kate Brown, with School Board members

In office, he is swamped by the day to day business of representing 120,000 constituents. And as a Republican in a caucus he is part of a team that has certain expectations of its members on party line votes, a role that defines him with a partisan label. He told me that he proposed a tax bill that would have increased taxes on the wealthier Oregonians and raised some $600 million dollars. It was dead from day one, he said. The very fact that a Republican proposed it made it impossible to get Democratic support.

He said that as a Republican state senator the Oregon Education Association perceives him as dangerous per se. He has reached out to Ashland area teachers hoping to meet and discuss problems and potential legislative solutions, and was rebuffed sharply. Not by the teachers, who were happy to meet, but by the OEA leadership which was adamant that local teachers were not to meet with him. He will try to trick you, or soft sell you, they warned. Do not meet.

DeBoer says he has the background to help create real solutions in education and he has done the homework necessary to know what to do. He is hopeful that he had developed a reputation for having serious, responsible, informed ideas, and that as a former legislator he can assist Governor Brown and the State Department of Education to do its job better.  He says Oregon needs to "Go Big" on controversial ideas. 

Click: Joint Interim Committee, minute 2:19

Teachers should be considered "essential personnel" for the purposes of requiring mandatory arbitration in negotiations over salary and working conditions. "Strikes destroy a community and it takes years to heal," he said. "I want to put us back in a win-win, where the Oregon Education Association and the School Boards are all on the same page,"  he said in comments at the State Capitol. 

He proposed a $2,500 voucher program, based on financial need, to expand pre-K education. He said he recognized that education vouchers are red flag controversial, but he wanted to put that one out there in public session along with his proposal for mandatory arbitration.

DeBoer said that as a Republican legislator he is part of the structural problem that keeps reform from happening in Oregon's education system.  He said the OEA acts like a labor union, not a professional guild. "The OEA controls the Democratic Party in Oregon," he said. They won't build bridges to a Republican Senator because it would reduce their power. It is a locked-in conflict situation, he says.

He told me he doesn't think he is giving up power. "The system in Salem is broken," he said, "and I want to find solutions." He said he thought he could do it better from the outside.