Happy Friday,
It’s almost Labor Day weekend and I’ve had a long week including an early morning four-store quest for disinfecting wipes, which due to their scarcity and universal appeal seem destined to become the official currency of whatever country the United States becomes after Antifa and the Proud Boys realize they have more in common than they thought and join forces to overthrow the government and replace it with a unity government committed to the principle that violent confrontation is the best way to resolve political differences and also a lot of fun. So, you get what you get this week, is what I’m sayin’.
Some school districts don’t want to open even though the state would let them
To the surprise of probably nearly everyone, and perhaps especially Kate Brown and the statewide teachers union, parts of Oregon have met the Governor’s guidelines for opening school to in-person education for kids kindergarten through third grade. Deschutes County and Crook County both meet the criteria to begin in-person education for those kiddos on day one of the school year. Crook County schools are eagerly opening their doors, Bend La-Pine school district and the rest of the districts in Deschutes County? Not so much.
In Deschutes County, the percentage of people who get tested for Covid and have it (a key metric called case positivity rate) is, most recently 1.1%. France and Japan, for example, have students in school. Their case positivity rates are, respectively, 3.6% and 4%, suggesting the virus is nearly four times more prevalent in those countries than it is in Deschutes County.
As Covid numbers (hopefully) continue to decline statewide, more and more districts will be faced with the proposition of deciding to let kids back into school when the state says they can. Whether they choose to open or not will, I suspect, have not so much to do with the actual risk presented by the disease in the community and a whole lot to do with the influence of the local teachers union on the local elected school board.
Our obsession with the presidency is causing political violence
America was born in an act of political violence, and has endured many such acts since, including, notably, the secession of the southern states in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the subsequent, horrific Civil War which settled once and for all the great contradiction of the founding, among other things. There have been numerous other periods and acts of political violence among Americans, think the Oklahoma City bombing, race riots in 1968, WWI veterans camping out in Washington, D.C., and, of course, the Whiskey Rebellion, which was not a rebellion against whiskey (that foolishness was still some 130 years in the future) but against the taxing of whiskey.
Today’s version of political violence on the streets of America’s cities (and even not-so-big cities like Kenosha, WI, population around 100,000), is becoming increasingly about President Trump. The protests were always probably kind of about him, but now the conflict between his supporters and detractors has become more explicit, and, in Portland, deadly. I don’t know about you, but I’m really worried about violence increasing as we approach the election, and if it’s close, the weeks it may take to determine the winner due to heavy reliance on mail-in ballots in states that aren’t used to doing that. If Trump ultimately wins re-election, it’s hard to imagine an America without widespread violence, confrontation and property destruction. We may now be witnessing a warmup for the main event.
What can be done? In the short term, not much except to throw people who break the law, regardless of their political motivations, in jail. But in the medium and long term, we can help reduce the risk of political violence by whittling the office of the presidency down to something approaching its actual constitutional authority, its true ability, or inability, to impact Americans’ lives, and, gasp, a more limited role in American public life consistent with the foregoing.
Two aspects of the presidency that would appear to be contradictory are occurring right now and feeding the unrest: (1) presidents increasingly acting like they have the constitutional and legal authority to do more than what they actually can do (think Obama’s DACA executive order, or Trump saying he was going to somehow overrule states’ Covid closures); and (2) presidents’ inability, ultimately, to do much of anything to improve people’s lives. The first is occurring because Americans increasingly derive perceived emotional sustenance or outrage from the fact of their guy being president or the other guy being president, and presidents have happily responded to fill that void. The second is happening because we still have some degree of checks and balances at the federal level, and a federal structure that vests more authority over internal matters with the states than with the federal government. The result is a presidency that occupies an outsized portion of our collective psyche, relative to its power. The power is catching up to public perception and expectation, slowly but surely.
The result is a simultaneous fetishization and frustration with the presidency, which is driving a lot of political unrest and violence. On the biggest current issues, Covid and riots, it matters far more who the mayor of Portland or the governor of Oregon is than who the president is, because the local and state officials have more authority to deal with those issues than do the feds. Yet the public hungers for a national figure to either save it or to blame, regardless of the preeminence of states.
The founders had it right in realizing that, even in the late 18th Century, America was too big and too diverse to be governed effectively from a central power. That’s, in part, why they vested more power in the states than in the federal government over internal policy. The growth of national media outlets and the withering of local media have accelerated the rush to nationalize issues that should, legally and politically, be handled locally. We are seeing the result in the streets today.
How to restrain the presidency in reality and in the minds of the American public? It’s not easy, because whichever party is in power is typically not inclined to restrict their own power, and then rail against it when the other party’s in charge. One hopeful trend is the emphasis among some on the Supreme Court, notably Clarence Thomas, to emphasize the non-delegation doctrine, which precludes Congress from delegating too much of its law-making power to the president. Requiring the lawmaking branch of government to, well, make laws, would have the effect of limiting the ability of the president to unilaterally make sweeping decisions.
It would also help, as unlikely as this is, if voters would ask their presidential candidates to exercise some rhetorical and legal restraint, to leave room in the public debate for a focus on the locally elected officials, state or congressional. Those officials should also forcefully assert their authority when appropriate to demonstrate to voters that their role in the system is, in many matters, preeminent. This would mean taking responsibility for good and bad things, and not ascribing every occurrence in American life to the person sitting in the White House.
Ultimately, we won’t see the necessary and desireable reduction in the role of presidential politics in our lives until we, as voters, want it and demand it, regardless of who is in charge. If we don’t do this, I fear we will see more and more partisans waging street warfare as an outlet for their feelings about the president, whose proper constitutional role is, simply, to enforce the laws passed by Congress, appoint judges, and to command the military in times of war. Our unhealthy obsession with the presidency is at the heart of our growing political violence.
The mother of all city council public comments
Whether it’s the chance to appear on cable access TV for three minutes or the ability to speak truth to power without travelling far, here’s something about city council meetings that brings out some of the more, ah, colorful in the community. When a resident is making an earnest attempt to convince you of a delusional point (e.g., the existence of secret missile silos under the command of the city council, a fact unknown to at least this, at the time, city councilor), it’s sometimes hard to keep a straight face.
This guy speaking to the city council of Lincoln Nebraska about the scandalous concept of “boneless chicken wings” takes the cake. It’s short. Make sure to watch to the end, my firends.
Have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!
If you like the Oregon Roundup even though it sounds like the name of a rodeo, forward it to some friends and suggest they Sign up. No sales, no spam, just the weekly(ish) email smart people delete without reading less often than other emails.
Have a great weekend!
Jeff Eager
Read past Oregon Roundup editions
What I do:
EagerLaw PC – A business and real property law firm in Bend, Oregon.
Insite LGA Corp. – A campaign consulting, strategic communications and local government monitoring firm.
Waste Alert – Local government monitoring for the solid waste and recycling industry.