Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers.

Albany Democrat-Herald, May 2, on the upcoming battle over a corporate sales tax

The biggest battle on the November ballot in Oregon likely won’t be for any of the statewide offices: All the indications continue to be that the big brawl will be over a corporate sales tax.

The latest sign came last week, when a grocers’ coalition announced that it was suspending its plans to push for privatized liquor sales in Oregon in order to focus its efforts on defeating what’s currently known as Initiative Petition 28. (The coalition had other reasons to suspend the privatization effort, mainly that a legal fight over the wording of the initiative’s ballot title would have made it difficult to gather the required number of signatures by the deadline.)

So the fight moves to Initiative Petition 28. That’s the measure that would tax certain corporations 2.5 percent on their annual Oregon sales over $25 million. The smart money says that the measure easily will collect the signatures necessary to place it on the November ballot.

And then you’re likely to see a donnybrook that will make the battles over Ballot Measures 66 and 67, which raised taxes on businesses and the wealthiest Oregonians, seem like a pillow fight.

Already state lawmakers have expressed concerns about the battle that’s about to break out over Initiative Petition 28: Senate President Peter Courtney, for example, has missed no opportunity to compare the coming fight to the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. And state Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, has called for the governor and the Legislature to work on an alternative, lower corporate sales tax bill. Hass has worried that the ballot measure would trigger a nasty fight between unions and businesses, with a campaign price tag that almost certainly will overshadow the spending for the governor’s race.

Former Gov. John Kitzhaber was worried about such a no-holds-barred battle between unions and business, and was working behind the scenes to prevent that, before his resignation last year. His successor, Kate Brown, hasn’t taken a public position on the measure. She could be working behind the scenes, but Brown - who rarely tips her hand on issues like this - isn’t saying.

It’s certainly not out of the question that the Legislature could try to step in to pre-empt Initiative Petition 28: The Legislature did something similar in its short session earlier this year when it approved bills increasing the state’s minimum wage and weaning Oregon away from coal-generated power. Legislators said both bills were necessary to attempt to forestall even more aggressive ballot measures.

But the Legislature would need to act pretty quickly to stall Initiative Petition 28; the special session likely would need to be held sometime in the next couple of months, and a solid deal with wide support would need to be in hand before legislators gathered. One key moment will come in May, when lawmakers are scheduled to meet for interim hearings. State economists are working on an analysis of the tax measure, and the results of that analysis could be ready by those meetings.

Nevertheless, the battle lines already are forming: Proponents of the tax increase say it’s needed to make sure that the state’s largest companies are paying their fair share toward vital state services such as education. Opponents are arguing that such a huge tax increase will cement Oregon’s reputation as being anti-business, will chase businesses out of the state - and that consumers will end up footing much of the bill for the increased tax anyway.

Maybe Courtney and Hass (and maybe even Brown) can work out a cease-fire. At this late date, though, our guess is that it’s only a matter of time before the shooting starts.

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The (Bend) Bulletin, April 29, on a corporate sales tax

Give it some thought, and it’s easy to understand why Oregon grocers working to privatize liquor sales in the state gave up their most visible effort Wednesday. They - and all Oregonians - are faced with a much bigger danger, and they’ve decided to concentrate their efforts on stopping it.

We’re talking about what’s now known as Initiative Petition 28, the handiwork of the state’s public employee unions, including the Oregon Education Association, Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It would impose a 2.5 percent gross receipts tax on most corporations in the state with sales of $25 million.

It is a sales tax by another name. One that will be paid not just on the sales of clothing and cars, but on food from the grocery store. Moreover, not only will the grocer (or car dealer or retailer) pay his 2.5 percent but the wholesaler also will chip in another 2.5 percent, and the manufacturer could add another 2.5 percent.

Each one will pass the additional cost on to the next guy, with the final stop being - you guessed it - the Bendite picking up dinner at a local grocery store, whose groceries could be 7.5 percent more expensive.

Worse, unlike an income tax, that 2.5 percent would be collected whether or not a company’s making a little money, pots of money or no money at all. Thus, the tax would be due if sales brought in $25 million, even if it cost $30 million to manufacture them.

It’s no wonder grocers see the tax proposal as a far greater threat than any benefit they’d get from liquor sales. Groceries run on thin margins, as do car dealerships. A 2.5 percent gross receipts tax could put them in the position of actually losing money. They could close, go elsewhere and put employees out of work in the process.

That’s not good for Oregon, no matter how you slice it. Driving up costs and raising unemployment simultaneously doesn’t do much good for Oregonians, no matter who they are, and grocers clearly recognize that. They may want liquor sales, but they want to be able to stay in business even more.

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The East Oregonian, April 27, on Oregon’s primary elections

The Wall Street Journal recently published a list of the remaining state primary elections. The WSJ failed to include Oregon’s May primary. While it was wrong, the omission did reflect a certain truth - that the Oregon Primary has not mattered in presidential politics in quite a while.

It is true that Barack Obama spoke in Pendleton in 2008. That same year former President Bill Clinton spoke here, too, to boost the fortunes of his wife Hillary.

But one must go back decades to find an Oregon primary that saw candidates criss-crossing the state. It is hard to believe, but in the spring of 1960 Sen. John F. Kennedy stumped in many locations across Oregon. An EO Media Group publisher saw JFK speak in Pendleton’s Hawthorne Grade School cafeteria on that occasion. The elegant Jacqueline Kennedy stood in a receiving line in that humble setting.

“He cared enough to come” was Nelson Rockefeller’s appeal to Oregon Republican voters in the 1964 primary. It worked, with Rocky beating Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater among Oregon Republicans.

Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy made Oregon appearances in 1968. McCarthy prevailed.

Now that Ted Cruz and John Kasich have a strategy that involves Oregon and a few other states, we might see a lot of Kasich. Cruz has decided to stay away while Kasich has already announced stops in suburban Portland and Medford, on his way to California to compete for the big pot of delegates down there.

We have not heard word from Donald Trump. Perhaps he would like to skip Portland - where protests would be guaranteed - and speak in more welcoming environment? Say a grass infield? Would certainly be fun to welcome a new kind of rodeo to town.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders will likely win the Democratic vote and will try to recreate the Portland “put a bird on it” magic.

When we receive our ballots in the mail over the weekend, it will be a medium thrill. We have presidential races in both parties.

It will be fun to have a semblance of the presidential primaries in Oregon. So we kinda, sorta matter this time around.

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The (Eugene) Register-Guard, May 2, on researching gun violence

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is again pushing to end the ban on the use of federal funds to research gun violence in the United States.

His latest effort will likely fail, as did the bill he co-sponsored last year to fund research at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on gun violence prevention and firearms safety. That bill would have allocated $10 million per year in research funds, for six years

But Wyden and others in Congress are doing the right thing by continuing to press for a lifting of the ban. The federal government is in the best position to fund and coordinate the kind of research needed to understand the causes of gun violence and find ways to prevent it.

But a ban on using federal funds to research the issue dates to 1996, when a rider was attached to the annual appropriations bill, prohibiting the CDC from lobbying for gun control. This rider was interpreted - incorrectly Wyden says - to mean even scientific research into the causes of gun violence is banned.

The author of the rider, then-Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., now says he supports gun-violence research and that his original rider doesn’t preclude this.

He says such research wouldn’t infringe on the rights of gun owners any more than research on highway deaths infringes on the rights of vehicle owners.

But, despite the growing support for such research, including from medical groups that deem it a public health issue, the Republican-controlled Congress has refused to consider lifting the funding ban - even in the face of more than 33,000 gun violence deaths a year, according to CDC statistics

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore, also has pleaded for research into gun violence, arguing that significant advances in scientific research since the ban was enacted may make it possible to find ways to reduce gun deaths.

But his plea has fallen on deaf ears.

As of Friday, Wyden and 15 other Democratic senators had not received a response from the heads of the Senate and House appropriations subcommittees to a request that $10 million be included in a 2017 appropriations bill for research on gun violence.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association, which spent more than $30 million on campaign and political contributions in 2013-14, according to the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics, continues to fund political campaigns.

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The Daily Astorian, May 2, on the challenges of protecting endangered species

Our region boasts outstanding examples of once-endangered species that now prosper - bald eagles are perhaps the most obvious. Once teetering on extinction, they now are easy to see every day around the Columbia River estuary. Ongoing struggles of other species, however, give cause to wonder whether endangered wildlife strategies need a big rethink.

One such story concerns Columbian white-tailed deer, an elegant and sympathy-arousing little species that dwindled to about 300 by 1967. Since then, intense efforts have probably succeeded in ensuring the survival of the species. This is mostly because deer have been successfully nurtured in southwest Oregon’s Douglas County, where they number more than 6,000.

Meanwhile, several pockets of deer on Columbia River islands - including Oregon islands east of Tongue Point - and adjoining floodplains totaled nearly 1,000 last year. Though better positioned to survive disaster, a tripling of deer numbers here on the Columbia is not very impressive or reassuring after nearly half a century of intense spending, community disruption, predator control and so on.

An April report by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife concluded most Columbia River subpopulations of the deer still aren’t at a self-sustaining level - though they aren’t actually sure what that level is. Such low numbers make them especially vulnerable to inbreeding, diseases and natural disasters. These are the very same issues that led to the deer being listed as endangered 49 years ago.

It may be that the deer live in brushy backwaters of the estuary not because they prefer to, but because that is all the habitat left to them after decades of intense land conversion efforts by white settlers. These areas are likely to become even less tenable deer habitat as the sea level rises, the climate fluctuates and additional millions of people move to the Northwest.

White-tailed deer are far from the only regional species in these straits. From snowy plovers to pocket gophers, dozens of species - including iconic salmon - hang on, thanks only to constant human aid.

The white-tailed deer story demonstrates a worrisome truth, that it may cease to be possible to preserve a particular species in every region they once occupied. As this troubled century moves forward, transplantation to new habitat and strategic triage decisions will, sadly, become the norm.