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A
Touch of Gray We do not want to wait until special session seven. The body language, the intuition, the experience of the members, all tell me that $300 million may not necessarily be the worst-case scenario. — Kurt Schrader, co-chair, Joint Ways and Means We will survive the budget cuts. We will survive the wounded economy. We will survive the sacrifices and disappointments. — Gov. Kulongoski to the Portland City Club Two quotes from last week's Oregonian say it all. Last Friday Schrader and Steve Harper, the Republican vice-chair of Ways and Means, presented a plan developed by both the Republican and Democrat senate members of Ways and Means. By keeping both parties engaged, they created a plan that has buy-in from the majority in both caucuses. This is in sharp contrast to the hypocritical Republican process used by House leadership last week to develop their Secret 5 Percent Plan. The speaker didn't even share that plan with the Senate Republicans, not to mention House Democrats! Schrader and Harper gained high praise from both parties for their openness and honesty in the ugly process of producing a bad cut budget funded by one-time money that won't be there for the next biennium. I left the caucus after the presentation even more convinced that we have to find some additional revenue for the 2003-05 biennium. If we don't, I don't believe even some of the more conservative Republicans will tolerate the level of cuts we're going to make in the next three months. People have asked me over and over again: What can a concerned citizen do to help out this mess? I believe, this session more than the previous four, that moderate Republicans in both chambers are going to have to make their presence known. It's very difficult for them; they've seen what happens to their Republican colleagues who have dared stray from the party's "no new taxes/starve government" message: They're threatened in the next primary by an ideologue. It happens every session. The new Senate plan is for $13 million in additional cuts, $13 million in restorations to child mental health and medically needy programs, and $300 million in one-time money to get us to June 30 of this year. Since the $300 million is one-time, we can't plan on it for next biennium. It's brain-numbing and abstract to think about cuts of hundreds of millions, it doesn't give a clear indication of what's at stake; so consider this Oregon AFL-CIO list of what $1 million buys: A full year of school for 200 children While this is helpful information; others in the capitol are doing their part to mislead. One of our colleagues, whose party affiliation will be quite clear from his proposal, is wasting the time and energy of our legislative counsel to draft a cynical piece of crap — Senate Bill 553. It would create a fund for "people who want to pay higher taxes after the defeat of Measure 28 last month." It's called the "Tax Me More" fund, or the "Let Me and Lars Larsen Rub Your Nose In It" fund. Contributors would be allowed to say how they wanted the state to use their money — and the money would be returned if it couldn't be used as the donor specified. The guy's too cute by half, and of course he's smarter than anyone else in the building. On the other hand, you gotta love Teddy K's optimism: He's saying exactly what needs to be said. We really don't have much of a choice, when you think about it. Anytime our governor is paraphrasing Jerry Garcia (we will survive) there's a chance. Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us
Special
Rites "Are you registered?" Lately, that question is all the buzz in Queersville. Our town, amid a flurry of righteous controversy, has at last opened its very own Domestic Partner Registry. This is big news for all the coupled homos and homettes — and even heteros who for whatever reason don't want to do the legal thing. Now we can all saunter over to City Hall and, for a small fee, sign right up. Granted, in these Code Orange days of Fatherland, er, Homeland Security, nobody is too keen to sign up for anything. But we must take our causes for celebration where we find them. Being gay, after all, we are downright cheery about this important milestone in attaining our equal justice under the law. Our glee is barely dampened by the fact that domestic partner registration carries none of the legal benefits afforded couples who, by virtue of their binary genitalia, can get an actual marriage license. Where would we be if we let a little bigotry dull the thrill of trudging along the path toward equality? We appreciate the historical significance of being officially recognized as having more humanity than, say, slough scum. Despite the steadfast activism that won us this small step in the right direction, gay and lesbian people continue to be deemed unworthy of state-sanctified marriage and such accompanying privileges as spousal insurance coverage and hospital visitation. Even so, it's a joyous and historic advancement that same-sex couples, regardless of our divergent astrological charts and Myers-Briggs scores, can now become officially registered. Just like nurses, voters and Lhasa Apsos. We're on our way, baby! Mere decades from today, little children will look up from their history books and ask us, "Gee, Gramma and Granny, back at the turn of the millennium was it really illegal for you to marry each other?" They'll laugh and think we're kidding. Appropriately inaugurated on Valentine's Day, our local Domestic Partnership Registry joins Portland, Ashland, and Multnomah County along with fewer than 50 other cities in the U.S. that "recognize" our relationships. For a mere $50 you get a piece of paper you can wave at the hospital desk staff in hopes of accompanying a recently admitted partner into the ER — God(ess) forbid. Then you can fold it into accordion pleats and fan yourself daintily while-u-wait. These certificates are also suitable for framing, along with all our other not-quite-marriage certificates, powers of attorney and other documents we've come up with to affirm and sanctify the existence of our loving commitment. I even had a call from a local news team to see if the Little Woman and I would let our domestic partner registration be televised. Not that we're in the closet or anything, far from it. We're even shown kissing in the OCA's anti-gay video. But Wifey is a little wary of being domestic partner poster girls on the nightly news. She doesn't want to feed into the local cultural myth that she and I are the only lesbians around. Can't they find someone else? Some tamer specimens? Surely not all our town's same-sex couples are out there, in your face, loud and proud, get-used-to-it types like us. The good new is — and here's where those special rights you've heard so much about come in — domestic partner registration is easily un-done. Unlike married heterosexuals who have to pay through the nose for a divorce, all we have to do to call it off is to fill out a termination form at the city recorder's office. It doesn't cost a penny! As an added incentive, you can register any time between 11 am and 12:30 pm on Mondays and from 2 to 4 pm on Thursdays. A whopping three and a half hours every week just waiting for your appointment. Now I ask you, is that convenient or what? Call the city recorder at 682-5042 and sign up today! Sally Sheklow teaches magazine writing and essay writing at LCC (Continuing Education) downtown. Spring term registration begins March 11. Find details at www.lanecc.edu
Justice
for All Ever see the word "unselfish" and the word "attorney" in the same sentence? No? Well, brace yourself. This is an essay extolling the virtues of indigent defense attorneys — those idealistic stalwarts who work 12-hour days and make about one-fifth the salary that their peers make in corporate practice. Indigent defense attorneys do the hardest job in the business. They have limited resources and huge caseloads. They spend their evenings in the jail interviewing clients while the rest of us are eating dinner with our families. How does Oregon reward these attorneys for their selfless sacrifice? Hmmm, let's see. A ceremony in the Capitol? A declaration of "Indigent Defenders' Week"? No, wait, I've got it: How about budget cuts and layoffs? Perry Mason would be a stick figure if he received the low wages that we pay indigent defense attorneys in Oregon. The statute that prescribes compensation for appointed counsel is outdated. When you factor in overhead and expenses, these attorneys barely earn enough to make ends meet. Public defenders are also underpaid, and they may be facing layoffs in Lane County. Bear in mind that many attorneys are carrying $50,000 or more in loans from law school. (In the phrase "indigent defense attorney," the adjective "indigent" modifies the word "attorney.") It's hard to imagine that anyone could consider our current compensation for indigent defenders to be excessive. But in 2002, as state lawmakers looked for "fat" in the budget, they decided to go after funding for indigent defense. I don't know who had the idea to look for fat in the line items under the heading "Constitutional Rights," but nothing surprises me in Oregon anymore. The fifth special session axed about $28 million, or 17 percent, of the budget for indigent defense. Legislators made these cuts even when critics pointed out that the funding for indigent defense would run out by March 2003 — four months before the end of the biennium. But why stop with indigent defense? Trials cost good money. And we could save a few pennies if we stopped printing those little cards that police use to read Miranda warnings.
Maybe Sylvester Stallone had it right. In the futuristic film Judge Dredd, Stallone's character was a cop, prosecutor, judge and executioner all rolled into one. After blasting a suspect with a ray gun, Stallone's character looked into the camera, blew the smoke off the end of his gun, and deadpanned, "Court's adjourned." Consider the savings! Unfortunately, that pesky Constitution thwarts us from realizing Stallone's grand vision for the criminal justice system. The Sixth Amendment entitles a defendant to effective assistance of counsel, even if the defendant can't afford to pay for a lawyer himself. Recently the ACLU invoked the Sixth Amendment in a lawsuit seeking an injunction to restore at least $10 million of Oregon's funding for indigent defense. Hopefully this suit will prevail. If the funding for indigent defense runs out before the end of the biennium, some observers have speculated that Oregon judges might conscript attorneys into representing indigent defendants for free. A few federal and state courts have held that judges may require attorneys to represent indigent clients as a condition for the privilege of practicing law. Talk about a pay cut: Instead of earning next to nothing, indigent defense attorneys would actually earn nothing. But Oregon judges realize that involuntary appointments are tantamount to stealing, and no Oregon judge has publicly endorsed this concept. One judge put it this way: "If there's a thief in my courtroom, he should be wearing an orange jumpsuit, not a black robe." To their credit, indigent defenders continue to toil for their clients despite the uncertainty about future funding. I see some of these attorneys when I go to work at the county courthouse, and I'm amazed by their zeal in the face of demoralizing budget cuts. We need to be concerned about the long-term effect of bilking the indigent defense bar. Fewer law school graduates will want to become indigent defenders if the job entails significant hardships. On the other hand, if the state is accepting applications for the new position of cop/prosecutor/judge/executioner, there might be a long line of applicants. We'll just need to modify the law school curriculum in order to teach students how to fire a ray gun. Tom Lininger is a Lane county commissioner and former prosecutor. |
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