Thrills, Spills, and Bills
Keisling, Phil
Thrills, Spills, and Bills by Phil Keisling Phil Keisling is the only member of The Washington Monthly family currently serving in elective politics. Because he has managed to win and hold...
...It’s hard to describe how happy I was at that moment...
...Of course, this wasn’t jusj “my” bill, since I was only one of many players...
...But just four miles away, on the other side of the Willamette River, are neighborhoods with unpaved streets and broken-down septic systems, whose residents are besieged by chronic crime and manufacturers of illegal drugs...
...The industry was already on the ropes...
...abuse and invective by 3,000 bills introduced, half There were moments when both colleagues and clients, never get a hearing, and only I was stunned by my own about one-third ever become tactlessness...
...When the vote tally finally flashed up on the screen, the galleries, for the first time the entire session, burst into applause at the 31-29 result...
...This law provides for increased penalties for assaults based on race, religion, or national origin...
...A legislator’s natural inclination to avoid controversy is heightened by the increasing role of money in election campaigns...
...I wasn’t surprised when her husband’s old lawn signs reappeared throughout the district, the word “Senator” simply painted over with “Representative...
...My spirits lifted slightly when a tall rangy gentleman arrived 45 minutes late, sat down, and appeared to listen intently...
...What was the point...
...Over the objection of the bill’s original sponsors, I moved to return the bill to the identical version of the one that had passed the House, thinking that this represented the best (albeit slim) chance to persuade enough members to support it...
...The House floor, normally a swirling mass of activity as members lobbied each other during routine business, by this time had fallen still...
...one lives in a converted railroad caboose, complete with window planters and an official street address...
...The bill was dead, and it might subject me to yet more criticism in the next campaign...
...Walking away, it occurred to me that perhaps and I'm sometimes subjected forms, I considered myself more had been shaken loose quite lucky...
...What is troubling, however, is the widespread assumption that these other vocations are somehow far more interesting-and personally gratifying-than toiling in the “political backwaters” that I and other state legislators inhabit...
...And what would the pool table owners, if they were here, say about the effect such a fee would have on their livelihoods...
...He then described how, as a young boy, he had been taunted incessantly for being a Catholic...
...Since legislators tend not to get much mail from parents who lie awake at night fretting about the plight of the video game industry, the operators understandably framed the issue as “anti-small business.’’ Raise this tax by $50, they told legislators, and many struggling entrepreneurs would go out of business...
...Several members assured me they’d “be there if they were needed...
...Law” is about as accurate in portraying the reality of legal work as Beetle Bailey is in portraying life in today’s Army...
...If this new approach didn’t work, would it be too late for action until the next session...
...By the time the bill finally came before the committee, it was little more than a glorified study...
...At one point I thought I had an agreement on restrictions that applied only to certain new buildings constructed after a certain date...
...A few minutes later he raised his hand to ask a question...
...Profiles in courage It often occurred to me that while most people en- ’ gage in work alongside other people, few get the chance to really work together, engaged in the constant give-and-take of teamwork and intellectual struggle than can bring out the best on all sides...
...They’d contributed generously to many campaigns...
...The pay and the perks may be pretty good, but it’s not exactly work that nourishes the soul...
...Her name recognition was widespread...
...Our ilk seldom graces the pages of People magazine or Time and Newsweek...
...games like “Nintendo” were cutting into already thin profit margins...
...Behind my poker face was a similar anxiety...
...Contrary to the popular conception of cranky constituents who call at inappropriate hours to complain about their neighbor’s barking dog, almost all of the calls I received were from people with a legitimate question, or those having some exasperating problem with an agency of state government...
...The original bill included new standards on indoor pollutants, including cigarette smoke...
...Previous Oregon law gave families who earned more than $250,000 a year larger tax breaks than mothers earning less than $10,000...
...Just as frequent were moments of quiet satisfaction: when I started climbing in the polls, when good friends (and new acquaintances) shocked me with their generosity in response to fundraising appeals, when people pledged their vote on their doorstep, and most especially, when I scored an upset victory in the Demotle opposition, once I worked out the details...
...Similarly, there’s not much gripping drama in performing routine cataract surgery for Medicare patients or coming up with a new slogan to sell laundry detergent...
...Six months of hard, often tedious work, and all for this...
...Imagine my surprise, then, when the tobacco lobbyists, testifying publicly for the first time, strenuously objected to the generic language as an insidious subterfuge to accomplish the purposes of the original bill...
...business lobbyists wanted to avoid having to fight a more onerous bill in an initiative campaign...
...While I was feeling sorry for myself, the Senate was at work passing the bill with little debate, and it was now awaiting the governor’s signature...
...Used tion...
...Some key races cost three times that...
...Run for the state legislature...
...With three lobbyists working, it didn’t take long...
...During my six months in Salem, I cast more than 1,500 votes on various bills, amendments, and procedural motions...
...This piece of legislation, which came before the Oregon House of Representatives on July 1, 1989, had nothing to do with S&L scandals, gun control, abortion rights, flag burning, or funding for obscene art...
...Nor do I expect the capitol hallways of such teeming civic centers as Salem, Albany, Springfield, Harrisburg, Jefferson City, or Lansing to soon become the setting for a hot new television series along the lines of “L.A...
...up the ramp, fly in the air, and the job I sought...
...I would knock on 12,000 by the time I finished, and at each I would give roughly the same pitch...
...These divisive issues seldom come to a vote, and by helping a colleague on a bill one racks up valuable credits...
...There are still the favorite after-hours watering holes haunted by lobbyists and legislators, and the late-night poker games, where the information exchanged can be more valuable than the pots...
...When he had finished his speech, several colleagues were in tears...
...Just before HB 2215 reached the floor, on the next to last day of the session, my counts showed from 29 to 32 aye votes...
...I explained how the industry was invoking the haunting specter of blackened video game parlors across Oregon’s landscape, forever silenced by the devastating effects of this bill...
...Now I wasn’t just fighting Phillip Morris and the Tobacco Institute...
...The client list of the third included the state’s major health insurers...
...It took two months of long, sometimes tumultuous meetings to hammer out a bill that required large companies to systematically plan-and set goals for-the reduction of toxic chemicals...
...Smith...
...It’s a general rule that if a bill doesn’t have the votes to pass, you don’t want to hang its supporters out to dry, forcing them to make an unpopular vote in a losing cause that can be used against them at election time...
...There was physical and mental fatigue from spending four, sometimes eight hours a day, knocking on door after door...
...But this required the bill to come back to the House for concurrence in the new amendments, and gave the tobacco lobby time to fully mobilize...
...To my great consternation, the tobacco lobby continued its vigorous assault on the bill, pulling out colleagues right and left...
...Thrills, Spills, and Bills by Phil Keisling Phil Keisling is the only member of The Washington Monthly family currently serving in elective politics...
...The bill proposed, for the first time in Oregon law, to make “sexual orientation” the basis for a statutory action, and it was prompted by a series of beatings of homosexuals (one of them fatal) by teenage Skinheads in the Portland area...
...The campaign that followed produced many emotions and sensations...
...I listened to colleagues drone on about things of no interest to me (but, doubtless, of urgency to them...
...And as prospective campaign contributions play an increasingly prominent role in the calculus of decisionmaking, less and less happens in those areas where one of the sides doesn’t have much money-for example, environmental issues...
...He’d just learned that pool tables, through some legislative oversight in decades past, had never been taxed, and his operators assured him that this approach would raise almost as much money...
...Some of today’s most controversial issues-abortion rights, gun control, nuclear power, environmental regulation, homelessness, and education reform, to name just a few-regularly come before state legislators...
...In the scheme of things, it was a small profile in courage-but a large one to those of us who knew the price that might be paid later on...
...Constitution, which, as he (correctly) informed me, provided for the popular election of U.S...
...I had succumbed to the very thinking I had criticized in others, letting other considerations affect my judgment on a specific bill...
...The answer was no...
...But also keenly interested were the state’s amusement game operators, who had hired a lobbyist to represent them, a former Republican state legislator who was well-connected and persistent...
...But much less powerful ones can often kill or emasculate bills they don’t like...
...Perhaps most important, you don’t need a media adviser, television commercials, unlimited PAC contributions, and a string of previous offices to stand a reasonable chance of winning a seat in most state legislatures...
...Law,” “St...
...I had invested dozens of hours, and I felt, my own personal reputation on behalf of this bill, even though it wasn’t mine originally...
...I’ll probably hear a lot about this back home, but I don’t give a damn,” my conservative colleague explained later...
...This isn't the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, is it...
...The bill moved on to the Senate, and here I was more angry than smart...
...In Oregon, as in many states, lobbyists often represent more than one client...
...As I tracked down my colleagues, one by one, I often found the video game lobbyist close by, giving his pitch to another member...
...our speaker of the House, for example, was almost religious in her devotion to catching the 5 p.m...
...I was quickly disabused of this hope...
...Well, yes, but the “context” was now different, they explained...
...And as I asked members for their support, I quickly learned that in addition to “yes” and “no,” there are a number of subtle variations that are ignored at one’s peril...
...Part-time job hunt It’s been two years now since I quit my $35,000a-year job as an assistant to the speaker of the Oregon House-that’s good pay in Portland, where a decent three-bedroom house can still be bought for $60,000-and started walking the streets of my hometown, looking for work...
...interview with local officials ever had...
...harried legislators wood in a stunt show,"e an- 12,000 doors, I finally landed don't havemuch timefor idle swered...
...Elsewhere,” or “thirtysomething...
...felt worn down and beaten...
...Everyone laughed...
...The example I remember most vividly occurred on the next-to-last day of the session, when the House considered a bill that added the words “sexual orientation” to the state’s existing “intimidation” law...
...Many members of the Democratic caucus strongly argued against taking a vote at all, invoking the need to line up the votes first...
...as with many close votes, a number of members had waited until their names were called, craning their necks to read the results before committing themselves...
...Its chief advocate conceded she had 23 firm ayes, 4 maybes, and 5 prayers...
...Even so, it’s extremely gratifying to know that other people have scrutinized your handiwork and found it pleasing...
...I learned this lesson the hard way, on a bill that brought me into direct contact with the powerful tobacco lobby...
...I understood the psychology...
...This was apple pie and Chevrolet stuff a proposal to expand a CCC-like summer job program for students and to create a new “Oregon Community Service Corps” to enlist students to build trails, help seniors, teach reading, and clean up parks in exchange for low wages and tuition vouchers...
...Add to this the chess-like complexity of real (and imagined) legislative maneuvering and the ever-present undercurrent of competition...
...The ballot measure had failed after the tobacco industry spent more than $3 million to defeat it...
...But when the votes flashed up on the screen, there were just 13 ayes...
...Each day in the legislature was interesting and often filled with surprises...
...the most important ingredient in my race was a sturdy pair of shoes...
...There were moments of comic des~airw, hen it seemed that the world's monumental lack of interest in my venture would doom it...
...Other difficult votes I’d made in recent days were prominent in my mind, as was my frustration at the bill’s architect for not supporting another “clean air bill” several days earlier...
...In a series of meetings squeezed between my regular committee work, the proposed tax quickly fell by the wayside...
...Most of my colleagues-even those I strenuously disagreed with-were highly motivated and gracious in both victory and defeat...
...This is a growing problem in Oregon-some of our cities are among the nation’s most polluted in winter due to particulate matter-and the legislator sponsoring it, who was from one of these wood stove-polluted areas, was taking a great political risk in trying to solve the problem...
...I’ve made a mistake sometimes,” he began, “of being too much into this macho thing...
...But compared to a generation ago, we state legislators are a much less colorful bunch...
...The result of a nationwide survey of video game operators, the article detailed the healthy growth of the industryNintendo notwithstanding-and the new products that were behind the surge...
...OSPIRG was trying to establish a reputation as a credible legislative force...
...The tobacco industry had done an effective job of lobbying...
...it was two minutes to midnight...
...And then, with an impeccable sense of timing, the majority leader whirled around to face a member who’d been listed as a possible aye but whose name was currently registered as a nay...
...Imitation, in this case, really did feel like flattery...
...Forget “L.A...
...I had been reasonable and conciliatory...
...Members who had said they would vote (again) for the original House bill were coming up and telling me they were now “undecided...
...Come to think of it, why hadn’t they been taxed before...
...It made me feel especially proud-and privileged-that I’d had the chance to be part of an institution that provides the opportunity to take those kinds of risks...
...We'd run these cars chit-chat...
...Of the more than 1,100 bills that reached the House floor in the 1989 session, more than 90 percent had five or fewer dissenting votes...
...I paced the floor nervously...
...Apparently sensing his precarious position, the video game lobbyist asked to see me...
...But they were hearing from many interests who didn’t want it...
...Funding for these programs would come from raising the annual permit fee on video games (and other amusement devices) from $50 to $100...
...In between committee meetings and floor sessions, I probably had hundreds of conversations of >A bill prohibiting the disposal of lead-acid car and truck batteries in landfills and incinerators...
...The earliest poll in my three-person, Democratic primary showed me 35 percent behind my main opponent, the wife of a retiring state senator...
...Flushed with my success on “toxic use,” I had volunteered to broker another compromise on a bill that addressed the problem of poor indoor air quality...
...Out of more than than a few bolts in the cars...
...A bill requiring the Corrections Department to plan programs so that every prisoner is enrolled in basic literacy, drugJalcoho1 treatment, or work programs...
...But how did we know there were enough pool tables to generate sufficient revenue...
...So, for the previous few weeks, I’d spent a lot of time “counting votes...
...Oregon was the first state to enact such legislation, and the bill was recently featured in an article in The New York Times...
...In this case, familiarity bred civility...
...It gave me enough time to introduce myself and express my outrage at rampant crime, high property taxes, and inadequate health insurance...
...The speech” lasted about 90 seconds-a length, I had discovered, just short of where the natural courtesy of most voters would give way to impatient foot-tapping...
...I’d watched important bills go down to defeat because three members had promised to be number 3 1-but no one had promised to be number 29 or number 30...
...Almost 2,000 invitations went out to one neighborhood coffee, and my ever-optimistic hosts had set up more than 200 chairs...
...that is, they’d be “the 31st vote...
...When a state legislator does make the news, chances are high it’s for reasons more frivolous than weighty...
...senators...
...Again, contrary to a common stereotype, all but a handful of the people I met were courteous...
...The hours are long, I earn $965 a month (plus expenses), and I’m sometimes subjected to abuse and invective by both colleagues and clients...
...Want to try a really exciting profession...
...On one occasion, I arrived late on the floor just as members were voting on a bill that imposed a $20 tax on wood stove owners in heavily polluted areas...
...I sat through nearly 1,000 hours of committee testimony, much of it repetitive and unenlightening...
...Send the bill back to committee, he urged, and he’d support an amendment to drop the increased tax and add a $50 assessment on pool tables...
...Okay, so House Bill 2215 wasn’t exactly the “Big One” on the political Richter scale...
...Yet what were the proprietors telling each other, in their own trade publications...
...For example, a New Jersey state legislator is currently exploring new territory in consumer protection by proposing to make undisclosed, prerecorded music at “live” rock concerts illegal...
...For six months in every oddnumbered year, the Oregon Legislature convenes in Salem, a town of fewer than 100,000 located 50 miles south of Portland...
...That’s seldom openly threatened, of course, but he knows you know-and anyway, politicians are naturally inclined to play it safe...
...Nevertheless, the committee watered down the bill a little more by deleting some sections, and when it passed the House floor, 47-12, I was almost ashamed of it...
...One such product was Oregon’s “Toxic Use Reduction” bill, which aims to reduce the industrial use of toxic chemicals in order to protect workers and minimize hazardous wastes...
...Once, an elderly man held me captive for several minutes, berating me about the dark conspiracy contained in the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S...
...Wasn’t it true, I asked, that the very language they were now criticizing had been in the bill through several negotiating sessions, during which they’d never criticized it but in fact had expressed support...
...Burned by tobacco But sometimes opposing factions can’t find common ground, and “consenso-mania” becomes a waste of time because a key group really isn’t interested in a bill at all...
...For example, shortly before the final vote, only about 28 members were unequivocal “ayes...
...r row in^ up, I was a great admirer of Robert Kennedy...
...When the debate ended, the votes flashed on the electronic voting board...
...many simply watch daytime television...
...As a matter of principle, I wanted some of the deleted language put back in, however little it accomplished...
...One could engage in heated floor debates, then retire to an amiable lunch, trading political anecdotes...
...At its best, the tendency towards “consensus building,” getting the warring factions to agree on a product, can produce legislation of national significance...
...Once brought to the floor, only 14 failed to pass...
...As a part-time body, the legislature is peopled mostly by men and women who hold other jobs...
...There were moments of utter strangeness...
...It would be disingenuous to suggest I was immune to that kind of “play it safe” thinking...
...In addition cratic primary...
...We need YOU,”h e said, whereupon the member promptly switched his vote...
...A bill creating a "true" life sentence-with no possibility of parole or early release-for those convicted of aggravated murder whom juries do not sentence to death...
...He seemed pleased when I assured him he'd been the first person I'd met with this particular concern, and that I'd certainly look into it...
...indeed, several years prior to this, he’d simultaneously represented both the Tobacco Institute and the Oregon Medical Association...
...Unemployed and living off savings, for six months I asked almost everyone I met for help...
...I found myself asking...
...This is not true of some of the dogs I encountered...
...Within minutes a sick feeling descended on me...
...new restrictions on cigarette smoking in private and public buildings...
...And there wasn’t just one lobbyist working the bill...
...Needless to say, tobacco lobbyists strongly opposed this bill, just as they had opposed a ballot measure the previous fall that would have placed even stronger restrictions on smoking...
...Oregon’s main business lobby, the homebuilders, and even the AFLCIO, were urging House members not to go along...
...I felt like the victim of a cruel joke...
...Since the bill’s enactment, five other states have taken the same approach to this problem...
...After knocking on almost 12,000 doors, I finally landed the job I sought...
...The hours I personally introduced crash down on the other about 20 bills, and when nine side...
...We’d roll the dice, even if we lost everything...
...had hosted many legislators-and staff members-at a Portland performance of the Joffrey ballet...
...When I finally rose to speak on the bill, my voice was trembling as much from fatigue as nervousness...
...they had just lobbied the wrong chamber...
...Most inmates in Oregon's overcrowded prisons spend their days with little constructive to do...
...Of 90 members, fewer than 12 are attorneys...
...As most young associates will readily admit, “L.A...
...Additional ayes and nays were offered as the clerk read off their names, and when all had recorded themselves, it was as close as we’d feared A hush descended on the floor and the galleries...
...It wasn’t just the 11 th hour, I realized...
...the other half of legislative service is constituent work...
...It was literally hours before the showdown on the video game bill, and I remember sitting in the nearly empty House chamber during a recess, the cold reality sinking in...
...If you tell the lobbyist, “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to vote against you,” will that affect your standing with all his other clients...
...Still, I and my campaign staff tried to put events like "The Coffee from Hell" into perspective...
...Through trial and error, and a few hurt feelings, I learned polite ways to move on...
...Since the bill was even weaker, the only different “context” I could figure was that they’d decided to push for no bill at all...
...In Oregon-which in this regard is fairly typical of most states+ach campaign cycle seems to cost about 50 percent more than the last one...
...As the action on the floor hurtled towards HB 2215’s place on the calendar, a decision had to be made...
...I was assigned the duty of working out a compromise between sponsors of the bill-the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), a Nader-inspired organization, and business lobbyists opposed to the original proposal...
...Yet for all that, I was in the path of a steamroller...
...and a $15 million increase in cigarette taxes...
...One of my neighborhoods is home to many of Portland’s top lawyers, doctors, and business executives...
...All in all, it’s the best job I’ve ever had...
...Satan’s coffee It was in February 1988 that a legislative seat unexpectedly opened in the district where I lived...
...After all, most of the changes in our system result from a series of incremental steps, settling for a half or a quarter loaf now in the hope that the rest of the loaf will eventually follow...
...Far more common than the chance to give a stirring closing argument before raptly attentive jurors are the countless late nights and weekends consumed by law library research into obscure contractual disputes and writing nitpicking memos that weren’t needed in the first place...
...The client list of the second tobacco lobbyist included veterans’ organizations, social workers, convenience stores, university professors, and beer distributors...
...And he asked us as legislators to try to show some empathy, to imagine ourselves as the parent of a child who needed help and understanding because he or she was gay...
...The bill was brought to the floor with little chance of passing...
...I thought I had minimized the embarrassment of this confessional, only to have the speaker (my former boss) announce from the podium that she was glad my conscience had gotten to me...
...When my name was called, the word “no” came out...
...commuter bus so she could get home to walk her golden retriever...
...I was livid...
...Very few asked pointed questions about issues...
...I can live with the fact that something titled, say, “Salem Blues” will never offer viewers the legislative equivalent of young lawyers, doctors, and advertising executives on the make...
...Needless to say, I didn't get the union's endorsement...
...Before anyone else could do the opposite, the gavel dropped, and the bill passed...
...A bill establishing a program to forgive up to $30,000 in loans to doctors who honor a commitment to practice for at least three years in underserved rural areas...
...I was keenly interested in HB 2215 because, as a freshman member of the Oregon House, I’d made the Oregon Community Service Corps my top priority...
...You can’t bargain effectively if you don’t have much leverage, and the truth was, the bill’s sponsors didn’t have much...
...Our membership includes teachers, real estate salesmen, small-business owners, farmers, and several ex-journalists...
...Most legislators had no strong stake in the bill...
...My legislative district-House District 12-covers much of inner southeast and southwest Portland...
...No deal...
...Each year, an estimated three million pounds of lead are so disposed, at considerable risk to the state's air and groundwater...
...The rest move to Salem for the session, sometimes employing their spouses to assist with office duties...
...And while petty politics and personal animus can sometimes get the better of people in the process, such moments were matched by others when colleagues took courageous stands...
...Double the tax, and up to half of all existing machines might disappear-thus producing no additional revenue...
...By the way," I asked, trying to change the subject, "what line of work had you been less than 90 seconds' duraswelled up with pride...
...I could count votes, and I knew this effort was doomed...
...Most of the successful of the Teamsters was going bills I sponsored received litquite well when one member asked me to elaborate on an earlier comment about being a Democrat in a largely Republican family...
...To the woodshed The Indoor Clean Air Act illustrates an important fact I learned about lobbies...
...Supporters of the bill kept making concessions, including removal of “cigarette smoke” as a specific pollutant in favor of generic language that gave the Health Division authority to set standards but no authority to enforce them...
...And to be sure, not much of legislators’ work consists of fierce debate, down-to-the-wire maneuvering, or heart-stopping votes...
...there were three, all of whom also represented clients besides the tobacco industry...
...So do other, less sexy issues-annexation, collective bargaining, yard debris recycling-that are arguably a good deal more important than much of the fare Congress regularly deals with...
...Kids’ quarters to help kids work and acquire basic skills...
...I wasn’t sure I had the votes, either...
...But would they be 29th or 30th if there were two or three other legislators of the same bent...
...The issue featured a cover story called “The State of the Industry: Looking Good...
...Under previous Oregon law "life imprisonment" could mean parole after 20 years...
...it all seemed logical enough...
...As the role of money-and political action committees-increases, this powerful tug will only intensify, bending the process towards making compromises even before a bill reaches the floor...
...Because he has managed to win and hold public office without sacrificing any of the zeal for justice and fairness he had when he was a Monthly editor, he really is a living example of something altogether too rare outside of Frank Capra movies- real-life Mr...
...Fifteen minutes later, I stood before my colleagues and sheepishly asked to change my vote to “aye...
...My despair was followed, several hours later, by an elation like that of a lost miner who stumbles on a way out...
...If anything, the bill might be worthy of a no vote for how little it did...
...So wealthy is it that it has its own separate school district, for students through the eighth grade...
...The tobacco industry, by contrast, had plenty...
...We are very proud of him...
...The great majority of legislators are inclined to help other legislators, no matter how much at odds they may be on “litmus” test issues like abortion, gun control, or gay rights...
...I fretted...
...Relying primarily on individual contributions, my crucial primary race cost about $35,000...
...But such uncomfortable moments were rare...
...Then, to everyone’s surprise, a relatively conservative Democrat in the caucus, a bluntspoken man who sported a crew cut and represented a predominantly rural area, rose to speak...
...The mixture helped hone my thinking and constantly kept me going during the many slack times...
...Since there are 60 members of the Oregon House, 3 1 affirmative votes are needed to pass a bill...
...He also represented Oregon radio and television broadcasters...
...So did the prohibitions on smoking in most public places and office workplaces...
...Some of my constituents live in homes with four-car garages...
...Oregon Law On many people’s status ladders, the nation’s 15,000 state legislators rank somewhere between funeral parlor directors and building inspectors-we’re necessary but not very interesting people...
...About half the members (including me) are within commuting distance...
...When I entered the race, most of the local experts gave me little chance of winning...
...Liberals with long records of support for gay rights gave passionate speeches...
...Lawyers are common, too, but contrary to popular belief, they are a distinct minority...
...During the session, Phillip Morris Co...
...A bill that redirects Oregon's income tax credit for child-care expenses so that the largest benefits go to the neediest families...
...Indeed, there were many moments when I was proud to have the opportunity to make a difference, however small the battle might be in the larger scheme of things...
...One said, “I’m undecided, but probably leaning to yes”two qualifiers (“probably” and “leaning”) that made me all the more cautious...
...Besides, business had an enlightened self-interest in toxic-use reduction, for reasons such as hazardous waste disposal costs, liability risks, and the desire for better public relations on an issue of such high public concern and visibility...
...Painful as it was, I knew I deserved it...
...Policymaking is only part of the job...
...One of my legislative assistants had shown some enterprise and visited some video game operators, one of whom gave her a copy of Playmeter Magazine (no kidding...
...Unlike Congress and a handful of full-time legislatures in such large states as New York and California, ours is part-time...
...Both sides had good reasons to want a bill...
...Unbeknownst to me-and to the tobacco lobby-the decision to return to the identical version of the House-passed bill had triggered an obscure rule that allows such a measure to proceed directly to the Senate...
...The speaker held the gavel, poised in mid-air...
...The experience produced my deepest moments of despair about what I was doing...
...Not everyone had weighed in...
...Consensus was reached largely by dropping the controversial portions of the bill...
...MY endorsement All in all, it's the best job I've law...
...These multipurpose lobOn the floor, the second version of the bill was trounced 20-40, sending it to conference committee...
...One lousy vote, I thought...
...I explained-realizing too late that Kennedy had devoted several years to throwing corrupt Teamsters officials in jail...
...The debate started predictably enough...
...Tobacco representatives tentatively agreed, but reneged the next day after they’d talked to their “superiors back East...
...I had strived to find common ground...
...While all vocations have their share of tedium and aggravation, few jobs offer intelligent, committed people the chance to make decisions that can benefit thousands, even millions...
...The audience eventually consisted of two young mothers and their unruly children, an older woman with a hearing problem, and the night janitor, who wasn't registered to vote...
...I was careful to find that out, too...
...However, some legislators had worked for 15 years on behalf of equal protection for gay people, and they argued that if any progress was to be made in this highly sensitive area, we had to take the risk...
...Even the most powerful ones have difficulty passing a controversial bill...
...Sixty of us in the House each represent approximately 40,000 people...
...I byists may come to you wearing their hat as a representative of the Tobacco Institute, but as they speak, you can’t help but remember that they also represent many other interests...
...I didn’t have any of these things...
...far more common than people putting me on the spot were people who had a lot on their minds and were more than happy to spend the next half hour sharing their thoughts on all kinds of issues, many of them totally unrelated to legislative work...
...After winning the general election in November 1988, I started my freshman term...
...Forget Wall Street...
...In this case, one lobbyist was a former Democratic state senator with a reputation for being highly intelligent and politically liberal...
...one quickly learns that, to drive cars for Joev Chit- After knocking On almost like voters...
...Several had actually been from Portland...
Vol. 22 • October 1990 • No. 9
