Isaac Laquedem

Solve it in Salem, II

I reread Judge Bearden's letter and order. He gave the legislature 90 days after the next regular or special session to provide the same legal benefits to same-sex couples that married couples enjoy.

Note that this applies to special sessions, if the Governor should call one this year. (The next regular session starts in January 2005.) It applies even if the Governor wants the session to deal with something else, such as, let's say, school finance or the state budget. Like it or not, same-sex marriage will be right there on the legislative table with whatever the Governor wants to talk about. And each legislator who's running for re-election will have a chance to weigh in, on the record.

Isaac predicts: no special session in 2004.

Solve it in Salem, judge tells same-sex marriage partisans

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Frank Bearden issued his ruling today on the same-sex marriage test case. (Click here to read Pablo's report, which includes a link to the text of the judge's letter ruling and order.) And b!X expresses his views here, followed by some good comments.

I read the judge's letter and order to say and do the following:

1. Multnomah County must stop issuing SSM licenses because state law restricts marriage to man-woman couples. (Opponents win!) HOWEVER:
2. Denying SSM licenses probably violates the Oregon constitution, and the state can't withhold marriage licenses from same-sex couples. (Supporters win!) HOWEVER:
3. Not issuing SSM licenses isn't the constitutional problem; the constitutional problem is that same-sex couples can't get the legal benefits that mixed-sex couples can get by marrying. (Deuce!) AND SO:
4. Counties have to issue SSM licenses. (Supporters win!) HOWEVER:
5. Because this is the sort of thing that legislators and not courts should change, the status quo is preserved (i.e., no new SSM licenses) until the next legislature has had 90 days to agree on a means of giving same-sex couples the legal benefits that mixed-sex couples get through marriage (count 'em, 90 days; the legislature can't agree on its lunch order in 90 days). (Legislators lose!) WHICH CAN BE:
6. Changing the marriage laws so that same-sex couples can marry ("Thousands march on Salem, chanting 'Protect marriage!'"), OR creating civil unions for same-sex couples that will look and feel just like marriage but not be called marriage ("Thousands march on Salem, chanting 'Separate is NOT equal!'"), OR whatever the legislature in its collective wisdom can think of within that 90-day window. AND BY THE WAY:
7. As the law requires the state registrar of vital statistics to register and file marriage licenses that have been properly signed to indicate that the ceremony has been performed, the registrar must register and file the 3000+ SSM licenses that have been returned to Salem. (Married people win!)

I think Judge Bearden's decision makes sense, especially when I read it backwards, from the bottom up. Here's how I interpret his decision when I read it backwards:

7. The same-sex couples who got married have certificates attesting to that fact, and didn't obtain those certificates by lying about their gender. The certificate is good faith evidence that X and Y (I suppose I should say X and X or Y and Y) were married on a particular date. X and Y might later on be held not to be lawfully married by reason of being of the same sex, just as they might later on be held not to be lawfully married by reason of being first cousins, but they did nevertheless get married and the certificate evidences that fact. There's no reason not to file the certificate, which is purely ministerial.
6. Assuming that same-sex couples are a protected class (whether by gender or by sexual preference, more likely gender), and are being denied legal benefits because they can't get married, the remedy is to give them the same legal benefits. The Legislature is the appropriate body to determine how exactly to give same-sex couples those benefits.
5. Until the Legislature picks a remedy, let's not make any more same-sex marriages, because the Legislature might pick a non-marriage remedy, e.g., civil unions. (Or for that matter getting out of the marriage business entirely.)
4. Which means that counties will have to license same-sex couples to do something by the middle of next year, but it's up to the state to decide what it is.
3. Or the legislature could take away legal benefits from married couples, which would be just fine; a mere 70 years ago nobody had any benefits anyway (he says this in the opinion) and it's not unconstitutional if everyone's denied the benefits of marriage. And finally:
2 and 1. Look, people, I'm only a trial court judge, and this question won't be answered until the Oregon Supreme Court says what it thinks, and the Legislature picks a remedy, so bug off.

The Laquedem Transparent Campaign Finance Reform Plan

In the 1960s and 1970s, when Oregon used "bedsheet" ballots -- huge pieces of paper the size of large towels on which voters marked their choices, race by race -- the state made the space next to each candidate's name available to that candidate. The candidate could insert up to 12 words of campaign advertising. The slogans or mottos were often as simple as "Incumbent" or "Keep Senator X working for you." I recall one that read something like, "Eliminate waste in government, stop printing campaign slogans on the ballot."

My memory of ballot slogans came back as I was reading the Portland Communique's (b!X's) take on campaign finance in the mayor's race. And then it struck me: let's use the ballot space, or its equivalent in the Voter's Pamphlet, to give the voters some additional information about the candidates. Here's what I have in mind.

In the margins of each candidate's page in the Voter's Pamphlet, or in an insert sent with the mailed ballots, print the names of each candidate's five largest contributors and a description of their principal business. On the ballots themselves, print the dollar amount raised by each candidate as of the latest practicable reporting date before the ballots are printed.

The candidates already have to report their contributions and tell us what their election is worth, and to whom. Let's make sure the voters get the information.

Why is a candidate like a bank?

The April 17 Economist includes a survey on international banking. The article entitled "An immeasurable asset" says, "Banks continue to make their own task more difficult. Their preferred means of acquiring new customers -- takeovers -- seems to be a well-proven method for annoying and losing old ones."

Often candidates do the same. They start with a base of supporters who help them to the nomination. Then they look for more supporters -- new customers -- and often manage in so doing to tick off their old supporters. And it's hard to get the old supporters -- the old customers -- back.

Usually the presidential nominee who's closer to the American center is the one who gets elected. Ronald Reagan (against Carter in 1980) is the most notable exception. John Kerry will have to move a little more to the center after he's nominated. It seems to me that his chance of being elected is better if, instead of moving all the way to the center and ticking off his union and education supporters, he moves a little to the center and instead focuses on demonstrating that Bush is far to the right, much farther than his father.

Put another way, he doesn't have to move too far toward the center if he can keep Bush far away from it.

The USDA says the Japanese are smarter than we are

This provocative title has nothing to do with education.

After "mad cow disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) was found in the United States last year, other countries banned imports of American beef. Japanese buyers of cattle organs told Creekstone Farms, a slaughterhouse in Kansas, that they would again buy Creekstone's output if Creekstone tested all of the slaughtered cattle for BSE. Creekstone built a testing plant and prepared to test every steer it slaughtered. Then the Department of Agriculture forbade Creekstone to test its cattle for BSE, saying that there was no scientific justification for testing young steers, and (in the words of the New York Times today, page 12) "Certifying some beef for Japan as disease-free, the [USDA] said, might confuse American consumers into thinking that untested beef was not safe." Japanese consumers, apparently being less easily confused by beef labeled "BSE free," will be able to buy tested beef, but thanks to the USDA, American consumers won't.

Here's Creekstone's response to the USDA, far more temperate than mine would have been.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Magpie at Pacific Views is none too happy with the USDA on this issue, and adds comments from Consumers Union and others, and the news that USDA had been running its own testing program, similar to the one that it doesn't want Creekstone to run.

Our Changing Language II

When applied to people, "weird" means weird.
"Strange" means weird, but with a five-figure income.
"Eccentric" means strange, but with a six-figure income.
"Original" means eccentric, but with a seven-figure income.

Which is how our tax policy can fairly be said to reward originality and punish weirdness.

How to clean up beer advertising

What would happen if the people who oppose blatant sex in beer commercials, instead of protesting only on moral grounds, started their own campaign, with a theme something like this?

"If you don't want your children to marry the people in that beer's commercials, don't buy the beer."

It won't affect college-age and young 20s consumers, but it just might send the makers the idea that they'll lose their customer base when they get responsible in their 30s.

Trams and tourists

Tourism dollars are clean dollars. Most of Oregon (except Cannon Beach; see yesterday's post) wants more tourists and the dollars they bring to local businesses. How best to attract them?

Portlanders don't perceive our city as a tourist town. Our first response to tourism efforts is to say that our climate keeps tourists away.

Hogwash. The weather in Seattle, New York, and Boston isn't any better than ours. (I'll concede that San Francisco's climate is better.)

Seattle and San Francisco each have something that Portland doesn't: an unusual tourist attraction and an unusual means of transport to get to it. In Seattle's case, it's the Monorail that runs to the Space Needle and Paul Allen's music museum. San Francisco has the cable car that runs from downtown over the hills to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square.

Portland has a tram that runs between Portland State University and Good Samaritan Hospital, two useful civic institutions not commonly thought of as tourist destinations.

For the next extension of the tram (if there is one), let's add tourist destinations. Three suggestions: OMSI and Hawthorne Boulevard on the east side, and the Japanese Garden (one of the best in the world outside Japan) on the west side.

Running MAX to the airport was a good start. Let's use our transportation planning to make Portland more attractive to tourists.

An inspirational reading for April 15

We interrupt our support of the social welfare state to honor Tax Day.

Having sent two large installments of Danegeld to the federal and state governments today, rather than be needlessly creative about the joys and benefits of taxation in a free society we quote from A.P. Herbert's book More Misleading Cases in the Common Law (London: Methuen & Co., 1930). This passage comes from the case of Inland Revenue v. Haddock, "What is a Cheque?":

"No thinking man can regard those parts of the Finance Acts which govern the income-tax with anything but contempt. There may be something to be said -- not much -- for taking from those who have inherited wealth a certain proportion of that wealth for the service of the State and the benefit of the poor and needy; and those who by their own ability, brains, industry, and exertion have earned money may reasonably be invited to surrender a small portion of it towards the maintenance of those public services by which they benefit, to wit, the Police, the Navy, the Army, the public sewers, and so forth. But to compel such individuals to bestow a large part of their earnings upon other individuals is manifestly barbarous and indefensible. Yet this is the law."

I'm going to head off to the Drones Club for a restorative. We will return to our support of the social welfare state tomorrow.

FURTHER INFORMATION: After Jack Bog posted his analysis of the President's and Veep's tax returns here, he had the same general reaction to his own taxes that I did to mine, in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of his post over here.

Cannon Beach: Stay, but don't visit

As governor 30 years ago, Tom McCall issued his invitation to outsiders: "Visit, but don't stay." Cannon Beach is taking the opposite approach, telling the rest of the state, "Stay, but don't visit."

Cannon Beach has been a popular vacation city since long before its incorporation in 1959. Many of the houses became summer places. Owners of vacation houses often rented them out for the weekend or a week to other people.

In 1992, Cannon Beach prohibited new short term rentals and required existing short term rentals (houses rented for fewer than 14 days at a time) to obtain a license, and to stop renting by 1997. About 100 homeowners obtained licenses to rent. The city extended the deadline and it now expires in 2005. Ninety-one homeowners still have licenses to rent.

Last week the planning commission recommended to the city council that it not extend the deadline any further, which if followed by the city council would remove 91 houses from the vacation/tourist rental pool. (For comparison, Cannon Beach has about 700 motel rooms.) At a time when other Oregon cities are scrounging for visitors and the tourist dollars they bring, Cannon Beach's planning commission wants to cut the number of overnight guests by 10%.

Seaside, Gearhart, Manzanita, do you want some new customers? Cannon Beach doesn't.

FURTHER INFORMATION: The Cannon Beach Gazette has an article describing the events in more detail. (This link may not go to the right article when the next issue comes out, until I update it.)