Isaac Laquedem

The Laquedem Plan to Improve Continuing Legal Education and Honor a Legal Leader

The Oregon State Bar requires active lawyers to take a certain amount of coursework, called "continuing legal education" or "CLE," to renew their licenses.  Members report their education every three years.  New members must take nine hours of courses on practical skills, including at least four hours on Oregon practice and procedure.  After their first reporting period, Oregon lawyers must take 45 hours of accredited CLE every three years, including at least five hours on ethics, one hour on mandatory reporting of child abuse and elder abuse, and one hour on mental health and substance abuse.  In alternate reporting periods, Oregon lawyers must also take at least three hours on programs accredited for "access to justice."  The Bar's rules define "Access to justice" education as activities that are "designed to educate attorneys to identify and eliminate from the legal profession, from the provision of legal services, and from the practice of law barriers to access to justice arising from biases against persons because of age, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender and gender identity or expression, geographic location, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, immigration status, and socioeconomic status."

Recent news stories have given Isaac the idea that the Oregon State Bar should require providers of CLE to meld practical skills with access to justice, resulting in the Laquedem Plan to Improve Continuing Legal Education and Honor a Legal Leader.  Educators could teach lawyers how to organize luxurious hunting trips, expensive vacations, and cruises on private yachts, and then how to invite judges to be their guests.  Other material would cover how to establish political organizations under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to funnel unreported money to a judge's spouse.  And somewhere in the mix would be how to ship rare wine across state lines to judicial incumbents.

The name of this hybrid CLE credit would honor one of its most ardent practitioners.  I suggest calling it "Access to Justice Thomas."

The Laquedem Plan to make the Senate the envy of its peers

Elie Mystal, writing in the November 29 issue of The Nation, argues that it's time to abolish the United States Senate, describing the Senate as "the place where the popular will goes to die.  The Senate's primary function is to do nothing, then congratulate itself for its restraint."  Mr. Mystal views the Senate, possibly correctly, as continuing to serve its antebellum role "of propping up white power today," and he notes that the Black population of New York City is larger than the entire population of North Dakota and South Dakota combined, yet the residents of the Dakotas get four senators and the Blacks of New York City get perhaps a 10% say in selecting two senators.

The Senate originated in a reasonable idea, which is that one of the two houses of Congress should be insulated from the passions of the moment, both by having six-year terms and by being only indirectly selected by the people.  (State legislators picked senators until the election of 1914, after the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified.)  The Senate may have been "the world's greatest deliberative body" when Henry Clay and Daniel Webster debated on its floor, and possibly still, more than a century later, when Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon gave up their Senatorial careers to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964.  Today the quality of Senatorial discussion only rarely approaches that of a good college debate contest, and consistently falls short of that of the Oxford Union.

What, then, is to be done with the Senate?  Mr. Mystal says that we should abolish it altogether, and replace it with "a democratic institution of government," in essence, a smaller version of the House of Representatives, allocated among the states by population, and perhaps still chosen with longer terms.  I'd like to suggest that we do the opposite.  Put plainly, I propose that we return the Senate to its historical roots as a chamber of stable and stately privilege, in the hope that it will return to its intended function of serving as a proper deliberative body that can moderate, but not stop altogether, the will of the people.

The United States designed its bicameral Congress on the model of Parliament, in which the House of Commons comprised a multitude elected, more or less directly, by constituencies across the nation.  The members of the House of Lords were hereditary members of the peerage, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and an assortment of other high clerics of the Church of England.  Various reforms have set the number of church officials at 24, limited the number of hereditary peers to 92, and allowed the monarch to create life peers with the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, without the right descending to their children.  Quite a bit of pomp still attends the House of Lords, even if most of the 750 or so hereditary peers of the United Kingdom no longer have the right to attend and vote, sharing only the right to choose the 92 peers who will sit in the House of Lords.

That leaves about 660 hereditary peers who don't have anything to keep them occupied from the end of the fall grouse season until Royal Ascot the following June.  Here, then, is the Laquedem Plan to improve the United States senate.  Each state may elect two of the underemployed peers to be its representatives in the New and Improved United States Senate.  The lucky peers will receive a reasonable salary, a travel allowance, and a wardrobe allowance. 

Think of the improvements!  With its members dressed in fur-trimmed capes and robes, the Senate will be more telegenic than ever.  The State of the Union will truly be a television spectacle.  Unhappy witnesses before Congressional committees can truthfully say that they don't understand the legislators' questions, if only because of the thick accents that our new Senators will bring with them.  And as our Senators will never need to run for re-election, once elected they will be beyond the influence of the campaign contributions of lobbyists.

The catch?  Once elected, our imported peers will have a lifetime job, terminable only by death, impeachment, or resignation.  Choose well, voters of the Dakotas, for you're going to be living with your four choices for decades.  As for Oregon?  We could do no better than to elect as our new Senator the actor Tim Bentinck, who beyond his many notable acting roles also holds a fitting hereditary title: he is the 12th Earl of Portland.

It's time to Peel off the military trappings of our police force

On June 11 Governor Kate Brown signed HB 2481, which restricts police departments from acquiring certain types of surplus federal military equipment, including armed drones, grenades and grenade launchers, and firearms silencers.  City police departments must obtain written approval from the city council before acquiring any other military surplus equipment.  County sheriffs must notify the board of county commissioners at least 5 days before asking the federal government for surplus property, but don't have to get the county commission's approval.  The bill as introduced would also have prohibited police departments from acquiring surplus "militarized combat, assault or armored vehicles," a provision that the legislature dropped.

To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  To the police department with combat gear, everything looks like a battlefield.  HB 2481 is a fine start toward restoring the distinction between the United States military and local law enforcement.  Let's continue the work.

One quirk of many American municipal police departments, including Portland's, is that they are structured on military lines, from chain of command down to the titles of the officers: sergeants report to lieutenants, who report to captains.  Compare our fondness for organizing police forces as paramilitary operations with the titles that the British chose for their police officers:  from lowest to highest they are Constable, Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Superintendent, and Chief Superintendent.  Only one of those ranks, Sergeant, is drawn from a military title, and above the Chief Superintendents the titles revert to variations on the entry-level position:  Assistant Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable, and Chief Constable.  Sir Robert Peel chose the names of those ranks deliberately, to avoid the constabulary being seen in the image of an additional military force, consistent with the nine policing principles that he set to paper in 1829.  His first principle of policing was "To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment."  The second, relevant in Portland today, was "To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

I don't intend to suggest that Portland could cure its policing ills with a change of name, though it would be a good start.  I do believe that if we assign military ranks to our police officers, train them in military thinking, and give them military equipment, we should not be surprised when they occasionally act like a military force.

 

 

The Laquedem Plan for the second presidential debate: Scrabble

The debate between President Trump and Vice President Biden earlier this week told us nothing new about the candidates.  The president criticized Mr. Biden for not proposing any specific plans for his term in office, and then talked over him whenever he started to give specifics.  Mr. Biden was more restrained, but eventually gave up trying to address Mr. Trump's disconnected thoughts and spoke directly (and effectively) to the American people.

A second debate in the same format won't tell us anything new or interesting about the candidates.  Let's admit that we are tuning in mainly to watch for gaffes and blunders, with the same morbid attraction that we have for seeing tightrope walkers and trapeze artists put themselves in danger. 

If Messrs. Trump and Biden are going to meet again to do battle, it should be in a novel format.  Hence the Laquedem Plan to Rework the Second Presidential Debate.

Let them play three games of Scrabble on national television.

Let us see how they interact over a game board, what words they choose, how becomingly they achieve victory, and how gracefully they accept defeat.  Let us read what we can into their choice of words, their game strategies, their use of bonus squares, and their inventiveness with J, Q, X, and Z.  Do they open up new territory on the board with long words that leap to the borders?  Or do they play conservatively and defensively, filling squares in ones and twos?   Do they challenge each other's words? 

It's said that you can learn a lot about a man's character by playing golf with him.  Let's bring the character test to the table.

Game on!

The 2020 election: The Laquedem Plan To Grant Victory to Both Candidates

Three years of Donald Trump as our president have demonstrated that he enjoys the pomp of the presidency, doesn't want to work very hard, and has only a few fixed political principles.  (He might express those principles as "Taxes are bad!  Twitter is good!  Immigrants I'm not married to are bad!")  We as Americans are conflicted: we berate our presidents (not just Mr. Trump) when they too readily enjoy the perquisites of the office, and we don't like it when they're too fancy, but we also complain when they aren't fancy enough for our taste.

America needs a different president.  What, then, shall we do with the current one?  In 2016 we tried to show our preference for the other candidate by giving her 3,000,000 more votes, but Mr. Trump won anyway.  I suggest that we take advantage of his tastes and two recent events to provide victory to both President Trump and whomever the Democrats may nominate, while at the same  time bolstering the American economy and giving the gossip magazines a ready source of Kardashian-free material.  The two recent events are that Henry, Duke of Sussex, commonly (and no longer royally) known as Prince Harry, and his wife will live in Canada much of the year, and that the prince celebrated his 35th birthday on September 15, 2019.  Constitutional scholars will see where I'm going.

To accomplish the Laquedem Plan, we will need to enact one statute and make one revision to the constitution.  The statutory change is to create a ceremonial position (call it "Pooh-Bah"), to be filled by appointment from among those persons who are either past presidents of the United States or descended from a king or queen who at one time ruled over a portion of what is now the United States, meaning that the Pooh-Bah could be a member of the royal house of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, France, and Hawaii.  The constitutional change is to allow the Pooh-Bah to grant lifetime titles of nobility to persons who have held federal elective office on the condition that the ennobled recipients give up their right to hold any further elective office.

Prince Harry is available and looking for a job.  Imagine him as Pooh-Bah.  He has had years of training for a post that he's unlikely to ever fill in his own country.  He'll be local.  He's photogenic and popular.  His wife can act.  He's the ideal candidate.

What will Pooh-Bah Harry do?  I suggest that he starts by granting a title to Donald Trump.  "Earl of Jersey" is already taken, and "Earl of New Jersey" sounds parvenu.  I propose "Baron Trump of Florida" as being fitting.  There would be no duties and he could golf as much as he wishes.  The appointment would come with a coat of arms suitable to be mounted over a hotel entrance, and would even include a Chinese trademark registration.  He can have all the pomp and flattery that any nobleman would wish.  In the meantime the rest of the country can get back to business under the direction of a president better suited to do the actual work of governing.

A job has opened up for which I am painfully qualified

Comedian Irwin Corey billed himself as "The World's Foremost Authority."  Authority on what?  Anything you might wish him to talk about, if you were willing to overlook how he could spiral from coherent and professorial English into a whirlpool of substance and syntax so mangled that George W. Bush would have cringed.  Professor Corey died yesterday at the advanced age of 102, and his death leaves vacant the post of being the world's foremost authority.  Until a less suitable substitute is located, I'm happy to claim the title. 

GoFineMe: the Laquedem Crowdfining Plan for Financial Malefactors

In recent months we've seen stories of persons who, when accused of civil violations, solicit money for their defense through crowdfunding, including most notably a website called GoFundMe.com.  GoFundMe turned down the effort of the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky after she was briefly jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses, but has accepted efforts to fund the defense of Second Amendment cases, marijuana cases, and deputy sheriffs.

It's all very well to raise money to get people out of legal trouble, but these efforts point out the need for a similar crowdfunding source to get wealthy miscreants into legal trouble -- or, more exactly, to provide a way for the general public to express their view of the malefactors' crimes.  Hence the Laquedem Crowdfining Plan:  GoFineMe, to provide a measure of the public wrath against those who steal and cheat on a grand scale.  It works like this:  if a judge or jury convicts a defendant of (say) securities fraud or some other massive financial crime that has identifiable victims, the court will open a GoFineMe account for a specified period of time, into which the public can donate funds to be used as restitution for the victims.  The GoFineMe wrinkle is that the judge will also sentence the malefactor to pay a fine equal to X times the GoFineMe fund.  A piker at the swindling game might be fined an amount equal to somewhere between half and twice the GoFineMe fund.  A master of the art, if convicted, might be fined 10 or 20 times the GoFineMe amount.  The fine would be used as restitution to the victims.  It would work like a matching gift to charity, and it's far more gentle on the offender than setting up the stocks in the town square next to a supply of rotten tomatoes.

The Laquedem Plan to Improve the $10 Bill

Our currency has never honored a politico who achieved the vice presidency but did not serve as president.  We can remedy this oversight and at the same time create a real conversation piece on our currency by redesigning the $10 bill.  Push Alexander Hamilton's picture to the right side, and put Aaron Burr's picture on the left, making this bit of our currency the only one issued with (sorry) duel portraits. 

The Laquedem Plan to honor Anatole France with low-income housing

Tokyo is so dense a city that commercial spaces are even squeezed into the arches that support commuter trains.  As I read yet another story about how Portland's pro-density policy encourages property owners to tear down older houses (often rentals) and replace them with newer (owner-occupied) townhouses, I pondered what the city and TriMet will do with the space underneath the new rail/bike bridge that connects the South Waterfront to OMSI.  At that point Anatole France's famous line came to mind: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."  (That last bit is not often enforced against people who run hedge funds.)

Hence the Laquedem Plan to honor Anatole France.  It occurs to me that the Tillikum Crossing project gives us a striking opportunity to achieve several goals at once, if we construct affordable housing underneath -- not next to, but underneath -- its western approach.  We can meet a need with housing that is convenient to transit and walking distance from downtown and the inner east side.  We can give that part of the city a more international flavor.  We can provide an opportunity for the city and the South Waterfront developers to keep their broken promises to provide affordable, working-class housing in the area.  The land is cheap -- free, really -- and services are all available.  A wag with Isaac's sense of humor might name the housing project "Anatolia."  The literary among us could take that as a reference to the Anatole France quotation about living under bridges.  The commercially minded might take the name to refer to an area that is part of a larger turkey.

The Laquedem Plan to keep the governor in touch with the outside world

One lesson of the recent meltdown in Salem is that it's all too possible for the governor -- or for that matter the executive of any large organization who must govern through a small circle of assistants -- to have his or her access to information and to public thinking cut off by those assistants, or by one or two of them.  Dr. Kitzhaber is not the first to suffer the consequences of this malady: recall the final years of the Nixon White House as one example of this common phenomenon.

The phenomenon is unfortunate but understandable.  A governor (or president, or general, or chief executive officer, or other Pooh-Bah) of an organization that employs tens of thousands of people and that must respond to public opinion can't talk with everyone who wants a few minutes of the Pooh-Bah's time.  Nor can the person at the apex answer every letter or every e-mail - staff must handle most of the requests or let them go unanswered, and from the point of view of the person who wants the boss's attention, unnoticed.

It's also understandable because the cadre around the boss owe their jobs to the boss's favor, and can sometimes score perquisites for themselves from others who see them as access points to the boss.  The result is that members of the cadre don't want to bring bad news to the boss, or disagree, or mention unpleasant facts even when a crisis develops, preferring to flatter the boss by praising his or her judgment, brilliance, and management skills.  What the executive needs is someone who has access to the executive and whose job doesn't depend on the exec's good humor -- someone who can tell the truth without repercussions.

I'm reminded of the Roman civil servant (possibly a slave) who, as the conquering general was given a parade and a hero's welcome, and then a crown of laurels, would whisper in the general's ear, "Remember thou art mortal."  (Mel Brooks does a fine rendition of this tradition in "History of the World, Part I.")

It occurred to me that Pooh-Bahs of many sorts, including our future governors, would benefit by having on staff a person, hired for a fixed term or protected by civil service, whose function would be to follow the governor around, listen to the governor's speeches and meetings, and then once or twice a week tell the governor privately whether the governor was being statesmanlike or foolish.  This person might also spend one day a week reading the mail that the governor receives from ordinary citizens and then summarizing it to the governor, without fear or favor.  It would not be necessary to remind the governor of his or her mortality -- we have the ballot box and the newspapers for that -- but simply, by expressing an unbiased opinion and passing public sentiment through to the governor, perhaps staving off crises such as the one our state is going through now.