I recently spoke with a local environmental leader to chat about the recently ended Oregon legislative session and express my continuing disappointment with our elected representatives. This activist was tactful but confirmed my view stating that we have no elected environmental champions, at least effective ones. Sure, there are occasional good bills passed, like the recent increase in lodging taxes to benefit the environment (if the governor signs the bill), but we are applying band aids to a gaping wound. As I have written for years, most recently here, the fundamental issue with our local water crisis is the allocation of water rights over 100 years ago, an issue that no one is willing to address. Why is that?

Admittedly, politicians have a range of pressing issues, but protecting the environment, something we all depend on for life itself, should be somewhere high on the list. While environmental issues can be somewhat nebulous for voters concerned with issues like housing and the cost of living, access to water is so fundamental that even politicians should be able to leverage that.

Unfortunately, Oregon has a overarching issue with money corrupting politics. In Oregon the problem is worse than in most states. As this recent ProPublica story clearly illustrates, members of both parties have done their best to subvert the will of voters to reform campaign finance contributions. Democrats want to protect big money from unions and republicans want to protect money from business interests. Both sides want to protect money from the ag lobby.

Here’s part of a post I wrote way back in 2019:

According to a recent investigative series by The Oregonian, “Polluted by Money”, by many measures Oregon is among the most corrupt states in the nation.  In fact, more money is given to Oregon state legislators on a per capita basis than any other state.  We’re #1!  Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of this money is not coming from the public, it comes from corporations and special interests.  Contributions from the farm lobby are the 6^th largest in the nation while the US Department of Agriculture says Oregon is only #28 in the nation in terms of agriculture production.

The recent ProPublica article has this sentence that should concern us all: “Oregon’s lack of limits on campaign donations had allowed corporate America to give more to lawmakers, per capita, than anywhere else in the country and led to some of the weakest environmental protections on the West Coast”.

Of course, this is also an issue at the Federal level where billionaires are spending heavily to protect their interests and one party is on a years-long quest to undermine our governmental institutions. This includes the Supreme Court which has allowed the unlimited flood of money. It’s all pretty depressing but I am reminded of this quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald which has guided me for years:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

And of course, this over 2,000 year old statement in Plato’s The Republic.

“The desire for office should disqualify you.”

As Plato more famously wrote in the same book, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. I would amend that to say as money corrupts. Some things in human nature never change.