Beware of campaign propaganda that criticizes anyone for voting this way or that on a particular bill. There likely was a good reason why state or federal lawmakers voted the way they did.
Take bullying, for instance. The 2009 legislature passed a bill against bullying in schools. So did that make anyone opposing the bill a supporter of bullies? No.
The bill added policy-writing and data-reporting chores to school districts that must already spend far too much time on meeting mandates imposed from above.
Also, well-run schools already take appropriate measures when some kid gets out of line. This new law does nothing for anybody other than that it allows legislators who voted for it to claim they had struck a blow against bullying in the public schools.
Or take the state highway transportation bill last session. People who favored the bill may claim that no-voters were against jobs and better and more roads. The no-voters, though, will say that they were against a massive program tailored to benefit specific legislative districts at the cost of a huge debt that is to be paid off with a 6-cent increase in the fuel tax, an increase we now know will hit Oregon drivers and employers this coming winter, when the forecasts say unemployment will still be very high.
Campaigners might make the point that somebody voted against banning a certain chemical substance, bisphenol A, in food containers. “Well, that politician must be in favor of poisoning people.”
They don’t mention that the substance is used because neither the EPA nor the Food and Drug Administration has seen fit to ban it. Voting against a ban was justified because Oregon hardly knows better than federal food safety specialists, and doing without the stuff would increase the risk of spoilage in packaged food.
All legislative bills have reasons for and against, except maybe a bill for motherhood and apple pie, and even then objections may be raised. When the reasons against weigh considerably more, no one should blame a state or federal lawmaker for voting no. (hh)
