Reflecting on our new legislature

From Executive Director Jonathan Poisner:

 
In my ten years at the helm of OLCV, I’ve written 40 updates from the Executive Director for OLCV news-letters. This is the 41st - and of all of them, the most fun to write.

 
I’ll start with a simple statement: The leadership of Oregon’s Legislature has a track record of working to promote and enhance the protection of Oregon’s environment.

 
That’s a very satisfying sentence to write. For more than a decade, the opposite was the case, either for both Legislative chambers or the House.

 
It’s not just satisfying because OLCV played a key role in electing the new Leadership by helping win so many close races for city, county, and legislative seats last fall.

It’s satisfying primarily because we have a tremendous opportunity to make Oregon healthy again: to protect our people, our economy, and land – for the long run.

Put most succinctly, we’re saying goodbye to an era when the short-term interest of polluters were consistently put first by our Legislature, and saying hello to an era when . . .

. . . I find it’s not so easy to complete that sentence.

We hope it will be a new era and not just a one session blip. And that means we must maintain and build OLCV’s electoral capacity headed into 2008.

We hope it’s an era that makes our children think back as fondly on this Legislature as many Oregonians feel about the Legislature of the mid-1970s.

We hope that it’s an era marked by accomplishments, and not just good intentions.

Our challenge is to assist our Legislature’s leadership in leaving a great legacy. Of course, by “assist,” I mean something very different than “doing what they tell us.” After all, they’re our elected officials, serving the public.

Rather, we need to assist them in living up to their own aspirations.

How? By combining three strategies:

First, by presenting a clear set of priorities to the leadership, so they can deliver for a public that’s hungry for accomplishments. We’ve done that through the Oregon Conservation Network, where more than 40 groups have agreed upon six Priorities for a Healthy Oregon. Read about them at www.oregonpriorities.org.

Second, by rallying thousands of citizens across the state – that means you! – to become citizen-lobbyists: writing, emailing, calling, and showing up in person in Salem to let your elected leaders know what you care about. You can become an email advocate by signing up for SalemWatch at www. oregonpriorities.org, or, better yet, come to one our Citizen Lobbyist Workshops (see announcement on the previous page).

Finally, by being in Salem every day. OLCV’s lobbyist, Sybil Ackerman, backed up by the rest of OLCV’s staff, will be in Salem every day working directly with legislators. If they start to go astray, we won’t be shy about pointing that out. And if they do the right thing, we’ll be the first to educate the public about legislators who deserve our thanks.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Poisner