What are your 12 priorities for the next governor?

Leave a comment with your ideas.

This piece was originally published in The Bend Bulletin.

"Voting Booths 1966" by Clackamas County Historical Society is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

“If there is a single hallmark of the Oregon character, it must be citizen initiative. We in Oregon do not wait for answers to be handed down to us . . . “ That’s what Governor McCall told the state in his farewell address in 1975 and it’s what Oregonians must remember in 2021. We must also recall and revive his spirit of problem solving. “We assess the ever-changing situation and respond with our own action. We do not celebrate a problem. We set about to make things better by trying solutions.”

Citizen initiative. The pursuit of solutions, not problems. Independence from ideology. The wisdom of McCall should guide our actions today. It’s true that Oregon in the age of the McCall is different from the state we call home today. But we face the same problems: a climate undergoing change, a quality of life under threat, an economy underserving most while benefiting most.

The Oregon Way is reviving the lessons we learned from McCall but have failed to heed. In 2022, the blog will address one of the twelve biggest issues each month. Our contributors, spanning the state and the political spectrum, will tackle these issues head on — without partisanship, without personal ties, and without someone in their pocket. Of course, posts cannot solve problems. However, they can help spark citizen initiative. The end of each month will include a panel of contributors to discuss their pieces with Oregonians. This will also be an opportunity for Oregonians to identify others committed to action and begin working together toward solutions.

This process of citizens collaboratively identifying problems and proposing solutions is exactly what McCall had in mind. We the people are closest to the problems, the least biased by thoughts of reelection, and the most motivated to achieve solutions sooner than later. We’re also capable of thinking outside of ideological boxes. In other words, we the people can consider more options, try more ideas, and incorporate more stakeholders than the officials we elect. To move the state forward on the issues it’s confronting, we’ll have to leverage all of these advantages.

The Oregon Values and Beliefs Center has already identified 11 key challenges for us to collaboratively tackle: homelessness, affordable housing, unemployment, racial justice, policing, wildfires, traffic congestion, vandalism and graffiti, underemployment, drought, and litter. Surely Oregonians would add or subtract certain issues to prioritize — over the next months, we’ll identify those top priorities. McCall would surely have one more to add to the list: fear.

We cannot sit back for “answers to be handed down to us.” That’s because, again in the words of McCall, “We do not like to wait for the inevitable . . . we send scouts to stalk its approach.” This proactive approach is necessary when “a faint, cold fear” lurks in the shadows. That fear is the fear of one another, of instability, of uncertainty, of a democracy that can no longer solve problems. McCall warned that “[t]his mood must not be allowed to fasten and grow.” Oregonians must “lead the attack against this most dangerous enemy of representative government — the phantom of fear.”

The levers of our democracy and the solutions to our biggest issues are within our grasp. For too long, there have been too few ways for too few citizens to meaningfully participate in our democracy. McCall is beckoning us to “attack...the phantom of fear.”

To do so, we must address our fears head on, together, by getting to know one another and by daring to use of democratic imagination to solve problems that require us all to exemplify the hallmark of Oregon character.

Use the button below to submit your top 12 priorities.