Lobbyists in Oregon

Those on the left are anxious to castigate lobbyists (no, castigate. Don't go there). Trips to Hawaii by Oregon legislators paid for by the beer and wine industry, failure to report the trips and clumsy responses when discovered, all paint an easy target.

But reformers need to be careful.

Sources close to the process -- yes, even some with nothing to gain -- say lobbyists perform an important function in Oregon politics. They provide information to busy Senators and House members who might not otherwise hear from constituents.

Is the information skewed? Of course. But all information is skewed. Every journalist is a "filter," and must make choices as to information presented. Those choices will always result in a bias.

Too often, in fact, the attempt to be "unbiased" or "objective" results in pabulum journalism: stupid arguments included in a story so that grams of ink or lines of copy are "fairly" even between "both" sides. As if most issues had two sides.

At least when grocers threaten to scuttle expansion of the Oregon Bottle bill, you know where they are coming from. One legislator has said that he sometimes gets better info about the opposition from a lobbyist of a special interest than he does from the opponents themselves.

The major constraint in Salem is time. Credibility is currency. A lobbyist who consistently lies or clumsily manipulates will soon be unable to catch an ear. Information travels fast among the 60 representatives and 30 senators. Someone without credibility will lose access, ultimately their accounts, or their job.

Now, this is not to say that $30,000 campaign contributions should not be examined. It is one thing to provide information, it is another altogether for an industry to buy a candidate’s path to power.