How we beat polarization and division
Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 08/08/2024 08:12 AM PDT
Dear friends and neighbors,
It has been a little while since my last one of these updates–and a lot has happened locally and nationally. Honestly, I think this is the most whiplash-inducing month of American political events in my lifetime. We are living through an historic, turbulent moment. I have no idea what the future holds. But I know we’ve been through turbulent moments before–in the late 1800s, in the 1960s, and many moments in between–and we made it through them, together. My hope is that we can all rise to the occasion and make it through this moment, too.
And now some updates from Oregon!
Government Oversight, Accountability, and Effectiveness
I recently participated in a symposium on state oversight and accountability put on by the Levin Center for Legislative Oversight and Democracy. They work to build capacity in legislative bodies at all levels to expose public and private sector abuses, ensure effective governance, and bring critical facts to light for the benefit of all.
I’ve been excited to partner with them as I work on this topic. I’ve been running an oversight and accountability workgroup for the past several months (bipartisan – 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) as we work to develop recommendations to ensure the legislature can conduct meaningful, productive oversight to make our government more effective.
I was a panelist in a discussion about legislative oversight at a national conference along with the Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature (they don’t have a House and a Senate, just one chamber) and top researchers from universities. It was a great discussion. You can watch here, my panel is at the 3:20:00 mark, (if you’re extremely bored, you can watch up to 5 hours of deep dive conversations on legislative accountability).
Welcoming New Community Leaders
In some awesome news for the Tigard-Tualatin School District community, Dr. Iton Udosenata accepted the position of superintendent of TTSD. I’ve known Iton since 2018 when I worked for the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, and I’ve long admired him as a leader. He is a talented, visionary person and we’re lucky to have him. He was selected for the Broad Fellowship at the Yale Center for Senior Education Leaders (a big deal) and came to us from the Salem-Keizer School District, where he was the deputy superintendent. He was also previously a principal in Eugene. If you see him around, please welcome him to the community.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Tigard’s newest City Councilor, Jake Schlack. Jake has experience as Chair of the city’s budget committee and he is the first Gen Z member of the city council. Welcome Jake!
American Exchange Project
If you’re like me, you find the level of partisanship and division in this country is alarming and unproductive. While I believe our democracy is durable, I don’t believe the trend of polarization will end on its own–I think we actually have to do something about it. So how might we build relationships across geographies, religions, political orientations, and other identities? How do we build empathy in a complex, pluralistic society?
One answer is an incredible program called The American Exchange Project (AEP). I’ve been working the last few months with David McCullough III, AEP’s founder, to bring the program to Oregon. Think of a foreign exchange student program, but domestically. Students from rural Texas stay with a host family in New York City, and students from Orange County spend time in Iowa, etc. It builds relationships, instills pride in community, exposes young people to different parts of America, and stitches the fabric of our country together.
David and I have been working together to build an Oregon-specific version of this. Like the country, Oregon is divided, too. In a lot of ways, it’s a microcosm of the United States. Oregon can and should be a model for how we can live together, and this generation of young people can help lead the way.
Stay tuned for more on this project as it develops.
Red Flag Warnings / Wild Fires
Oregon has the largest fire in the country right now. The Durkee Fire in Baker and Malheur counties has reached 288,690 acres.
Last week, Governor Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for the Durkee Fire, as well as the Battle Mountain Complex fires burning in Grant and Umatilla counties. The announcement included her decision to deploy resources from the National Guard that are currently serving eastern and southwestern Oregon to support ongoing firefighting efforts.
In our area of the state, the weather service also issued a fire weather watch last week due to lightning. That has since passed.
Wildfire season is just beginning and our state has already been hit hard. We continue to receive support from other states and I will provide updates as I hear them. Please be extremely careful when lighting fires and be aware of all fire bans in our state.
You can see a map of active fires and fire warnings here.
As you can see, in HD25 right now we are not near large active fires, but Central and Eastern Oregon are struggling.
Eugene City Club
Last month, I presented at the Eugene City Club about a sea change happening in our country’s healthcare system. As I’ve shared before, in the last 10 years, there has been a 100,000% increase in private capital invested into primary care. Across our state and country, small doctor-owned clinics are being bought up by large corporations and private equity firms.
When you replace a locally-based physician owner with a private equity firm there are serious, negative consequences. Prices go up, quality of care declines, injuries increase, and physicians burn out. In short, worse care at higher prices.
We are seeing the harm of not acting in real-time. Over the last month, thousands of patients in Eugene received letters informing them that their local clinic, the Oregon Medical Group, could no longer provide care for them. They would have to find a new doctor. And many of those patients simply can’t find a provider.
A couple of months ago, I presented to the Salem City Club about this trend and about the bill I brought forward to stop this corporate consolidation. The Eugene City Club caught wind of it and invited me to serve on a panel with Rep. Nancy Nathanson (who has been doing a ton of work to preserve access), and Hayden Rooke-Ley, a local lawyer who works on these issues, and a local physician, Dr. Jones.
Left to Right: Dr. Jones, Hayden Rooke-Ley, Me, Rep. Nathanson
Future Caucus
Last week, I attended Future Caucus’ annual summit in Washington DC. If you are not familiar, Future Caucus is a collection of young lawmakers from across the country (of both parties) focused more on solving problems than fighting with each other.
We heard from progressives like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, conservatives like Yuval Levin, and people in between like Tim Shriver of The Dignity Index (and Special Olympics), and presidential historian Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky (who appropriately spoke about “leading through turbulent times”).
A sampling of key take-home lessons for me:
- Speaker Pelosi’s framing of how to build a caucus agenda: strive to adopt the boldest position that you can get consensus on.
- From Amanda Ripley: “Any intuitive thing you do in high conflict will backfire.” Take a beat and breathe.
- From Tim Shriver: As obvious as it sounds, we don’t do a very good job of treating people with dignity when we disagree with them. You can’t have healthy debate without human dignity, and you can’t have democracy without healthy debate.
The full Future Caucus Summit
Local Spotlight - Hopewell House
End-of-life care can be incredibly challenging. I recently learned about Hopewell House, a licensed residential care facility dedicated solely to caring for individuals enrolled in hospice and in the final weeks to days of life. Residents have private rooms with outdoor views, and visitors and pets are welcome. I spoke with a board member who lost her daughter several years ago, and she spoke movingly about the experience of her family at Hopewell. It gave their family a place to say goodbye without the stress and chaos of being at home without help, and it provided a beautiful place for her grandchildren to spend time with their mom before she passed.
This facility was previously owned by Legacy Health and closed briefly in 2019. Community members, including those whose lives had been changed by Hopewell, came together to save the facility and keep it open. I wanted to be sure our community is aware this special resource exists and is available. For more information, visit their website.
Town Hall
One more thing! I will also be holding a Town Hall on September 14th. Mark you calendars. It will be held at Symposium Coffee at 11:00am, and I hope to see you all there.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions at
rep.benbowman@oregonlegislature.gov.
Thanks for reading,
Ben Bowman
Oregon State Representative
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