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Ashland legislators struggle with gridlock By Sean Wolfe Ashland Daily Tidings Observers of Ashland's own senior state Senator Lenn Hannon have come to know that he is rarely short of folksy analogies to describe complex political situations. Now, as the ongoing budget wrangling in Salem continues to test his patience, Hannon's analogies center around broken-down cars. "Imagine sitting in a 4-wheel drive, and you have four tires, and each tire is in a mud puddle. Each tire is spinning independent of the other. That's what's going on in Salem. No traction," Hannon said Monday afternoon in a telephone interview from Salem. "The problem is everybody is complacent - they want to stay where they are. And there are those who want to promise the sun and the moon, and also say 'However, I've made a pledge of no new taxes, and no new revenue.' And they can't have it both ways. One of these days, they're going to have to take a pill, and it will be hard to swallow," the Republican said. The state's new two-year fiscal period begins in a week without any major budgets having been passed, so lawmakers are preparing a stopgap measure to extend agencies' spending authority past June 30. Hannon opposes that stopgap, dubbed a continuing resolution, because he said he feels it will end any sense of urgency to break the deadlock that has characterized this legislative session. "I told the senate president, 'One day, when you get serious about discussing something, I'll be back. But until then, it's a public bull session, and people are dislocating their arms patting themselves on the back,' " Hannon said. Hannon also said he sees dark consequences of such a move, and wants no part of it. He also said he recently stopped going to leadership discussions between the Senate and the House. "Then they started talking about a continuing resolution, and I said, 'Well, you can count me out.' I said my job was to come here and develop a budget and go home." What Hannon said he finds most frustrating is that school districts are required to file their budgets with their county assessors by July 1. "That's the secret of the thing. Because under the continuing resolution, they revert to their last quarter's spending. But you can only push it so far before you begin to cut into budgets again, because you're banking off of what occurred last year during five special sessions. Those cut levels were inadequate," Hannon said. Both Democrats and Republicans have continued to accuse the other party of dragging their feet in closed-door budget negotiations that began several weeks ago. No matter how much is left in agencies' general fund budgets, they can't legally spend money beyond this month without new authority. Nonetheless, the continuing resolution is expected to pass, and that disturbs Hannon, as well as fellow legislator Rep. Alan Bates, D Ashland. "There's no sense of urgency to close this session down. And if they pass a continuing resolution, then it removes the sense of urgency, and gives everyone a 30-day reprieve," Hannon said. "And now we're at the drive-up self service, and (Rep.) Randy Miller wants to fill up the tank for another 30 days, when they should be exceeding the speed limit to reach a resolution by July 1." For his part, Miller R-West Linn, who co-chairs the Joint Ways & Means Committee has said he believes that "both parties realize there's no advantage to closing the government." In the meantime, Hannon continues to meet - unofficially - with the legislators and committee members he feels can help break the deadlock in the future. "I'm not isolated. Different factions are coming to me independently. And I've said when you want to get serious about it and involve the opportunities of dispute resolution, I'll be the first one to participate," Hannon said. In the meantime, Bates continues to hammer away to fill what appears to be a $1.5 billion budget shortfall through a series of reductions to tax exemptions. His frustration with the process has persisted for several months without abatement, and he sympathized with Hannon's boycott of future leadership meetings. "The Leadership Committee meetings have gotten absolutely nowhere. I've sat in on those, and frankly, out of everyone at the table, the Democrats are ready for a conversation, but the House Republicans have been holding it up for the past six months," Bates said. "They say no to everything, but they have no program of their own. I think they're scared too, because if they did, they'd be barbecued in public." Bates has continued to oppose spending cuts in health, school services and public safety, and he also sounds an optimistic note that reducing tax exemptions could help heal the budget gap. "All of this leads up to the big battle, when we all agree on what the budget figures are, and it looks like a $1.5 to a $1.7 billion hole. That's the hole we have to fill with new revenue. We'll probably end up looking primarily at tax loopholes. People who make $100,000 or more won't get as many exemptions. So we can raise $1.5 billion with just a pittance. "But when you take a vow not to raise taxes or raise revenue, you put yourself in a bad position," Bates said. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -