Month: April 2017

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Only 9,000?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Friday, April 27, 2018 by devadmin

Last week Governor Kate Brown pulled a PR stunt by asking for a special legislative session. The Governor’s press release expressed her desire to clean-up Oregon’s adaptation of a pass-through law by including only the smallest of Oregon’s small businesses.

The Governor’s statement is cleverly worded to make it sound like she will be stepping up to rescue small businesses, and sole proprietorships. Her claim is that a simple fix would give these businesses access to the same tax breaks afforded larger businesses.

The Governor said, “We have an obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses, and a simple change can fix it. I’m simply not willing to let these main street businesses — entrepreneurs, mom and pops, and start-ups — go through another tax year with unfair tax treatment as compared to their larger competitors.”

Doesn’t this message sound grand, generous and legitimate?

The Governor can apparently conquer inequity, solve the Democrat Majority’s long-standing prejudice for extracting taxes from hard-working Oregonians and provide well-deserved tax relief.

Hoooooray!

The governor’s statement continues by bragging this will help, “an estimated 9,000 sole proprietorships [who] could qualify and use this new opportunity to reinvest more of their profits into their businesses and employees.”

Only 9,000? Who are we kidding?

Recall, Oregon’s tax gulag recently imprisoned 192,000 of Oregon’s small businesses (mom and pop operations, sole-proprietorships, and “Schedule-C” filers) through Senate Bill 1528.

“Schedule-C” filers represent self-employed owners of small businesses who utilize the Form 1040 (Schedule C). This is the form used by businesses to complete income tax information for the federal government.

More importantly, this form is also known as “Profit or Loss from Business” and it documents exactly what the State of Oregon is interested in – your profits. Oregon is rapacious when it comes to scraping the last morsels off the plates of their small-business inmates.

The Oregon Department of Revenue estimated that SB 1528 would deny 192,000 “Schedule-C” filers their eligible for a 20% reduction on their Oregon income taxes. Although these businesses would qualify under federal tax-law they become trapped in an environment where it would be legal, except it’s not. This is exactly what SB 1528 from the 2018 legislative session was designed to do. It was engineered to disconnect Oregon’s tax code from Trump’s recent federal tax relief efforts.

With an effective state tax rate of 7.7%, these hardworking Oregonians already pay a higher tax rate than large Oregon C-corporations. In my view, SB 1528 represents the Democrat Majority’s official assault against small business owners and operators.

Here is another item that you may not realize: all revenue bills are constitutionally obligated to originate in Oregon’s House of Representatives. House bills are numbered with an HB prefix while Senate bills carry the SB prefix. Obviously, SB 1528, is a bill for generating tax revenue which started, unconstitutionally, in the Senate.

Additionally, raising revenue or increasing taxes requires a two-thirds majority to pass. SB 1528 passed by a simple majority without a single Republican vote.

The increased taxes on these 192,000 small businesses will be nearly 40 percent of the estimated $258 million in increased tax revenue pinched during the 2018 session. That means nearly $103 million will not be available for those local and family owned businesses to reinvest in their enterprises. That will be money that is no longer available for employees, benefits, or business expansion. For the young family running a small, sole-proprietorship, it could mean bread, milk and cheese which can no longer be afforded.

It seems that the language about solving the state’s tax-inequities quickly evaporates like green-house-gas emissions right into the night sky when we realize that this is  $103 million which will no longer be spent in our local communities but funneled into Salem’s grimy machinery.

Meanwhile, large multinational corporations will be allowed to hustle the system with special tax credits. Oregon’s inequitable tax-program allows its highest income earners to buy tax credits to offset their tax liability. This means that wealthy Oregonians will enjoy these tax savings at the expense of the small business owner who can’t afford to purchase these credits, let alone a box of Mac ’n’ Cheese for the kids.

In the typical fashion of the classic redistributionist, this scheme transfers general fund dollars to Oregon’s top 1% income earners while stealing federally allowed tax deductions from mom and pop businesses.

High-income investors have the financial resources and the means to lobby for these quirky tax rules. They can arrange to successfully game the tax system by using their Democrat allies who support complex giveaways hidden beneath layers of statist bureaucracy.

Gov. Brown could have exercised her leadership skills with a veto of SB 1528, but instead, she signed it into law. Typically, Oregon would copy federal tax breaks for businesses into state law. However, this year’s federal tax breaks have Trump’s signature all over them. In response, Gov. Brown reminded us once again why capitalist prosperity in America is so dangerously imperiled as she built her own version of a wall preventing Oregonians from accessing legitimate tax benefits.

This brings me to a question. Why all of the press notices and expense by Gov. Brown for this special legislative session?

Why? Because the Governor is on the ballot this November. The Governor’s claim that there is an “obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses” will sell. It’s true. There is great inequity.

However, setting a mere 9,000 filers free does not make up for marshalling the other 183,000 tax-payers into Oregon’s scheme for preventing access to the Trumpian tax-breaks.

What gets missed is that the Democrat majority used unconstitutional and illegal means to create the initial problem and the Governor signed this into law. Despite claims about protecting small business, Gov. Brown and Oregon’s Democrat majority are masking their true objectives behind generous words.

They have accomplished their goal of raising an additional $1.3 billion in unneeded tax revenue over the next 6 years off the weakened souls of small businesses, local mom and pop shops and “Schedule-C” filers trapped within the state’s labor-camp boundaries.

The sad truth is, Oregon’s fiendishly unfriendly business environment will eventually push Oregonians to cut the wire, jump the fence and escape to more business-friendly states.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Naked and Poor

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, April 26, 2017 by devadmin

Hello Friends,

Last week, the co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Committee released their budget framework. Their budget claims to address the reality that, “we must grapple with the fact that Oregon is facing a $1.8 billion budget shortfall in the coming biennium.” But, it falls short of a successful take-down and there really is no serious grappling going on here.

Grappling would involve something more real, sweaty and contentious. It would be a battle where serious issues were actually addressed. “Grapple” is a high-energy, action word where one would expect to see significant headway when it comes to dealing with Oregon’s currently unsustainable trajectory.

It appears that the co-chairs don’t realize that Oregon has been in a tepid and barely measurable economic recovery. Our economy is one of the weakest in history in terms of job growth, although revenue is flowing into the state’s coffers. If we fall into another recession, the PERS unfunded liabilities will necessarily sky-rocket leaving Oregon with no tools or dry powder left.

At least the co-chairs have come to realize that Governor Brown’s budget has problems. Yet, they insist on classifying the problem as being a $1.8B shortfall.

This is not true. There is no shortfall.

Even with our tepid economic growth there is more revenue pouring into Oregon’s treasury than ever before. Never in Oregon’s history has so much money been available for government services.  The truth is our current biennium is expected to gain $3.1B more revenue than the previous biennium largely due to rising marginal tax rates and the economically destructive bracket creep across all income levels.

Our real problem is that government growth has outpaced revenue growth by the $1.8B shortfall. Clearly, this calls for a different mind-set when it comes to wrestling with Oregon’s sustainability.

Oregon’s problem is a spending problem.

Not only are we spending more than we receive from local taxpayers but nearly forty-cents ($.40) of every dollar ($1.00) spent by Oregon comes directly from federal funding sources. This means that 4 out of every 10 teachers is funded by the federal government. It also means, 4 out of every 10 state troopers, DEQ staff persons, university employees, parks & recreation staff, road department personnel, DHS staff, DAS personnel and more, is funded by federal dollars.

Now, in discussion, you might be told, this is not true because federal monies are typically silo-ed into specific areas like infrastructure, highways, criminal justice, prison systems and grants for employees, research projects and studies.

However, this masks what is going on. You see, if Oregon can save a dollar on infrastructure by using Uncle Sam’s dollar instead, then the dollar saved by Oregon can get shifted toward other services or personnel. Hence nearly 40% of Oregon’s entire budget, meaning all services, projects and expenditures comes from federal funding. This is clearly unsustainable.

Why?

The answer is it all comes from the same place – the taxpayer’s pocket

Governments, just like people, come into the world naked and poor. People either inherit resources or create money through hard work. In the private sector we see this occurring through competition, innovation, and invention. For government, the citizens with their ingenuity and wealth creation are the only source at hand.

What we are witnessing today, in the public sphere, is a cavalier attitude toward this ultimate source of wealth. The co-chairs budget statement even attempts to shift blame onto the backs of citizens for daring to prefer a smaller government that might actually live within it’s means.

The co-chairs belittle Oregon’s citizens for adopting Measure 5, by voter approval in 1990. Measure 5 reduced property taxes while shifting the responsibility for funding K-12 schools from local property taxes to the state general fund. This was a perfectly legitimate request from the citizens regarding how their money was to be allocated and spent.  Voters also passed Measure 50 which limited funding on local tax levies.

Besides unfunded PERS liabilities at $22 Billion, our Oregon debt load is $37.5 Billion, or about $9,300 for every man, women and child in the state. Unfortunately newborns and five-year-olds aren’t paying any taxes so someone else is on the hook for their share.

Now, while I’ve got you thinking about debt, add-in your city’s debt and unfunded liabilities, your county’s debt and unfunded liabilities, your mortgage, your credit card, auto and student loan debt and then top it off with your share of the federal debt ($20 Trillion) or, ~$61,000 per person.

There is only one way out. Prudence and wisdom dictate that we cannot continue to spend like debt is an economic elixir.

Voters passed Measure 5 and 50; they rejected Measure 97; their wishes need to be heard and respected. We must learn to be frugal – it’s our only hope.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense
–  No one will!

Best regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Poison Fruit…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, April 25, 2019 by devadmin

Super majorities and the poison fruit of statism can grow in orchards on both the left and right sides of the road. We know this because history informs us and dictates what we will see tomorrow. Patrick Henry told us, “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way to judge the future but by the past.”

In today’s newsletter, I am going to bypass several thousand bills that are in the Legislature. I’m going to skip-over the gross receipts sales tax, the carbon tax, the recent ban on plastic straws, as well as, the “mandatory requirement for vaccinations in exchange for education benefits” rigamarole.

Instead, I want to focus attention on the Oregon disarmament bill: SB 978. It is still alive and like a zombie is shuffling through the hallways of the marble palace. This bill continues to exist by the force of this administration’s empty rhetoric and faulty logic.

SB 978 represents a purposeful and energetic effort for disarming Oregonians and infringing on their liberties. The sheer animosity leveled against law abiding citizens is inscrutable and illustrates a complete disrespect for our 2nd Amendment rights. The magical facade of “needed reform” is all that is necessary to mask the demolition of our constitutional liberties. It appears that the real goal is total disarmament of law-abiding Oregonians.

The pretense of the bill is that crime is pervasive; guns are unsafe; children are being killed and something needs to be done. Perfectly fine sentiment, yet, where are the statistics for Oregon’s problems? Remember, the original SB 978 was a proposal for a reporting and fact finding effort to determine which policy changes would effectively impact gun violence. Apparently, no one cares about the real data.
There are more firearms in Oregon than people. In the presence of millions of firearms and billions of rounds of ammunition how many unlocked, or unserialized firearms have been used in crimes? Additionally, there are more firearms in Oregon than vehicles, but there are more vehicle deaths than firearm injuries, where is the balance?
Unfortunately, the bill, as it stands, focuses on creating more arbitrary, capricious and unnecessary crimes that can’t be universally enforced because of the sheer scope of probable violations. This means selective enforcement opportunities will likely be used against political opponents while the issues associated with enforcement among racial or other protected classes will be pervasive. Actually, selective enforcement will certainly entrap any number of law-abiding citizens who might experience outlandishly improbable circumstances.
Among the 44 pages of over-reaching legalese, if a firearm is used to injure a person, or property, within two years of a gun transfer through sale, gift, or theft where a safety device was defeated by the crook, the owner of the firearm is held “strictly liable” for injuries.
The devious thrust of this language is aimed at discouraging and reducing firearm ownership through fear and financial intimidation. The “strict liability” language purposefully supports unjust and unfair treatment of gun owners because, as defendants, they will be held liable for some future event that is totally unrelated to their actions or intentions for a period of up to two years. Additionally, once the gun is stolen and the owner no longer has control, crimes committed by the criminal impact the level and severity of criminal charges brought against the legal owner of the weapon.
Please follow that logic with care…
Let me illustrate using a vehicle equivalent: if someone steals your car for a joy-ride to the burger joint, your criminal charges would be minor. However, if they used your rig as the get-away car for a bank robbery your criminal charges would be more serious. Lastly, if the car-thieves get into a fatal accident, your criminal charges would pile up like roadside wreckage. So, if an individual follows best practices and locks their car in a well-lighted area, why would the state want to hold them liable for someone else’s criminal activities? Clearly, fewer people would want to own cars under these circumstances.
While it appears that criminal violations are built upon solid circumstances (Sec. 5 – 9), the keystone is actually missing. Namely, the rules and minimum specifications required for trigger locks, cable locks, and tamper-resistant locks on all containers, buildings, rooms and doors which aren’t yet defined. This means that legislators who vote for this bill will have no idea what they are voting for in the way of future requirements. What if the rules require an absurd 1” Stainless Wire Rope EIPS IWRC – 6×37 Class cable? What would gun-owners do?
These rules won’t come from mechanical engineers but they will come from the governor’s chosen one within the Oregon Health Authority, in consultation with State Police.
Keeping history as our guide, let’s roll through some historic episodes and ask ourselves, “Who was in charge, the individual or the state?”
Consider Lenin’s Bolshevik revolution, Stalin‘s Siberian Gulags, Mao‘s Great Leap Forward, Pol Pot‘s Khmer Rouge, Pasha’s Armenian Genocide, or Maduro’s Venezuela?
Far in excess of 100 million people lost their lives and are still suffering intense persecutions. What was the first liberty these regimes took from their targeted populations? Their guns! What did they lose next? Free speech; free association; eventually, their lives.
Did these regimes operate on the consent of the governed? No. Were these citizens able to resist the tyrannies that befell them? No. Could they protect their lives, liberty and property? No.
The blow-back that I typically receive is that these episodes of genocide are so horrific they couldn’t possibly happen here. Well, then, why the effort to disarm law-abiding citizens?
Thousands of Oregonians, from across all party lines – Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Greens and Non-Affiliated Voters – and across all backgrounds have written to me and are outraged at this anti-gun-owner bill.
In closing, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.”
Remember, if we don’t stand for rural-Oregon values and common sense – No one Will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Gun-Grabbers in Salem or Firearm Safety?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, April 13, 2017 by devadmin

Why did Trump win most of the rural counties across Oregon and the US?

From the map, we can see the election results. Trump won the rural/red counties comprising most of the US and Oregon, while the blue cities went to Hillary, centered in the Northwest around Portland and the Tri-County metro-area. (Click image to enlarge interactive map)

It should be obvious that rural and metro areas are different.

Naturally, the larger populations in the cities means more effort is required in regulating people, traffic and behaviors. But, the nanny-state mentality has had a profoundly negative effect on societal norms. Every little problem gets directed to the state. People don’t solve their own problems rather they rely on someone else to do it – someone from the state. In turn, civic responsibility is weakened while the quality of community and family-life is being eroded.

The rule-makers and societal organizers don’t seem to recognize that one size won’t fit all. The standards have become so detailed, intricate and complex they no longer address universal truth. Instead, they serve special interests. Because of this, those who work in the state’s bureaucracy are giving their all, but the system is not serving the people it is supposed to serve.

This metro/rural divide is bubbling to the surface in my Judiciary Committee. Control is being sought over every-aspect of our lives – cigarettes, wood-stoves, left-lane driving, dogs in the pickup, dogs in the cab, lane-splitting for motorcycles, and our Constitutional Right to Bear Arms.  These proposed laws are said to be “necessary” as safety measures – the safety of our children, family, friends, dogs, cats, animals, insects, trees, and mother earth.

Since “control” is the watchword in the city, it is only natural that our city neighbors believe every person within your sphere of influence requires protection from your firearms. So…

Gun-Grabber Day will be next Monday, April 17

Several bills on Monday will focus on a myriad of issues regarding possession, personal management, buying and selling firearms. If you value your firearms and your 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms, then please get involved.

(Click here for Location and Agenda)

Send an email to every Democrat in the House and Senate. Phone every Democrat in the House and Senate. The pro-2nd Amendment Republicans are in the minority and we will need a few Democrats to vote with us in order to stop these bill.

Light up their phones and clog their inboxes with emails, otherwise there is great potential that we will slowly lose our legal protections regarding our Constitutional Rights.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is argument of tyrants.
It is the creed of slaves.” 
— William Pitt, in the House of Commons – November 18, 1783

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Misplaced Faith

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, April 11, 2018 by devadmin

I’d like to start with a recommendation. It’s been years since I’ve watched the classic movie, Ben Hur, with Charlton Heston. Although it comes to us from the late 1950’s, they produced a technological marvel that is still quite a masterpiece. The film swept 11 of the 12 Academy Award categories in which it was nominated, setting an Oscar record. So, if you didn’t get enough Easter Sunday goodies then I recommend getting a copy of Ben Hur.

I also have another recommendation, in the way of a book. The book is Witness an autobiographical account of Whittaker Chambers’ political and spiritual odyssey into, and out of, communism. If you are not familiar, Chambers was the lead witness in the Alger Hiss case investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and organizations suspected of having direct ties to communist operators.

Chambers was an Editor at Time Magazine for nearly nine years following 10 years as a member of the communist underground working in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. He narrates an insightful story of great personal intrigue, mystery and espionage that is unforgettable and is an immensely readable story of hope in our age of cultural unrest.

Chambers suggests that misplaced faith in government, science, education or materialism eventually leads many people to communism.  In their lives, people experience hardship, trouble, tragedy and sometimes bad-luck. They inherently understand something is not right with the world. People need a purpose in life. They need a purpose which goes beyond themselves where they can find meaning and identify with like-minded individuals. They have a natural desire to pitch-in and solve society’s problems.

Religion occupies this station for most people but when someone doesn’t feel any need for help from a higher power then they put their full faith into human institutions or ideologies. These ideological allegiances form the “isms” of our modern world, like progressivism, utopianism, pragmatism, collectivism, environmentalism, scientism with overtones of the class struggle, in elitism, egalitarianism, Marxism, socialism, and communism.

We have a tendency to forget that, groups follow leaders and concentrated power overtime degrades to become arbitrary, despotic and mindless. Even our own Constitution must be rigorously followed, or it will lose its guiding character because any power exercised by a majority can be just as tyrannical as that exercised by a minority. Ultimately, the weight of our human institutions must rest on their relationship to the individual.

Chambers takes time (800+ pages) to intimately identify the real problems of our modern world. He notes,

“religious rejection has taken a specifically political form, so that the characteristic experience of the mind in this age is a political experience. At every point, religion and politics interlace, and must do so more acutely as the conflict between the two great camps of men. … The most conspicuously menacing form of that rejection is Communism.”

The movement is particularly menacing because,

“The Communist Party, despite occasional pious statements to the contrary, is a terrorist organization. Its disclaimers are for the record. But its record of kidnappings, assassinations, and murders makes the actions of the old Terror Brigade of the Socialist Revolutionary party look merely romantic.”

Chambers goes on to tell us that, “The Communist Party respects only force,” while, “Only terror terrifies it.”  His keen insight on this issue helps us understand the full faith and fervor of the progressive-left, the Antifa movement, new identity politics and the daily assaults on our constitutional form of limited government.

Chambers was astonished when he realized that the men he knew never took the New Deal seriously as an end in itself. Instead, “they regarded it as an instrument for gaining their own revolutionary ends.” Chambers draws the conclusion that the surface manifestations of the New Deal, “concealed the inner drift of this great movement.” The drift toward socialism was carried along by sincere people who supposed themselves to be simple liberal-minded individuals striving for justice, equality, the working-man and revolution.

He labeled the New Deal as,

“a genuine revolution, whose deepest purpose was not simply reform within existing traditions, but a basic change in the social, and, above all, the power relationships within the nation. It was not a revolution by violence. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking.”

This is why our national and state governments appear mired in inconsistencies. For 80 years we, too, have been gently guided along this path toward government control. We continually mistake self-governance as requiring more laws, more rules and a larger bureaucratic apparatus as the means to a better organized and more prosperous life. Yet the result is simply unwashed socialism.

Chambers concludes that the revolution of the New Deal was,

“made not by tanks and machine guns, but by acts of Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court … But revolution is always an affair of force, whatever forms the force disguises itself in. Whether the revolutionists prefer to call themselves Fabians, who seek power by the inevitability of gradualism, or Bolsheviks, who seek power by the dictatorship of the proletariat, the struggle is for power.”

In the first “Hundred Days” following his inauguration in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass many laws that brought new centralized planning and economic authority to the national government. However, the courts, following the dictates of the Constitution, realized that those initiatives were contrary to the founder’s intentions. Over the next 16 months, beginning in January 1935, the Supreme Court nullified eight of 10 major cases brought before them because of unconstitutional overreach.

After several years of political pressure some justices succumbed and changed sides while others retired, were removed from office, or died. All of their replacements were New Dealers. FDR’s policies brought an onslaught of collectivist activity into the halls of government. The public now takes for granted the unwieldy regulations, subsidies and habitual deficits which have plagued us ever since.

However, my letter today is about our future. We can learn from history. We can learn from our mistakes and our successes. We have the ability to change the critical spin of history, garner the support of our allies and lift the shield of faith in support of our Constitutional government.

Although our nation wants peace above all things, today we find ourselves in a struggle for our American heritage of Life, Liberty and our own just pursuits. As you consider ways for preserving our constitutionally federated Republic, remember – Freedom is always and everywhere preferable to slavery.

Best Regards,

Senator Dennis Linthicum signature

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Who’s Your Nanny?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, April 6, 2017 by devadmin
Legislatures all across the nation are now besieging their citizenry with innumerable laws, regulations and rules designed to bring full fruition to Roosevelt’s 1941 “freedom from want, and freedom from fear” congressional address.

Senate Bill 754 is known as the “Vaping and Tobacco Ban” measure. It was , and it sounds fairly simple. It increases the minimum age from 18 to 21 years for the legal purchase of tobacco, nicotine and vaping products.

I think the legislature gave it’s best shot at offering 18 to 21-year old adults an entirely new freedom – “freedom from responsibility.”

Oregon’s statists see an enormous political opportunity. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, it must tickle their fancy to dream about growing the state as they create a new, formerly unrecognized class of constituents. The new group will be a bevy of individuals who formerly were law-abiding citizens but will soon become law-breakers in need of ever-more services.

The nanny-state will squeeze another three years of control over a group which they deem in need of protection. If we read between the lines, the nanny-staters are hoping this “freedom from responsibility” will enable more state intervention for many years to come.

The claim is that this legislation is needed because these adults aren’t capable of making their own choices. Or, maybe, it is needed because evil shop-owners are “in it for the money” and should be fined for burdening future taxpayers with unsustainable healthcare costs.

The latest science purports that those with brains under 21-years old are not running at full capacity. Apparently this immature state of the human brain will be seriously harmed by exposure to nicotine and therefore the state needs to jump in to protect these defenseless creatures.

The questions are, 1) can these adults make decisions for themselves? or, 2) can we relieve them from responsibility and assign blame elsewhere?

Socialism demands that less than 21-year-olds aren’t capable of good decision-making, they therefore need state-intervention. Socialism also demands that businessmen and businesswomen be held accountable as greedy capitalists.

Even in this legislation, the only legislated answer takes place in penalizing  businesses. The small business will be forced to wear a crown of thorns made up of various fines, penalties, enhanced regulatory efforts and more stringent control over their enterprise for daring to fill a market demand for tobacco products.

The bill imposes a $50 fine on the poor clerk who makes a mistake of selling this new contraband to a minor. Then, there is a simultaneous fine of $250 for the manager on his clerks’s first flub. The manager’s fine goes up to $500 on the next mistaken sale. The clerk will continually get knocked about with the $50 fine for each and every occurrence. Additionally, the store owner, will get a $500 fine for the clerk’s first mistake along with the manager’s $250 fine and then the fine jumps to $1,000 for the owner, while the manager is fined his $500 and the clerk is fined $50 again.

Clearly, shop owners are smart enough to ensure this won’t happen. At least not in any traceable amounts. Why not? because, if caught, the fines are so stiff. Perfect right?

No!

There are somewhere between 16,000 – 18,000 Oregonians that are currently between the ages of 12 and 21 who have self identified as smokers. Two questions, 1) Where are the 12 -18 year olds currently getting their illicit smokes? 2) How does raising the legal smoking age to 21 change the reality that 12-18 year olds can currently acquire cigarettes while being “underage”?

We all know the answer. They will simply buy them from their 21 year old contraband dealer rather than their former 18 year old supplier.

I’m all in favor of drawing a line but the line ought to be a red-line and it ought to meet consistency requirements for soliciting universal acceptance of what adulthood means. The people targeted by this legislation can vote, go to war, bear children, abort children and go through sex-change operations all while under the age of twenty-one. I’m not advocating for any of these things but these highlight the inconsistencies that the legislature has created.

Additionally, I would argue that the long-term medical costs and consequences from each of the above named activities is every bit as serious as the long-term cost of care associated with tobacco usage.

It is hard to imagine how Oregon’s youth will ever mature into responsible adulthood when the legislature is continually stripping them of key facets of their autonomy. After all, when does an adult exercise good judgment? Does it really happen the day following their twenty-first birthday?

I believe the real issue is one of human dignity.

  • What does it mean to be free?
  • What does it mean to guide one’s own future, to be responsible for one’s own choices and actions?
  • Will these new-found criminal offenses make Oregon a healthier, happier, more prosperous place for raising our families? 

Every time the nanny-state intrudes into the middle of our families, then our individual liberty and personal responsibility is diminished. The gradual accumulation of small, seemingly insignificant legislated tyrannies will destroy the very foundation upon which our free republic was built.

This is not new. The history of the world is rich with similar circumstances spanning all periods of human history. In fact, here in America John Adams warned the colonialists about the potential danger arising from seemingly legitimate Parliamentary actions. He wrote, “Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.”

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Stripping Due Process…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Friday, April 5, 2019 by devadmin

When a calf dies at birth, a rancher might decide to “graft” a substitute calf so that the mother cow can provide nurture to the substitute. The most reliable form of grafting happens when the hide of the dead calf is put onto the substitute calf. The cow knows the smell of her own calf (even if it was dead at birth) and this substitution can trick the cow into accepting the substitute as her own.

In the Oregon legislature, when a bill dies, something else can get grafted into its hide. Around the capital this is known as a “gut and stuff.” You might think of it like putting a wolf into the sheep’s clothing.

Last week an extremely disturbing water bill was dropped into a Senate Judiciary Committee placeholder bill with a “relating to courts” clause. This water bill fits neatly into this category because parties affected by a final order during a regulatory water action can appeal to the circuit court, or the Court of Appeals. The court has the authority to affirm, reverse, or modify the original order.

The Bill (977-1), would eliminate an irrigator’s ability to secure a “stay,” or pause, in the action ordered by the regulating agency as prescribed in ORS 536.075 (5). The opportunity for a “stay” provides water user protection and due process while being a safety valve against frivolous, invalid, futile, or erroneous final orders. The rules, in place since the mid-80’s, recognize that orders may have been secured with poorly-developed evidentiary findings, inconsistent applicability, or for nefarious purposes.

The sub-section that would be stripped from a right holder’s toolbox is:

ORS 536.075 (5) The filing of a petition in either the circuit court or the Court of Appeals shall stay enforcement of the order of the commission or the department unless the commission or the department determines that substantial public harm will result if the order is stayed. If the commission or the department denies the stay, the denial shall be in writing and shall specifically state the substantial public harm that will result from allowing the stay.

Destroying this part of procedural due process would be devastating to water right holders who are under a curtailment action during or mid-way through an irrigation season.

For background, Oregon water rights are regulated in accordance with the doctrine of prior appropriation. This means that in times of water shortages, senior water right holders are entitled to have their rights fully satisfied before junior users are entitled to their water rights. Please note, both senior and secondary water rights are vested property rights that cannot be altered without due process of law.

When a secondary user is curtailed, due process consists of, first, a written notice, and, second, a meaningful opportunity to be heard before a neutral body prior to being deprived of that vested property interest.

The existing statute ensures that in situations where there is significant uncertainty as to whether a junior user is being erroneously curtailed, Oregon Water Resource Department (OWRD) shut-off orders are stayed until such time as the junior user has the opportunity to be heard in court. The stay action is extremely important because it allows irrigators to continue their agricultural business operations while awaiting more thorough research.

Many times, curtailment orders across the state are inappropriately issued because of bad science, misinformation or stratagems approaching malfeasance. Last season, nearly 140 groundwater wells were curtailed due to OWRD’s faulty modeling and unjustified regulation. In turn, nearly a dozen of these agricultural operations filed appeals and were granted the stay. OWRD eventually agreed to settle and pay irrigators’ attorney fees and court costs and the irrigators were allowed to continue their operations.

In these due process cases, and many others, the automatic stay granted under ORS 536.075 (5) was justified because the agency took arbitrary positions that were contrary to either the facts, or the law, or both.

This happens again and again, all over the state.

The importance of the statute is that it ensures irrigators’ rights are preserved before their water use is needlessly curtailed and their property right unjustly taken.

Statewide, as in the examples cited, impertinent arguments could stop any agricultural enterprise dead in its tracks. This action would be economically devastating to the junior water right holder, harm private property rights, the local community and public good, while tipping the balance of unmitigated power. The needless removal of this statute would enhance the opportunity for future bureaucratic or process corruption while weakening the overall rule of law.

Our nation’s founders were familiar with the subject of corruption. They took for granted that the dominant motive of human behavior was self-interest, and that this drive found its “most extreme political expression in an insatiable lust for power.” In recognizing this they devised a system of checks, balances and procedural due processes that could successfully thwart “the predominant thirst of dominion which has invariably and uniformly prompted rulers to abuse their power.”

Please write to your legislators today! (Click here to submit testimony)

Oppose SB 977-1 because it would allow the default taking of a citizen’s property right while stripping away the property holder’s access to effectual redress by creating a lop-sided legal process.

The hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 8, 2019, at 8:00AM.

If you are in the Salem area or are nearby, please consider coming in to testify.

Remember, “If you are negligent or inattentive, the ambitious and despotic will entrap you in their toils, and bind you with the cord of power from which you, and your posterity, may never be freed.”   – Cato I, New York Journal, September 27, 1787

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common sense – No one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Who Grants Our Rights?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, April 4, 2018 by devadmin

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,              the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

It has been well over a week since the “March for Our Lives” organizers staged an impressive protest back east. Social media antagonists and pundits are all quite impressed with what they pulled off because of the scale and the speed of its orchestration. The speakers, microphones, TV cameras, staging and bus transportation to and from the event make it obvious that this was more than a gathering pulled off by high-school students. This protest was clearly staged for the media and was not an organic grass-roots movement.

That Washington, D.C. rally was pulled off by progressive, well-heeled elites who have captured the minds of young people. In Saul Alinsky’s playbook, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky notes, “there are no rules for revolution,” meaning anything goes. However, at the heart of the agenda to capture idealistic and disenchanted young people, I see extremely corrosive tactics being used against individuals.

What we are witnessing is an ideological revolution. The main speakers continually called for the elimination of some of our nation’s constitutional guarantees. However, those guarantees, unbeknownst to the uninformed, are aimed at telling Congress what government can and can’t do. These are the rights that, “shall not be infringed.”

Throughout the Bill of Rights, certain congressional actions are prohibited while the rights and freedoms of the people are held whole and intact. We can see this in the language of several amendments where phrases, such as: “Congress shall make no law”, rights “shall not be infringed”, and certain rights are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” By implication, this means that the God-given rights of the people will always remain intact, while congressional power can be, and is, appropriately limited.

This constitutional methodology was designed to check, balance and limit government power while allowing ordered liberty to reign among the people. Interestingly, the Constitution was a compact among the states which was ratified by the individual states, themselves. It was not put into place by a massive election campaign across the original colonies. This means a popular vote across the nation can’t undo it, either.

As the Constitution was crafted by the Founders, it was not designed to sustain a strong national government, nor a heavily centralized power or national authority. Rather, these rules were written to guide future generations in their duty to “secure the blessings of Liberty,” ensuring that no one would be above the law and everyone is subject to all laws, equally.

To accomplish this, the central government was given a list of enumerated powers. In Federalist No. 45, Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, added more details:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

This last sentence is the one that most state gun-grabbers quote with glee. Some mistakenly believe that this means that their state governments can be manipulated to outlaw guns out of concern for the affairs and lives of their constituents.

This is not entirely true. Remember, God-given rights always remain in effect; they can’t be taken away by the majority, the legislature, the courts, or the mob. Restraints on government, both federal and state, must come from elsewhere.

It is essential to have an understanding of where our rights originate and where government authority, power and jurisdiction ends. We will never be able to defend our rights or labor for the return of lost rights if we do not know who granted those rights in the first place.

Our modern state is trying to assert ownership over all people, all concerns and all environments. Many Oregonian’s now realize that these formulations lack any reference to transcendent moral standards. It turns out that these new jurisdictional demands are simply the preferences made by those currently in power. If these laws are not grounded in eternal or transcendent moral value, then these laws will simply perpetuate injustice.

In fact, a transcendent moral understanding is what gives power to the only coherent argument against slavery.

Slavery is wrong, regardless of how many voters might vote in favor of slavery. If there were a national ballot measure seeking a pro-slavery initiative, it could never be right, or legal, regardless of the voting majority’s opinion. There would be no need to submit the measure to the Supreme Court attesting to the unconstitutional nature of the measure. It would be wrong because man has no authority over the laws of God which tells us that every human being carries infinite worth and value.

In closing, all of our God-given rights carry natural limitations. These limitations are not set by government power, authority, or by a vote of the people. These limitations are defined by the boundaries of natural law given to us outside of government power.

As Samuel West said in 1776, “The highest state of liberty subjects us to the law of nature and the government of God. The most perfect freedom consists in obeying the dictates of right reason and submitting to natural law.”

Our right to keep and bear arms does not give any person the right to violate any other person’s God-given right to life or liberty. Nor does the right to keep and bear arms allow one person to violate the private property rights of another person. These checks, balances and limitations are built into the structure of every right by natural law. Individuals each carry these rights as inherent and absolute rights.

As Jefferson told us,

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, No one will.

Senator Dennis Linthicum signature

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Land of Liberty?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Monday, April 1, 2019 by devadmin

Every perceived problem seems to get a new law drafted. The state tries to mandate solutions to even the smallest problems. Yet, their solutions rarely work as intended.

People aren’t allowed to solve their own problems they are forced to depend on the state’s bureaucratic experts. In turn, the individual is diminished, while the state is emboldened. Civic responsibility is weakened, and the quality of community and family-life is eroded.

C.S. Lewis noted in his preface to the Screwtape Letters, that we,

“live in the Managerial Age, in a world of ‘Admin.’ The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. …  it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”

Lewis goes on to describe how his symbolism pictured, “an official society held together entirely by fear and greed.”  In essence, fear of the government’s regulations (and its regulators), with their ever-growing threats of fines and/or imprisonment causes people to be protective, suspicious and secretive. After all, who can know what traps have been set?

In the Senate Judiciary Committee, on April 2, a slew of anti-Second Amendment proposals is scheduled for public hearing.  These proposals are trumpeted as “necessary” for “safety”, but we all know that’s a ruse. In this case, the forty-four-page amendment to SB 978 is an full-scale barrage against the Second Amendment including a backdoor ban on concealed carry.

This law violates the inalienable right of all Oregonians to defend themselves and their families. Disarming law-abiding citizens is inviting violence into our communities and our homes. Gun-free zones are invitations to mass shootings and attacking law-abiding Oregonians isn’t going to make anyone safer. In fact, it will put us in danger. I will not compromise on the Second Amendment.

SB 978, on Tuesday, April 2nd, will focus on a myriad of issues regarding possession, personal firearm management, and the buying, storing and selling of firearms. If you value your firearms and your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, then please get involved.

(Click here for Location and Agenda)

Send an email to every Democrat in the House and Senate. Phone every Democrat in the House and Senate. The pro-Second Amendment Republicans are in the minority and we will need a few Democrats to vote with us in order to stop these bills. Light up their phones and clog their inboxes with emails, otherwise there is great potential that we will slowly lose our legal protections regarding our Constitutional Rights.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.


It is the argument of tyrants.


It is the creed of slaves.

— William Pitt, in the House of Commons – November 18, 1783

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and Common-sense – 
No one Will.

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28