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By HART WILLIAMS

	Recommend this story to others.

AS THE DEMOCRATIC chairman of state House District 40, I've been getting a lot of phone calls about the situation in House District 42. And the consensus has been universal: Why did the precinct committee people of Springfield's District 42 have to go through the tedious and lawful process of selecting three candidates to fill the vacancy left after state Rep. Bill Morrisette became a state senator via virtually the self-same process at an earlier nominating convention?

In fact, many of those precinct committee persons were also involved in the earlier choice. That nominating convention sent three candidates to the Lane County Board of Commissioners, and the commissioners chose Morrisette to be the new state senator. Now, the same rules ask for a candidate to fill Morrisette's newly vacant House seat.

But on Oct. 24, three of five county commissioners voted to cancel interviews with the three nominees sent them by the House District 42 precinct committee persons. This had the effect of letting the governor decide the issue - but, more significantly, opened the field to any qualified Democrat from the district.

Precinct committee persons are the lowest-ranking elected officials in the nation. They represent the political grass roots of their districts, but mostly we sit on the sidelines while political "professionals" run roughshod over us during elections, asking us to do the dirty work of the campaigns without ever involving us.

In party politics, the elected precinct committee people have one advantage over their appointed counterparts (anyone can be appointed, Republican or Democrat - just fill out the form, and the parties will take care of the rest): they can vote at the biennial reorganization meetings mandated by state law.

But the precinct committee people have one vital power: When a legislative seat becomes vacant, the precinct committee people of that district and party hold a nominating convention and send from three to five nominees to the county commissioners, who then choose the new representative or senator from among the names on that list. And that is what the precinct committee persons of House District 42 did.

Several of the players in this drama were themselves originally appointed to their positions through this process. Lee Beyer, whose appointment to the Public Utility Commission created the Senate vacancy that Morrisette filled, moved up to the state Legislature from the Springfield City Council via the precinct committee people convention. Commissioner Peter Sorenson became a state senator through the selfsame process. Bobby Green, who voted with Anna Morrison and Bill Dwyer to punt on the issue, was himself appointed, first to the Eugene City Council, and thence to the Lane County Board of Commissioners.

What three county commissioners have done is not merely a mockery of democratic process, but their action reminds us - the legitimately elected, almost legally powerless, and sought-after-when-grunt-work-is-needed precinct committee people - in just what regard we're held by the in crowd of self-appointed and self-anointed politicians of Lane County. That is to say: none. So we don't have to wonder whether the insiders found the process "fair." They just didn't like the outcome.

It's a sad testimony about the politicos of Lane County that they need to be reminded that they do not own the positions they hold in government; they hold those positions in trust for us - "we, the people."

So, for Commissioner Bill Dwyer to proclaim that he was "disappointed" with the nominees, and that the "people of Springfield were deprived of a choice," seems to me the height of arrogance. In other words, the "right" candidates hadn't been chosen. Can there be much doubt that the governor will be carefully lobbied to make the right choice - the insiders' choice?

I am told repeatedly that state Sen. Tony Corcoran was bending swing-vote Dwyer's ear forcefully before the commissioners decided to abrogate their authority and let Gov. John Kitzhaber decide the issue. What business does Corcoran have meddling in this process? He's neither a resident of Springfield nor of House District 42. He's not even one of Commissioner Dwyer's constituents.

The fact that Terry Beyer (Lee Beyer's wife) didn't make the list of nominees shouldn't faze her husband and his powerful friends - after all, the process worked when he was appointed in the same manner.

But now Kitzhaber, of South Eugene High School, will choose the next representative, and I've got to wonder how the people of Springfield are going to get a fairer choice from that process. The precinct committee people of Springfield have been frozen out of the process, and their voice has been stifled because the in-crowd doesn't like their choice.

I respectfully call upon Kitzhaber to resist the back-room politicos and to appoint the next representative of House District 42 from among those choices lawfully and deliberatively made by the elected and appointed precinct committee people of House District 42. To ignore their voice at this late date would not be the height of arrogance and hypocrisy, as it might seem in the case of the county commissioners. But honoring the precinct committee's selection process would revalidate our commitment to the rule of law, and the equality of men and women before that law.

The people of House District 42, through their elected precinct committee people, should have the right to name the next representative from their own district.

Kitzhaber, as a lame duck governor, has nothing to lose here but our respect. But I would hope that respect counts for something.

Hart Williams of Eugene is chairman of the House District 40 Democratic Party of Lane County.

(sic)

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