21st century Legislature.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The Oregon Legislature needs a "cultural shift," according to a commission charged with prescribing ways to improve the credibility and effectiveness of the institution.

That's another way of saying that Oregon needs to flip the calendar forward. Rules and structures that served the state well in the 19th century are creaking and cracking under the strains of modern politics, governance and finance. It's little wonder that the results are unsatis- factory.

The leaders of the House and Senate, in bipartisan recognition that public confidence in the Legislature was at a low ebb, appointed the 29-member Public Commission on the Oregon Legislature after the 2005 session. The commission has returned with more than 20 recommendations, many of them far-reaching: annual sessions, open primary elections, tighter ethics rules and increased pay for lawmakers, among many others.

These changes are intended to address an array of related problems. Start with legislators' need to raise massive amounts of money to fund their campaigns. This makes them dependent on special interests, resulting in a shift of power to lobbyists and an increased risk that ethics will be compromised.

The influence of special interests and recurring ethical problems feeds public distrust, leading to an increased willingness among voters to bypass or restrict legislative authority through the initiative process. Such restrictions complicate the task of lawmaking, contributing to lengthy sessions. Long sessions discourage ordinary citizens from serving in the Legislature. It would be hard to solve one of these problems without addressing others.

Because the Legislature's varied afflictions are connected, the commission asks that its proposals be considered as a package in the 2007 session. "The recommendations are meant to be seen as a coherent whole even though they address different issues," the panel's report says.

Some of the recommendations, however, deserve to be implemented as stand-alone reforms. For instance, the commission calls for the creation of a stable funding source for the Government Standards and Practices, an ethics watchdog the budget for which currently depends on the approval of lawmakers it is supposed to oversee. The Legislature also should ban the personal use of campaign funds, require that legi- slators report the hiring of family members and ensure that each party has proportional representation on committees.

The commission also recommended a path by which the Legislature can ease into the deeper structural recommendations. The panel suggests an "experiment" with annual sessions: a 120-day general assembly in 2007, followed by a 60-day budgetary session in 2008.

The experiment would give the Legislature real-world experience with the new system, allowing members to evaluate the commission's proposals for changes in how legislators are paid and elected.

The commission calls for legislators to be elected in an open primary, with the top two vote-getters moving on to a runoff in the general election. Two former secretaries of state, Norma Paulus and Phil Keisling, tried to get a top-two primary proposal on this year's ballot, but the idea never found traction. Most legislative districts currently are dominated by a single party, which means lawmakers are effectively chosen in either the Democratic or Republican primary.

The top-two system would open the initial screening to all voters in hopes of making the Legislature more representative and less partisan. Indeed, the commission further suggests that the House and Senate be empowered to drop party labels for their members.

Increasing legislators' compensation presents a political problem - the Democrats who just gained control of the House would not want a pay raise to be one of the first hallmarks of their leadership. The current salary of $17,244 a year, plus $99 a day while in session, doesn't require a vow of poverty, but it represents a pay cut for most working members. Annual sessions would make low pay an even greater deterrent to legislative service.

The commission recommends sidestepping the danger of appearing self-serving by creating an independent panel that would set the salaries for all of the state's elected officials.

In creating the commission, the Legislature understood that Oregon needs a people's branch of government for the 21st century. The commission has returned with a blueprint for modernization that promises to result in improved public confidence. While a skeptic would not expect miracles from the commission's effort, a cynic would not even try - and cynicism is the very attitude the Legislature needs to combat.