Pubdate: Fri, 29 Oct 1999
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Author: Sam Howe Verhovek, New York Times

OREGONIANS: `OUR VOTE DOESN'T COUNT?'

Congressional Action On Law Irks Residents

(PORTLAND, OR) -- Oregonians have long prided themselves on being in
the forefront on many social issues -- sometimes with ideas that catch
on in the rest of the nation, and sometimes not.

They were among the first to decriminalize marijuana and to approve
its use for medicinal purposes, and they legalized abortion years
before the Supreme Court issued the Roe vs. Wade decision. They were
the first to conduct an election entirely by mail, and they have long
had some of the strictest growth-management regulations in the nation.

Five years ago, Oregonians passionately debated and narrowly approved
a measure making theirs the first state, and one of the few places in
the world, to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Two years ago, amid
legal challenges to the so-called "Death with Dignity Act," the
state's residents voted 60 percent to 40 percent to reaffirm it.

Thursday, a day after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a
measure that would effectively overturn the Oregon law and thus
amounts to an extraordinary rebuke of the popular will in a single
state, even many of those who opposed the law said they were angry
over impending federal interference.

"Why are they doing this?" said Ronald Nelson, owner of a dance
studio, who voted twice against legalizing doctor- assisted suicide.
"The people in Oregon had a vote. I may not agree with it, but is
Congress really saying that our vote doesn't count, it doesn't matter?
That's just wrong."

Oregonians were invoking "states' rights" Thursday, and the
congressional action only seems to have solidified the notion that the
people of Oregon should have the right to decide this issue themselves.

"There certainly is a strong libertarian impulse at work here, of
people wanting to be free to make decisions without the government
coming in," said James Moore, a professor of political science at the
University of Portland.

At the same time, many here insisted that far too much was being made
of the issue by Congress anyway: Despite predictions by critics that
Oregon would be flooded with those seeking death, they noted, just 15
people took lethal medication last year, the first full year the
measure was in effect.

In any event, resistance here to the House action is clearly strong
and intensely felt. The state's congressional delegation, which
includes several members who voted twice against legalizing
physician-assisted suicide, is staunchly united in trying to stop the
bill that passed the House on Wednesday on a 271-156 vote. Sen. Ron
Wyden, a Democrat who said he opposed the Death with Dignity Act, has
pledged to filibuster the bill in the Senate.

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