Down the Trail, Budget Buddy
I travelled to Salem on Saturday to pay my respects to the memory and the family of one of Oregon’s leaders.
Along with several hundred legislative and political types whose lives had been touched by Ben Westlund, I shared the laughter and the tears that filled the chamber of the House side of the Capitol as this remarkable Oregonian was memorialized.
Ben and I got to know each other in the beginning of 2002, when the state’s economy crashed along with the dot com bubble bursting and the stock market crashing. Westlund and Len Hannon were co-chairs of Ways & Means in the 2001 session. As the gap between the budgets and the revenue to pay for them widened, Senate President Gene Derfler and Speaker Mark Simmons put together a committee made up of Westlund, Hannon, Kate Brown, Kurt Schrader and me. We called ourselves the “Group of Five” because “Gang of Five” conjured up visions of Chairman Mao and China. Our mission was to re-balance the budget.
Little did we know, when we started in January or 2002, that our journey together would take us through five special sessions that were about as special as repeated double root canals. Closeted in the Fiscal Office conference room, we spent hundreds of hours re-combing every thing we could find to balance budgets. After the second “special” session where we had gored just about everyone’s oxen, the task got more difficult as we searched for deeper solutions that legislators would vote for.
The Group of Five didn’t agree all the time. In fact, we didn’t agree most of the time from the third session on. But, we got to know each other well. Ben was fierce in his love of his family and would stop everything to call home at 8:00 every evening to talk to Libby, B.J. & Taylor. We spent a lot of time bragging about our kids. Having a grandson gave me one up on him, and gave me a whole level of bragging that he aspired to. During the Fifth “Special” session, we celebrated our birthdays on the floor of the House. Oddly, I am two days older than Ben. Great leverage in admonishing him to respect his elders.
When Ben was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 his legislative family rallied around him, and around his wife and children. When his cancer recurred and he passed last week, all of us felt the loss of a brother.
Down the trail, budget buddy.
Susan always welcomes your questions or comments. Please contact her by email at morgan@co.douglas.or.us; by mail at Douglas County Courthouse, Room 217, 1036 SE Douglas, Roseburg, 97470; or by phone at 440-4201.