Lightbulb-screwing platoon expands

The 2020 census was a disaster. Part of the problem was the pandemic, of course, but a larger part was having Orange Caligula as President. He politicized it, like every other aspect of the federal government that he could think of. The awesome power of the United States was his plaything. And his agenda was pure evil.

There's fallout from the census disaster. For example, the State of Oregon isn't going to have the population  numbers in time to perform redistricting according to the timeline set out in the state constitution. So what will happen?

Well, there's one thing you know what will happen: The state will burn through hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars dithering about it.

This week we learned that our rookie secretary of state, Shemia Fagan, has hired an attorney to shore up her position on the issue.

Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has taken the unusual step of hiring an experienced lawyer with constitutional law expertise to help her win a court battle with legislative leaders over deadlines, data sets and powers to redraw legislative districts.

P.K. Runkles-Pearson was a partner at long-established Portland firm Miller Nash Graham & Dunn before she was hired as the secretary of state’s in-house general counsel in February, according to her LinkedIn profile. Runkles-Pearson has expertise in state and federal constitutional law, according to her former employer’s website.

This news came on top of the earlier story we blogged about here: that the state had retained a $540-an-hour outside lawyer, Anna Joyce, to address the very same issues.

How many new lawyers does it take?

I remember the days when the state attorney general, somebody like a Dave Frohnmayer, would send a staff attorney or two into the library, and they would come up with an answer that he'd sign off on. The opinion would be published, and that would be the end of it.

Not any more. 

Maybe we should be grateful that they're fighting unemployment, albeit for lawyers. It also frees up more time for our current attorney general to run for governor.