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State of Flux : an Interview with Former Secretary of State, Phil Keisling

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State of Flux : an Interview with Former Secretary of State, Phil Keisling Portland State University PDXScholar Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Winter 2011 State of Flux : An Interview with Former Secretary of State, Phil Keisling Michael Burnham Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/metropolitianstudies Part of the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Burnham, Michael, "State of Flux: An Interview with former Secretary of State, Phil Keisling" (2010 Metroscape, Institute for Portland Metropolitan Studies, Portland State University) This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. State of Flux: An interview with former Secretary of State, Phil Keisling by Michael Burnham The nation may be out of a recession — offi - PK: The general mission of the center is cially — but times are still tough for Oregon. to connect the extraordinary assets of the Per capita income is just 90% of the national university, specifi cally the Hatfi eld School average, while the state's unemployment rate hov- of Government — faculty and students ers stubbornly at 10%. Voters voiced their dis- — with the real-world problems of the pleasure last fall by ousting incumbent lawmak- public and private sector — governments ers left and right. Republicans gained an equal and nonprofi ts. These real-world prob- share of the Oregon House of Representatives, lems seem to be getting a good deal more while Democrats barely held on to the Senate and complicated and diffi cult, rather than governorship. Going forward, key challenges for easier, as we move forward. We’ve identi- legislators on both sides of the aisle will be nar- fi ed three broad categories. One is very rowing a yawning budget gap and creating more obvious, and that is education and degree family-wage jobs, says Phil Keisling, who served programs. We run the executive master in as Oregon's Secretary of State from 1991 to public administration degree for full-time, 1999 and recently joined Portland State Univer- working professionals in the public/non- sity’s Mark O. Hatfi eld School of Government. profi t sector who want to get additional Perhaps the biggest challenge of all will be put- knowledge and get the credential. Many ting partisanship on the shelf. In the following in- of them have just a bachelor’s degree. terview with Metroscape, Keisling weighs in on Or, if they have a master’s, it’s just very politics, poverty and public service. The interview domain-specifi c — for example, someone has been edited for space. who’s a biologist in a fi sh and wildlife de- partment but who’s looking at managing. MB: To start off with, let’s talk about your new Portland State has the only program of job. In July, you joined Portland State University this kind in Oregon. It’s very much tar- as the fi rst permanent director of the Hatfi eld geted at people who have 10-plus years of School’s Center for Public Service. What's the [professional] experience. center's mandate, and what are some of the proj- We also have an array of training pro- ects you're working on now? grams in leadership development. For Page 26 Metroscape example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engi- take natural resource managers on our neers, every year for the last decade, has fi eld trips, one week at time, three times had us put 12-15 people through a leader- a year, to look at what we call “wicked” ship-development program that’s co-pro- problems on the ground. duced. This means that our faculty mem- bers sit down with their key managers and MB: You mentioned “smart” grids. You were work on a shared curriculum that people in the technology sector prior to coming to PSU. use to help identify the next generation What spurred you to make the switch from high- of leaders, push them forward, and give tech to higher education? them more skills and knowledge. We also have international programs. PK: Yes, I spent 10 years as an executive We see leadership development and what with a software services company based we offer not being confi ned solely within in Beaverton, called CorSource Technol- the borders of Oregon. In fact, one of ogy Group. We did a lot of computer our professors here, Marcus Ingle, has software programming work on behalf been working with colleagues on a Ford of clients. I enjoyed the time immensely, Foundation grant that involves a new but at the end of the day, I love public leadership program called Emerge. We’re policy issues. I made a decision at the age fi eld-testing it in Vietnam. We’re working of 55, the kids were beginning to get off with the Ho Chi Minh Academy helping to college, that it was time for me to re- them development the leadership skills turn to my fi rst love in life. I was talking for the challenges they face as an emerg- to a lot of people about what to do next, ing country, particularly around sustain- and someone mentioned this PSU job. I able development — economic, environ- threw my hat in the ring. It’s a wonder- mental and social issues. ful opportunity, and it’s an institution I’ve The third broad category is what I call increasingly grown to respect over the research and consulting. We do very spe- years. And though I’ve been a Democrat cifi c, tailored projects for both govern- for virtually my whole life — Mark Hat- ment and non-profi t organizations. We’re fi eld, for whom this school is named — is talking with some folks in the non-profi t one of my political heroes. world about creating a “State of the Non- profi t” report to benchmark a lot of key MB: Let's turn to state politics for a moment. metrics about the impact and reach of During the next legislative session, the Oregon nonprofi ts here in Oregon. We helped House of Representatives will be split evenly be- Clackamas County evaluate the results of tween Democrats and Republicans; Democrats a four-day work week pilot project. They will have a slim majority in the state Senate. ... used our evaluation and decided to go You studied pre-election and exit polling, so what forward with it on a permanent basis. were the biggest local and national forces that led There are probably 15 discreet pro- to the GOP gains in the November election? grams here. Some are very specifi c about topics. For example, we have one focused PK: To me, the most interesting set of around the “smart grid,” which is fast statistics goes as follows: CNN does ex- emerging as part of what we call the “new tensive exit polls on a national basis. In energy economy.” We offer programs that the 2006 election, those who described Metroscape Page 27 themselves as Democrats or Republicans who were in control went through. I think voted about 90-93% for their tribes. That you’re almost beginning to see some of was also true in 2008 and 2010. In 2006, it already with the Republicans who over- about 30%, though, of American voters reached before, which led to the change described themselves as independents. of power in 2006. And in 2006, they voted 58 to 39% for So politics in this country right now is Democratic candidates. But wait: I think almost kind of suspended between these what they were really doing, more precise- kinds of on-and-off cycles between these ly, is they were voting against Republican two poles. I happen to be a really big be- candidates. That’s the important distinc- liever that we need to rethink the whole tion to make. In 2010, that group went 18 framework. I worked in both 2006 and points against the Democrats — a swing 2008 on a ballot measure here in Oregon that would change the underlying rules of politics, creating a true open-primary I think this is the key to American election. Everybody runs and everybody politics — just who are these is on the ballot. Every voter gets an iden- tical ballot and sees all of the names. Ev- independents. What do they want? ery voter can vote for whomever they How do they think? What really want, regardless of their party, regard- makes up their disgust at both major less of their candidate. The top two go to the fi nals, regardless of their party. It’s a political parties? And I think disgust pretty sweeping kind of change, and it’s is not too strong of a word. been something other than academic at this point because Washington voters ap- proved it and ran the system for the fi rst time in 2008. California voters approved of 37%. It’s a remarkable swing, if you it, and they’ll run it for the fi rst time in think about it. The other 70% of voters 2012. When and if it gets revisited in Or- basically stayed static and shouted at each egon, I don’t know. It got rejected at the other across an increasingly large divide. ballot in 2008, though the last poll was So you have this 30% of the electorate 70% in support, 27% against. that is basically the deal-maker, and it has We have a system where voters increas- been in recent elections.
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