>> the book and one of his other books, i think about the suez crisis, is for sale by rainy day in the hall, and david nichols sign your book up here if you could line up over here. [inaudible conversations] >> this is tom mccall waterfront park here in portland, oregon, named after former oregon number tom mccall who was known for his strong environmental policies. right now we hear from author richard clucas about the complexities of oregon politics. >> the name of the book is "oregon politics and government." we specifically chose the second

part of that progressive versus conservative populists after we discussed kind of what the state was like. it's an edited volume, and there are actually 14 different scholars involved in participating in it, so a considerable discussion about the best way to describe oregon. we could have called it just liberal versus conservative, but we felt that wouldn't capture the character of what oregon is about. oregon has long been known as being a progressive state, that it's doing new things, that it's going somewhere, that it's using education and the best practices to try to develop policies that work well. and so that's why we chose progressive rather than just calling it liberal. we could have called the rural parts of the state conservatives. you know, like liberals, there's lots of types of conservatives. and what we really wanted to emphasize is during about a 20-30 year period a lot of the rhetoric from the conservative side of the state was very much

a populist type of rhetoric. to be honest, actually, oregon has had a lot of populism both within the conservative and the liberal side. if you date back 100 years or longer, we have a very big populist streak to us. that everybody should have a say, everybody should participate, that we should have an open political system. and so we chose those particular terms because we really thought it was the best to sort of capture the type of conservativism we see here as well as the type of liberalism we see here as well. like many parts of the country in the late 1800s, we had a lot of party machines in the state. the state was dominated first by a democratic party machine based out of salem. it was called the salem clique. and then in the latter part of the 19th century, it was a more republican machine. they all tied into the railroads and the transportation industry

x it was a very corrupt party organization. now it's -- [inaudible] one of the things that we're known for is we had a progressive revolt here in the state. initially, in the post-civil war period many farmers began to feel that the machines were mistreating them. the government wasn't thinking about them, and is so there was revolt among farmers, among populists, eventually other groups besides farmers joined in, laborers, workers, the urban middle class who felt the government was too corrupt. portland, oregon, was part of the progressive movement. we had progressive reformers who came along and introduced a variety of different types of political reforms that really changed the character of oregon and changed the character of the nation as well. the most important political figure in the state was william -- [inaudible] he was the father of the direct democracy in the state.

he was the one who pushed for us to have the initiative under referendum, and so that's what, it's hard not to talk about the early history of oregon and the important role he had to play. the initiative process is a process in which private citizens can gather signatures, and if they get enough signature, they can put a proposed law on the ballot for people to vote. and during the early part of the 20th century, we used the initiative quite a lot to shape the direction of the state. there was a little wit of a slowdown in that, but then beginning in the 980s up -- 1980s up until about ten years ago, the initiative was used a lot. in a sense, it was considered progressive reform that had changed the way government worked. it was a populist reform. the notion was we're going to make sure it's not an elite that rules, but that the public and people have a way to put laws on the ballot and vote on them directly. so that's one of the reforms.

the direct primary election, of course, many states introduced direct primary elections, but oregon was one of the earliest. oregon likes to talk about that that it was the first state that tried to make sure that u.s. senators were selected not just by the state legislature, but actually reflected a vote -- reflected the preferences of the public. so after the initiative was enacted, we had an initiative to introduce a rule requiring the legislature to appoint somebody to be a u.s. senator who received a popular vote of the people in the state. so those are some important ones. oregon's had a hot of very colorful -- a lot of very colorful politicians. oregon had a lot of very important and colorful politicians from the 1940s up until about the 1980s. some were different from the rest of the state -- i mean, different from the rest of the nation.

they were maverick, and the state was perceived as having maverick politicians. these include wayne morris who was called the tiger of the u.s. senate. he started out as a republican, became an independent and then became a democrat in the 1950s. he was one of the two people in the senate who opposed the vietnam war. we talked about mark hatfield be, part of the hatfield school of government. hatfield was governor and then u.s. senator and he was a republican but very liberal. bob packwood was a liberal republican, u.s. senator. the most important politician in the state, the one that everyone talks about in the newspaper and always -- the newspapers and others say why aren't politics like they used to be back in the '70s was tom mccall. tom mccall was the governor of the state in the 1970s and probably what we might call sort of the golden era of oregon politics.

it's when some of the most important progressive reforms were taking place, and mccall was at the forefront of that reform effort. and so routinely when people talked about oregon, oregonians talk about our political history, they talk about tom mccall. one of the interesting things about tom mccall is that while he was governor, he was republican, very moderate republican. the treasurer was a fellow by the name of bob straub who was a democrat. he was the leading democrat in the state for many years. he ran for governor four times and was elected once. when he was treasurer, he would often make a suggestion on something the state ought to do, and then mccall would say, oh, that's a good idea, we ought to do that. and if you could just imagine the world today in which a democrat says why don't we do that and a republican says, oh, yes, that's a good idea, let's

do that, you know, it's unimaginable today. but that's what it was like in the 1970s and '80s. the most important conservative populists in the state during the 1990s, he was the one who used the initiative process better, more effectively than anyone else. he, throughout the 1990s, the legislature and the state continuously had to respond to what bill sizemore was proposing. sizemore became very effective because he turned the initiative process into a business. is so that way he could, in essence, make money while putting initiatives on the ballot. and so when you get to the 1990s and the first part of this millenium, then you see, you know, one initiative after the other on the ballot that bill sizemore was able to get onto the ballot. so he was the most important sort of player in initiative politics and i'd say the most

important sort of conservative populist. each though he wasn't elected governor, even though he didn't serve in the legislature, the fact he was able to put initiatives on the ballot meant that his opinion, his ideas had to be listened to. sometimes we -- actually, when we wrote this book, at one point we discussed having instead of the scene being the progressives versus conservative populists, we actually thought the scene might be the initiative process. because 15-20 years it was such a big deal, such a big part of the state and politically what was going on that it affects every single chapter that we talk about in there. when we talked about the governor, we had sizemore ran for governor one year, and he was defeated. and the newly-elected governor had all these things on his agenda that he was going to do, but sizemore said, well, you know, you need to think about these things also, so i'm going to run an initiative in the next

campaign if you don't. so even though we had a brand new governor who was elected who had all these things he wanted to do, all of a sudden the whole discussion turned around and focused on what bill sizemore they needed to do within the legislature. so it was a very effective resource for shaping the direction of state politics. actually, i think one of the most interesting things right now in oregon politics is the position of women within the state of oregon. we have a woman governor, kate brown, we have a woman who is speaker of the house, we have a woman, majority leader in the senate, a woman who's majority leader in the house. in the house we have the democratic caucus is a majority of women. and so that's actually one of the most interesting phenomenons right now going on many oregon, is the important role that women are playing in shaping the direction of the state. well, what i want people to recognize is that there are two oregons. there is the very progressive side.

or in some cases it has almost been portrayed as a nutty side in oregon. we do some things that we're known for; physician-assisted suicide, the heelization of marijuana -- the legalization of marijuana, a $15 minimum wage. things like that, that exists. and we have a very liberal oregon, but there's also a conservative side of the state too, conservative like many parts of the u.s. we have small towns where they believe in sort of traditional conservative values. so oregon is not just the progressive state in which you may see on television, but it's actually two different states. >> here's a look at some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to "the washington post." topping the list is actor and author alan alda with his book on improving communication. "if i understood you, would i have this look on my face?" that's followed by former house speaker newt ding rich with his

insights -- gingrich into the trump presidency, "understanding trump." next is believe me, a memoir by eddie izzard. fourth is al franken's autobiography be giant of the senate. after that, neil degrasse tyson explores the universe is astrophysics for people in a hurry. our look at the best selling nonfiction books according to "the washington post" continues with retired navy admiral william mccraven's self-help book, make your bed. and comedian kevin hart's memoir, "i can't make this up." roxanne gay with her reflections on food and self-image, "hunger." j.d. vance's recollections of his childhood, "hill billy elegy." and wraps up our look at do best selling nonfiction books according to the washington post was i was told to come alone o