Any year now

The public defender crisis that the Oregon "legislative leadership" (she's the governor now) has let fester for three years is going to fester for a while longer. But at least there's a bill floating around in Salem this session that would do something about it. The Weed is on it here.

A functional criminal justice system is the bare minimum for a society. It's too bad the politicians of Oregon, with the obscene amount of taxes they exact, are so casual about the fact that we don't really have one right now.

By 2035, he hopes the state will be handling at least 30% of indigent cases on its own, without relying on contractors. That’ll give the state “the ability to surge, and send people when there’s a problem,” he tells WW.

By 2035? Gee, what's the big rush? 

Like so many of Oregon's problems, we find ourselves in a mess on ths one because our way of dealing with the matter is "unique." Like Measure 110 unique. Like Metro unique. The voters here, and their elected representatives, usually go for a really dumb idea rather than something that works fine everywhere else. I suspect the fix for the current crisis will be more of the same. We'll see. Someday. Or maybe not.