What part of ‘no’ doesn’t House Speaker Karen Minnis get?Perhaps a new motto should be engraved on the walls of the state House of Representatives. Our suggested wording would be: Legislators should never try to manage Oregon forests.

We make this offer because House Speaker Karen Minnis seems to have learned nothing from the last election. In the decisive defeat of Measure 34, Minnis sees an opportunity to take another run at boosting timber harvest on the Tillamook Forest. Minnis tried that in the 2003 legislative session and failed.

A prime message of Measure 34’s defeat was that neither the voters nor the Legislature should mess with forest management plans that have been developed over several years, following many public sessions.

When environmentalists saw Minnis and her colleagues attempting to alter state forest management plans by boosting timber harvest, they manufactured Measure 34, as a reverse image.

Both of these failed ventures were wrong. In building a management plan for the Tillamook Forest, state land managers have created a balanced approach. The plan respects the need for timber harvest, wildlife habitat, water quality and recreation.

Speaker Minnis knows her new forests bill won’t go anywhere in the state Senate and would likely be vetoed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

So why does she persist? Because the moneyed lobbyists – not the lessons of history or common sense – speak most loudly to the speaker. If Minnis talks about jobs and takes money from the timber lobbyists, what’s the harm in that?

The harm is in having a legislative leader who is more interested in political games than in reality.