So last Friday, Oregon’s Governor John Kitzhaber gave the keynote talk at an awards lunch for state and local leaders who have served as conveners for Oregon Solutions, a unique program that creates a mechanism for communities to bring together the resources to achieve shared priorities. But, okay, it doesn’t matter. At least for the purposes of this story. It was a great event, but what matters here is what happened part way through the thanks and accolades. Governor Kitzhaber was praising the program and the heroic efforts of some truly remarkable citizens, but then he stopped in the middle of a sentence and said: Wait a minute. Let me back up. And he did – he backed way up. He gave a probably 500-word tour of American history, explaining the battle at the founding between Hamilton and Jefferson over participatory versus non-participatory governance; he took us through the opening and then the closing of the frontier and the industrial revolution, then the strengthening of the federal government to protect the individual from powerful banks. He talked about the problems of today outgrowing the governance structures of yesterday. Then, he circled back and challenged the room to create Jefferson Democracy 2.0. It was masterful and brilliant and all too rare. And I was proud to call him Governor.
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