the people who aren’t in the room or who aren’t listening to your show. And our goal is essentially to rebuild public trust, person-to-person, small group by small group, by getting people together and talking. And I think any functional democracy, anytime we’re trying to work together and make decisions, we need to trust each other more than we do now.” Larson asked why he should work to engender trust in untrustworthy people. After a back-and-forth during which Larson asked about “dim bulb Joe Biden” and Teslas defaced with swastikas, and a question about violence from the left, Davis, sounding a touch frustrated, said, “I’m going to push back a little with the way you’re putting the question. I don’t tend to see the world as ‘either you’re on one side or you’re on the other.’” But in some situations, there are two sides. For example, a lawsuit has a plaintiff and a defendant. This summer Oregon Humanities sued the federal government over the abrupt cancellation of its funds. Davis tells Oregon Business that while sitting in court at oral argument, he was struck by the fact that the defendant — his adversary — was the NEH, the government agency that gave life to Oregon Humanities and was for five decades a steady partnership and funding source. “It was very strange to feel just how much this long partnership suddenly shifted,” Davis tells OB. Test Case At the core of Oregon Humanities’ court case is an argument about the Constitution, says Anna Sortun, who represented the organization in court. She’s also a member of Oregon Humanities’ board and a managing partner at Tonkon Torp, one of the largest law firms in the state. As Sortun explains, the nation’s founding document assigns to Congress the “power of the purse” to make funding decisions, and establishes a clear separation of powers to rein in the president. Oregon Humanities and Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield filed the suit in July; the Federation of State Humanities Councils, an umbrella organization for humanities councils based in Arlington, Va., joined the suit. The government’s position is essentially that the president has broad powers to accomplish his agenda. If the executive decides to shift course, he’s allowed to do so under the Administrative Procedure Act midway through the budget cycle as he deems necessary, lawyers for the government have argued. On Aug. 6., Judge Simon issued a decision agreeing with Oregon Humanities on all but one of its arguments. Simon’s decision does not return the grant money to the humanities councils, though it prevents the government from spending it elsewhere. The federal government can still appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Sortun, the Supreme Court can also weigh in and determine the case never should have been heard by a district judge like Simon, and that this type of case instead belongs before the Court of Federal Claims. While it was a positive result for the nation’s humanities councils, they’re still operating without their congressionally appropriated funds, says Phoebe Stein, head of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Many have laid off staff, cut programs and canceled programs. And as of early fall, Congress had yet to pass a long-term funding solution for the NEH. “Any kind of waiting for further legal decisions means immediate impact—to the delivery of services and of grants of programs to local communities throughout the entire nation,” Stein says. Talking in Circles Back in Jacksonville, a small Southern Oregon tourist town, meeting facilitator Lowell Greathouse establishes up front the importance of creating “space and grace” for others as they discuss differences across political divides. The nationwide epidemic of disengagement and division is tough to spot in this circle. Most group members, based on their comments, lean left politically. A number remark on their privilege as white baby boomers. They listen actively and empathetically. They’re horrified by what they see in the news. They find it increasingly difficult to stay engaged with the real world, which seems to be on fire. They have relatives being pulled into their own realities — instead of engaging with the one we share. They’re driven to act, but their actions feel insufficient. Heads nodded as a woman described the cycle of outrage and grief, which has intensified since Trump took office. “I write letters and I donate, but it all just feels so passive,” she said tearfully. Soon enough the talk is over. Ninety minutes feels hardly long enough to scratch the surface with these issues. But then again, scratching the surface is kind of the point, Greathouse says. Hopefully, participants continue these conversations over the ensuing days and months. Some civic-minded groups in the U.S., like the Better Angels Society, organize educational events that ask participants to identify themselves by political association. Adam Davis is staunchly against this approach. “We do see a pattern of people who probably lean left being drawn to many, though not all, of our events,” Davis says. “I think of political differences and many other differences as on a spectrum rather than a binary. And I think there’s generally a good deal of diversity in every room if you start looking at it that way.” Still, one gets the sense that the people this group should be talking to are not there. But for now at least, there’s a chair waiting for them. JASON E. KAPLAN Attorney Anna Sortun in front of the federal courthouse in Southwest Portland 35
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