Perhaps it wasn’t the appetizer that attendees at the annual Oregon Statesman dinner of the Oregon Business Association were awaiting last week (Oct. 12), but Ron Shaich served up something other than talk about food.

Shaich is co-chief executive of Panera Bread, a national chain that has six stores in the Portland area. More importantly, for this audience, he is also one of several co-founders of No Labels, a national movement aimed at pressing officeholders of both parties not only to get down to the nation’s business in Washington, but also to make the structural changes necessary to achieve those solutions.

“I’m sure many of you understand that the ability to resolve problems is at the core of leadership,” he said in his pre-dinner talk. “You do not remain chief executive officer unless you solve problems.”

He said that’s true for 8 million customers, 70,000 employees and those who have invested in his business.

But the exception appears to be the nation’s political system, where gridlock has been the rule the past two years with a Democratic president, a House with a Republican majority and a Senate with a Democratic majority.

“I do not believe that the Nov. 6 elections, however they turn out, will solve it,” he said. “The crisis of governance is rooted in the system our legislators operate within.”

He said some states and communities, such as Oregon, are examples of the opposite. In the same two years, there has been a Democratic governor, a House evenly split between the parties, and a Senate with a one-vote Democratic majority. In addition to balancing the budget (a constitutional requirement), they have produced overhauls of education and health care, among other things.

“Oregon is finding a way to make government work — and you are a model for the country,” he said to applause.

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Washington… Washington looks to me like a married couple that spends all of its time fighting and trying to prove each other wrong.”

He said Americans, via public opinion surveys, agree not on just what the important issues are facing the nation — education, energy, the economy and national finances, immigration — but also broad outlines of solutions. But Shaich said because of party strictures, Democrats are criticized if they support changes in entitlement programs such as Medicare to rein in their future costs, and Republicans the same if they support changes that will increase taxes collected, let alone tax increases. “Better to blame the other side and hold on until the next election,” he said.

That is where the No Labels movement has emerged, with 600,000 members and growing, and plans a big push in early January before the next presidential inauguration.

“It provides the only realistic way out of this mess,” Shaich said. “So many people understand the depth of our problems and what is going on in our politics today. They know what is going on in our politics today does not work. They just do not see a path to make it better. I guarantee you that if people see such a path, they would respond — and we have such a path.”

No Labels will lay out a series of proposals for changes in Congress, the presidency, and the system itself. The one that has gotten the most attention is simple: Until Congress adopts a budget, members will not get paid if they fail to meet a deadline. (More often than not in recent years, dating back more than a decade, Congress has failed to approve appropriations bills by the start of the budget year Oct. 1 and actual spending levels are set through “continuing resolutions,” often hundreds or thousands of pages.)

Shaich’s introduction was by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., who before his election from the 5th District in 2008 was a three-time Senate co-chairman of the Oregon Legislature’s joint budget committee. Schrader, though only in his second term, has been prominent in calling for effective deficit reduction as chairman of the fiscal responsibility task force of the Blue Dogs (fiscally conservative Democrats whose numbers were cut in half after the 2010 election, although Schrader survived), and as a supporter of the budget-balancing plan recommended by the Simpson-Bowles commission. However, when Simpson-Bowles came to a vote March 28 in the House, Schrader was on the losing end of a 285-38 vote.

Still, Shaich said Schrader is among the members from both parties seeking to broker a solution before automatic across-the-board spending cuts take effect Jan. 1, also the expiration date for tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush and extended under President Barack Obama for two years. Schrader said he believes Congress will be forced to act in a post-election session given those two deadlines.

“I am proud that Congressman Schrader is a part of this group,” Shaich said to applause.