6A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021
STATE/NATION
Oregon GOP ousts chair,
taps new leadership
By DIRK VANDERHART
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — A conser-
vative state senator from
Myrtle Creek is the new
chair of the Oregon Repub-
lican Party, following an
event Saturday, Feb. 20, in
which Republicans over-
hauled their top party
leadership.
According to multiple
Republican sources, state
Sen. Dallas Heard handily
won the job, beating three-
term chair and Adair Vil-
lage Mayor Bill Currier.
Heard, 35, is just one in a
slate of current and former
Republican senators who
now have a central role in
steering the party’s course.
Former Senate Minority
Leader Herman Baertsch-
iger Jr., now a Josephine
County commissioner, won
a contested race for vice
chair. And state Sen. Dennis
Linthicum, R-Klamath
Falls, will serve as party
treasurer.
A third sitting state sen-
ator, Chuck Thomsen of
Hood River, was unsuc-
cessful in his bid to serve
as the party’s secretary. He
was defeated by incum-
bent secretary Becky Mitts,
who also serves as chief
of staff to state Rep. Mike
Nearman, a Republican
from Polk County.
“It’s just kind of taking
the party in a little different
direction, a different type
of leadership,” Baerstchiger
said Feb. 21. “No criticism
really of the prior leader-
ship. It wasn’t like there was
some kind of coup.”
Inquiries to Heard,
Thomsen and a party
spokesman were not
answered on Feb. 21.
The leadership swap
comes at a time the Oregon
GOP has gained national
attention for passing a res-
olution claiming the Jan. 6
attack on the U.S. Capitol
was a “false fl ag” operation
by leftist forces — a con-
spiracy theory that has been
debunked in the weeks since
the incident.
All 23 Republicans in
the state House of Repre-
sentatives denounced the
statement. Two Repub-
lican senators representing
swing districts, Thomsen
and Bend-based Sen. Tim
Knopp, took exception to
the statement. Knute Bue-
hler, 2018 Republican nom-
inee for governor, changed
his party registration to
nonaffi liated following the
incident.
Baertschiger was less
critical.
“I didn’t really see an
upside to that, even though
there’s a lot of questions
about the Jan. 6 Capitol
incident,” he said. “It’s
going to take a while for
the facts to get out. They’re
starting to come out. I think
it’s gonna be a mixed bag.”
The state GOP also
has been criticized in
recent years for expending
resources running two
unsuccessful recall cam-
paigns against Gov. Kate
Brown, while at the same
time failing to recruit com-
petitive candidates for some
statewide offi ces. Demo-
crats control every execu-
tive offi ce in the state and
hold supermajorities in the
House and Senate, allowing
them to pass any bill
without Republican support.
It was unclear how
Heard and others might
seek to alter that trajectory.
Heard in recent months has
repeatedly garnered atten-
tion for his strident stance
against state rules requiring
masks and shuttering busi-
nesses to stem the spread of
COVID-19.
When the Legislature
met in special session on
Dec. 21, Heard tore off his
face mask in protest on the
Senate fl oor, and he accused
Democratic legislators and
the governor of a “cam-
paign against the people
and the children of God.”
On Jan. 6, the same day
as the attack on the U.S.
Capitol, Heard addressed
supporters of then-Presi-
dent Trump at an “Occupy
the Capitol” rally in
Salem.
“I’m just kind of at a
loss for words as I look at
this Capitol building that
is yours, the people’s, and
is currently being occu-
pied by a group of elit-
ists,” Heard told the crowd.
“Sadly I’m not sure that
it’s all Democrats that are
the elitists, frankly. I am
a Republican, but I’m an
American fi rst and there
are some Republicans that
need to go.”
Baertschiger said he
expected the new party
leadership to improve its
messaging and organiza-
tion. He said discussions for
mounting a leadership chal-
lenge in the party began
when he still was in the
Senate.
“I think there’s a lot of
tremendous people that want
to get involved with the
Republican Party,” he said.
Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo
A large tree downed in a weekend ice storm sits atop power lines on Wednesday, Feb.
17, 2021 in Lake Oswego. Nearly 150,000 customers remained without power Wednes-
day in and around Portland, nearly a week after a massive snow and ice storm swept
into the Pacifi c Northwest, taking out hundreds of miles of power lines as ice-laden
trees toppled.
Power restoration from Oregon
storm could take a week more
Associated Press
PORTLAND —
Members of the Oregon
National Guard delivered
supplies to people without
power as problems lin-
gered from an ice storm
that wreaked havoc on the
electrical grid, and a utility
offi cial said some commu-
nities may not see power
for another week.
Almost 39,000 cus-
tomers remained without
power on Sunday, Feb.
21, after Portland General
Electric said it had restored
power to more than 14,000
customers on Saturday.
The utility said more than
400 crews were at work
trying to restore power to
remaining customers.
Guard members deliv-
ered emergency supplies
including water and bat-
teries to about 50 residents
in Clackamas County,
local authorities said.
The worst ice storms
to hit the area in 40 years
knocked out power to more
than 420,000 customers
and killed fi ve people,
including four who died
from carbon monoxide
poisoning as they tried to
stay warm.
It could take as long as
seven days to fully restore
power, said Portland Gen-
eral Electric spokeswoman
Elizabeth Lattanner. Some
customers have experi-
enced multiple outages.
The damage and dan-
gerous conditions left
behind by the storm that
started Feb. 12 were the
worst in the utility’s his-
tory, according to offi cials.
“We would restore
power in one area, move
on to the next and then
have to go back to that area
because additional trees
fell or something similar,”
Lattanner said.
One-quarter of cus-
tomers lost power multiple
times over the course of
the three-day storm as ice-
laden trees fell on lines.
A layer of ice an inch
thick coated power lines
and trees, adding 1,000
pounds of extra weight to
each span of wire from
pole to pole, PGE said.
Wyden: Look before you leap on repealing internet legal shield
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
WASHINGTON — U.S.
Sen. Ron Wyden cautioned
critics against being too
hasty to repeal the legal
shield for information ser-
vice providers for content
posted on their platforms.
Conservative and lib-
eral critics have taken aim
at Section 230 of the Com-
munications Decency Act,
the 1996 law authored by
the Oregon Democrat and
Rep. Christopher Cox, then
a Republican from Cali-
fornia. They argue that it
has given too much power
to tech giants such as Face-
book and Twitter.
But Wyden said the law
is not one-sided. He spoke
Thursday, Feb. 18, at a
Multnomah County vir-
tual meeting the Town Hall
Project livestreamed on
Facebook.
“The people who
post content are respon-
sible for what they post.
Period. That in effect cre-
ates something of a shield
for the platform, because
the poster is personally
responsible,” Wyden said in
response to a written ques-
tion read aloud by the mod-
erator, Nathan
Williams.
“The sword
was that the
platforms
could do more
Wyden
to moderate
what was on
their sites, so they could get
rid of the slime and the hate
and all the horrible stuff.
“Now we all know the
platforms have not exactly
covered themselves in glory
about using the moderation
provision; some of them are
better than others. But the
real issue is … that if we
did not have Section 230,
things would still be the
same without reform. It’s
not 230 that is the challenge
— it is the First Amend-
ment.” He referred to the
federal constitutional guar-
antee of free speech.
Cox left Congress after
17 years in 2005 to lead the
Securities and Exchange
Commission during the
second term of President
George W. Bush.
Just before he left offi ce,
President Donald Trump
vetoed the $740 billion mil-
itary authorization bill,
partly because it failed to
attach a repeal of Section
230. But two-thirds major-
ities in the Democratic-led
House and Republican-led
Senate overrode his veto,
mostly on other grounds.
“My guess is that the
only thing Donald Trump
knows about 230 is that it’s
between 2 and 3 o’clock,”
Wyden said.
Wyden said Trump’s
real issue was with Twitter,
which fl agged some of his
tweets, then suspended his
account and fi nally barred
him permanently from the
platform — mostly stem-
ming from Trump’s false
claims about the outcome of
the presidential election.
Wyden said that while
there are legitimate ques-
tions about the misuse of
the platforms, they also
have aided social move-
ments such as #MeToo
against sexual harassment
and abuse of women, and
#BlackLivesMatter against
police misconduct and other
violence against Black
people.
“How we go about
dealing with it is the key,”
Wyden said.
“I want to make sure
how we protect constitu-
tionally protected speech.
Enjoy Life
more,
Stress Less
at
That has always been
hugely important to Ore-
gonians. I also want to pro-
tect the ability to moderate,
because whatever you think
about it, this is a tool that
can actually be used for
good.”
Wyden covered a range
of issues during the hour-
long virtual meeting, which
he has substituted for
in-person town halls during
the coronavirus pandemic.
He is now chairman for
a second time of the Senate
Finance Committee, which
holds sway over tax and
trade issues, Social Secu-
rity, Medicare and Med-
icaid, the large federal
health insurance programs.
He said his fi rst pri-
ority is to advance the rel-
evant parts of President
Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion
pandemic recovery plan,
including an extension
of unemployment bene-
fi ts, more aid for vaccina-
tion and personal protective
equipment, and new efforts
to reduce child poverty.
Biden proposes to cut
the child poverty rate by
more than half. A House
committee has proposed
increasing the child tax
credit from $2,000 per
child to $3,000 per child
between ages 6 and 17
($3,600 for each child
under age 6), though only
for one year. Utah Sen.
Mitt Romney has proposed
a still bigger amount, but
also to end the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Fam-
ilies program and reduce
food assistance. Under
Romney’s plan, all house-
holds with children would
get checks, although high-
er-income families would
pay more in taxes; the
House plan would set
household income limits.
WALLOWA COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY
SENDS OUT A
BIG THANK YOU
TO OUR COMMUNITY AND VOLUNTEERS
WHO HELPED WCHS
THANK THROUGH A DIFFICULT 2020
THANK
THANK YOU WCHS VOLUNTEERS FOR OVER 5400 HRS OF YOUR TIME !
THANK YOU sponsors of “pet of the week” advertising:
Les Schwab Tires, Enterprise Animal Hospital, Carpet One,
Double Arrow Veterinary Clinic, Susan Gilstrap CPA,
Main Street Motors, Ed Staub and Sons.
Thanks for these sponsors, Jennifer Cooney of the Wallowa County Chieftain.
22 dogs and 110 cats were adopted to new homes! 10 local pets found new
homes though “private adoption” notices on our website. WCHS assisted
twelve lost dogs and cats to re-unite with their owners. WCHS provided
financial assistance to spay/ neuter two hundred local pets.
Hundreds of feral cats were trapped/ spayed/neutered and released.
In 2020, Wallowa County Humane Society put over
$28,000 into our community for animal care! Thanks to
Donations, Fund-raising Events, Grants, and our
RE-TAIL BOUTIQUE and INFORMATION CENTER
119 EAST MAIN STREET IN ENTERPRISE, OREGON
OPEN THURSDAY-FRIDAY-SATURDAY 11 AM - 3 PM
PHONE 541-426-2619
“WCHS is committed to the well-being of companion animals, working with
the community for the betterment of all “
WCHS PARTICIPATES IN COMMUNITY EVENTS and ACTIVITIES,
INCLUDING PET THERAPY DAYS AT LOCAL ASSISTED LIVING FACILITIES,
AND WITH LOCAL STUDENTS, PARENTS, AND TEACHERS
GRANDE
Ronde
Retirement & Assisted Living
1809 Gekeler Ln.
La Grande
541-963-4700
PROTECTING our
Residents during this
Pandemic
THE GENEROSITY AND SUPPORT OF OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY
IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!
DONATIONS may be mailed to WCHS, PO BOX 565, Enterprise, OR, 97828,
or thru PAYPAL on our website:
WWW. WALLOWACOUNTYHUMANESOCIETY. ORG
Visit our website to see pets for adoptions, schedule of events,
and meet our Board Members!
WCHS is an ALL volunteer NON-PROFIT 501(C)3 ORGANIZATION.
Information: 541-263-0336