OREGON
A6 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2021
POLITICS
Races start for U.S. House seats with borders unknown
All 60 seats in the state House and at least half of the 30 state Senate seats will be up for election
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — The 2022
campaigns for Oregon’s
congressional seats have
started — despite no maps
to tell what part of the state
they might represent.
Oregon will have six
congressional seats up for
grabs on the 2022 ballot —
one more than in 2020. But
Halloween decorations will
be up by the time there is
any offi cial inkling of what
and who goes where.
The 2020 U.S. Census
seized up under pressure
of counting in communi-
ties hit by COVID-19. The
once-a-decade detailed
data the state requires to
draw new political maps
has always — always —
arrived by April 1 of the
following year.
Not in this year. Pan-
demics play hell with
politics.
The data is now due
Aug. 16.
Oregon doesn’t let can-
didates fi le for the 2022
elections until Sept. 9,
2021. By then about all
U.S. House candidates will
know is they will repre-
sent an average of 706,209
people under the 2022
math. But where — north,
south, east or west — the
throng in each district lives
will still be undecided.
On the day the Sec-
retary of State in Salem
throws open the window to
fi le, the 11 lawmakers who
are supposed to be making
the new political maps will
be an hour’s drive south
— in Eugene — holding
a hearing on what they
ONLINE
See this story at lagrandeob-
server.com for details on who
is seeking re-election and how
much cash they have on hand.
The Associated Press, File
Oregon will have six U.S. congressional seats up for grabs on the 2022
ballot — one more than in 2020. But Halloween decorations will be up
by the time there is any offi cial inkling of what and who goes where.
should do about redis-
tricting. For those in Salem
eager to sign up — which
district to go for is any-
one’s guess.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Oregon, has it easiest.
He’s seeking another six-
year term in the Senate
seat he’s held since 1996. A
U.S. Senator represents the
whole state — no district
border problem then.
But it’s still going to be
a crapshoot for all 60 seats
in the state House, and at
least half of the 30 state
Senate seats will be up for
election. The lines will
get scrambled to refl ect
changes in population and
demographics since the
last census in 2010. But at
least the overall number of
seats won’t change.
Not true for Con-
gress. The fi ve U.S. House
incumbents for Oregon —
four Democrats and one
Republican — have started
raising money for bids to
return to Capitol Hill.
The fi ve will still have
to make guesses about how
their districts might swell,
shrink or stretch, because
population shifts. Bend
and suburban Portland
have boomed. The area
east of the Cascades and
Southwest Oregon have not
kept pace.
On top of it all, they’ll
have to make room for
a sixth seat Oregon was
awarded in April because
of its population increase
since 2010 (California lost
a seat for the fi rst time in
its history).
The late district
drawing does come with a
calming asterisk for con-
gressional incumbents and
hopefuls. Unlike state law-
makers, members of the
U.S. House aren’t legally
required to live in their
Taxpayers foot $100,000 bill for
governor’s political consultant
districts — just the state.
Willamette Week
recently cited a Wash-
ington Post story from
2017 reporting 21 of the
435 House members at that
time were registered to
vote outside their districts.
Candidates for the legis-
lature and Congress face a
confusing mix-and-match
of rules.
All must fi le to vote
with the Oregon Secretary
of State beginning next
month.
But both state and fed-
eral candidates are free to
raise money earlier.
They just have to
sign up with diff erent
watchdogs.
Legislative campaign
fi nancing is handled by the
Oregon Secretary of State.
The state’s open-ended
campaign fundraising laws
are legendary around the
country: unlimited money
from any single source to
any candidate as long as it
is reported to the Election’s
Division.
Congressional candi-
dates have to raise funds
under stricter rules con-
trolled by the Federal Elec-
tion Commission. The size,
though not the number, of
contributions is regulated.
Voters for Congress also
get an earlier look on who
is serious about running.
Despite the state’s offi -
cial Sept. 9 starting date
Associated Press
SALEM — Gov. Kate
Brown is on track to
spend more than $100,000
in taxpayer funds for one
of her longtime advisers
to serve as a part-time
political consultant.
Under an arrangement
dating back to early 2020,
Brown hired her former
communications director,
Chris Pair, through a
no-bid state contract at a
rate of $6,500 a month to
attend weekly meetings of
the Western Governors’
Association on expanding
electric vehicle infrastruc-
ture, the governor’s signa-
ture initiative during her
time as chair of the group.
So far the state has paid
Pair $91,000 under the
contract, according to the
governor’s press secretary.
During the same time,
Brown also paid Pair
an undisclosed amount
through her political
action committee for work
that she has declined to
describe, beyond saying
it was unrelated to state
business.
Brown did not disclose
that Pair might be hired
back on the state’s dime
as a consultant when a
reporter asked about the
longtime communica-
tions director’s departure
at a Jan. 17, 2020, press
conference.
“We’re continuing to
work together in other
capacities,” the gov-
ernor said of Pair. But she
refused to say what that
work was because she said
the duties “don’t have to
rent districts.
There are other ifs and
buts, deadlines and pos-
sible delays from court
challenges.
But the bottom-line goal
is for the drawing, squab-
bling and court challenges
to be done with time to
spare before the March 8
deadline for candidates to
fi le for offi ce.
The quicker the maps
are fi nished, the longer
candidates and voters will
get a chance to fi gure out
who and what and where
they are voting for in the
May 17 primary.
That circles back around
to the campaign fi nance
reporting split. Candidates
for state offi ces have to
regularly report how much
they have raised and spent
— usually within 30 days,
but close to election time,
it’s 7 days.
Congress reports four
times a year — once every
three months. The latest
report came in June 30.
The fi lings say who is
running, how much they
raised this year, how much
they spent, plus “cash on
hand.” The latter fi gure
can often be the largest
because it is money that
incumbents roll over from
their last campaigns.
The latest FEC report is
a very, very early snapshot
of who is in, who is out,
who has money, who is
spending. There will likely
be dozens more candidates
and surely millions more
dollars. And remember,
that doesn’t count the out-
side spending by outside
groups that is harder to
regulate.
Judge refuses to block digging
at lithium mine on NV-OR line
BY HILLARY BORRUD
RENO, Nev. — A fed-
eral judge has denied
environmentalists’
request for a court order
temporarily blocking the
government from digging
trenches for archaeolog-
ical surveys at a mine
planned near the Neva-
da-Oregon line with
the biggest known U.S.
deposit of lithium.
U.S. District Judge
Miranda Du also said in
an 11-page ruling late
Friday, July 23, in Reno
that four conservation
The Oregonian
for fi ling, the FEC requires
a “statement of candidacy”
before 2022 fundraising
can get started.
When will this mess get
fi xed? Not this summer.
But when it does, it will
be a sprint, not a marathon.
If and when the absurdly
late census data arrives
Aug. 16, there will then
be expert analysis, public
hearings, debate, revi-
sions, a proposal sent to
the House and Senate for
approval, then on to Gov.
Kate Brown for approval
or veto.
All in six weeks to do
what is normally done in
three months.
A special session of the
Legislature on Sept. 20 is
supposed to ratify the plan.
It has to be through the
House, Senate and gover-
nor’s offi ce in time to be
in the laps of the Oregon
Supreme Court one week
later — Sept. 27.
If all goes well, legisla-
tive and congressional dis-
tricts 2022 will be more or
less known by the begin-
ning of October.
Unless the Legislature
can’t agree.
Or Brown doesn’t
approve their work.
Then comes Plan B —
and things get even more
confusing.
Legislative redistricting
would go to Secretary of
State Shemia Fagan to
draw maps and get them to
the court.
But not the U.S.
House seats. The Oregon
Supreme Court will create
a fi ve-member judicial
panel with one jurist drawn
from each of the fi ve cur-
groups failed to prove the
trenches planned across
a total of one-quarter
acre would cause irrep-
arable harm to critical
habitat for imperiled sage
grouse.
She said she plans to
rule later this week on a
request from a Nevada
tribe to join the legal
battle as a co-plaintiff and
seek a similar restraining
order based on claims the
digging would disturb
sacred burial grounds.
Du emphasized she
intends to issue a deci-
sion on the merits of the
overall case by early next
year. She noted any con-
struction of the mine
itself is unlikely to begin
before the snow melts in
the spring of 2022.
Lithium Nevada
Corp.’s proposed Thacker
Pass mine south of the
Oregon line is emerging
as a key battleground in
the debate over environ-
mental trade-off s tied
to President Joe Biden’s
push for renewable
energy.
Lithium is a key com-
ponent in electric vehicle
batteries.
Craig Mitchelldyer/The Associated Press, File
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announces the end of the state’s COVID-19
restrictions in Portland on Wednesday, June 30, 2021. In July it was
reported that Brown will be spending more than $100,000 in taxpay-
er funds for one of her longtime advisers to serve as a part-time po-
litical consultant.
do with stateside at this
point” and were paid for
by her political action
committee.
A month later, the gov-
ernor’s staff asked state
procurement offi cials to
prepare a no-bid contract
worth up to $150,000 for
Pair’s consulting com-
pany, Althea, so that
Pair could assist with
Oregon’s share of work
on the Western Gover-
nors’ Association elec-
tric vehicle recommen-
dations, according to
public records. The con-
tract called for the state to
pay Pair $78,000 a year,
roughly half the $158,000
salary he previously
earned as the governor’s
communications director
and senior adviser.
Brown declined to
comment on why it was
necessary and benefi cial
to taxpayers for her to hire
her former staff er through
a no-bid contract. Pair
also did not respond to
calls for comment.
Liz Merah, press sec-
retary for the governor,
wrote in an email that
Brown had tasked Pair
with developing her initia-
tive for the Western Gov-
ernors’ Association when
he was still her communi-
cations director, so “when
Chris chose to move on
from the governor’s offi ce
in late 2019,” Brown asked
Pair to complete the work.
Merah said Pair’s state-
paid work for the governor
has been strictly separated
from any other political
work he does for Brown.
“All work performed by
Althea LLC under this
contract is related to the
Western Governors’ Asso-
ciation,” Merah wrote.
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