OREGON
A8 — THE OBSERVER
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022
State misses Brown’s million-booster goal for January
By ROB MANNING
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — The Oregon
Health Authority says the state
fell well short of its January goal
for booster shots.
Back in December, as the omi-
cron variant of the coronavirus
started to sweep through Oregon,
Gov. Kate Brown set a goal to get
COVID-19 booster shots in the
arms of 1 million more people in
the state by the end of January.
That was in addition to more
than 945,000 people who had
already gotten boosters before
Brown’s Dec. 17 announcement.
But the state only got to
504,000 more — barely halfway
to that million-booster target.
Oregon’s vaccination and
booster rates are higher than a lot
of states. The state ranked eighth
in the country for the highest rate
of boosters, according to a health
care website that analyzes federal
data. Among fully vaccinated
Oregonians, more than 48% have
gotten boosters.
State health offi cials say
that Oregonians are also “more
faithful” to following COVID-19
protective measures, such as
wearing masks. Offi cials say those
steps mean the omicron peak for
hospitalizations is likely to not be
as bad as initially forecast.
The projected peak of COVID-
19-related hospitalizations amid
the current surge is now esti-
mated to be around 1,200. Just
a week ago, forecast models
showed that peak could be around
1,500 hospitalizations.
State health offi cials say
without such widespread adher-
ence to the safety protocols, the
peak could have been as high
as 1,900 COVID-19-related
hospitalizations.
Oregon Gov.
Kate Brown
speaks at a
Reopening
Oregon
celebration
at Providence
Park in Port-
land on June
30, 2021.
Dave Killen/The Oregonian, File
Kristof wants to bring ‘accountability business’ to Salem
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Fol-
lowing 35 consecutive years
of Democratic governance
in Oregon, Nick Kristof
said he thinks he’s the
Democrat to turn the state
around.
A former reporter, editor
and columnist for The New
York Times, Kristof spoke
with the East Oregonian
during a campaign swing
through Eastern Oregon
and the Columbia River
Gorge. Kristof said his
background in journalism
gave him the “toolbox” to
deliver on his campaign
promises other Democrats
failed to keep.
“I think that one of the
problems in Oregon has
also been a lack of account-
ability, and a tendency to
pass grand measures that
don’t actually get imple-
mented very eff ectively at
the grassroots level,” he
said. “I’m in the account-
ability business.”
But during the course
of his 20-minute interview,
Kristof only briefl y touched
on the policies he would
want to enact should he be
elected governor.
Poverty, homelessness
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Democrat Nick Kristof touts his
journalism “toolbox” as provid-
ing him with the ability to deliv-
er on campaign promises where
other Democrats fail if he wins
the race for Oregon governor.
and addiction are issues
central to Kristof’s cam-
paign narrative. In Kris-
tof’s telling, he spent his
journalistic career covering
humanitarian crises around
the globe only to realize
similar crises were hap-
pening back in his home-
town of Yamhill. That led
Kristof and his wife, Sheryl
WuDunn, to write the 2020
book “Tightrope: Ameri-
cans Reaching for Hope,”
which chronicles his former
Yamhill classmates and
their struggles in an eco-
nomically declining area.
Eventually, Kristof
decided to get off the side-
lines so he could tackle
these issues as governor.
He cited a glut of statis-
tics on Oregon’s pressing
issues: Oregon ranked last
in mental health services,
according to Mental Health
America; 23,000 children
across the state were con-
sidered homeless; a state
housing supply that was
short 140,000 units.
Sticking to the topic of
homelessness, Kristof had a
number of ideas of what the
state needed to do to reverse
it. He recited a rapid-fi re list
of concepts he said already
worked at the local level or
elsewhere: turning more
motels to emergency shel-
ters, tiny home villages,
improving the permitting
process for new housing
and creating incentives for
homeowners to rent out
excess rooms and living
spaces.
“Many of these things
are not perfect,” he said.
“This probably sounds too
glib. These are hard prob-
lems, but they’re not impos-
sible. Other states have
chipped away at them using
some of these strategies.”
While Kristof would
need to fi nd a way to fund
these initiatives, he said
money wasn’t the main
factor in getting them
done.
“In Oregon, the cost is
not really the constraint,”
he said. “Especially
in the Portland metro
area, there’s been a huge
amount of money that has
been allocated, so that is
less of a constraint.”
Should Kristof win
the Democratic nomi-
nation and then the gen-
eral election, he would be
the fi rst person in decades
to hold the governorship
without any previous expe-
rience in elected offi ce at
the local, state or federal
level. Kristof compared
himself favorably to Tom
McCall, a former print and
TV reporter who went on
to win the governorship in
the 1960s and shepherded
lasting policies like public
beaches and urban growth
boundaries into law.
But McCall had ran
unsuccessfully for a U.S.
House seat and served as
Oregon secretary of state
for two years before he was
elected governor. The last
person to be elected gov-
ernor without any elected
experience was Charles A.
Sprague, who won the gov-
ernorship in 1938. Sprague,
“I think that one of the problems
in Oregon has also been a lack of
accountability, and a tendency to pass
grand measures that don’t actually
get implemented very eff ectively at the
grassroots level. I’m in the accountability
business.”
— Nick Kristof, potential Democratic candidate for Oregon governor
also a former journalist,
served a full term in Salem
but his reelection cam-
paign sputtered after he lost
the Republican primary in
1942.
But the headlines that
have dominated Kristof’s
campaign haven’t been
about his policies or profes-
sion. Instead, most atten-
tion has focused on his
residency.
Secretary of State Shemia
Fagan on Jan. 6 determined
Kristof did not meet the
Oregon constitution’s resi-
dency requirements to run
for state offi ce — namely, a
candidate must have lived
in the state for at least three
years before the general
election date. One of Fagan’s
key pieces of evidence is
Kristof’s voting history,
which shows him voting
from New York in 2020.
Kristof appealed Fagan’s
decision to the Oregon
Supreme Court, arguing he
has a long public history of
calling Oregon his home
state and has maintained a
home in Yamhill.
Kristof said he was con-
fi dent the Supreme Court
would rule in his favor
and declined to say what
he would do if the justices
didn’t. Kristof may not
have lived his entire life
in Oregon, but he said the
state is “in my blood,” and
he’s already committed to
making it the place he’s laid
to rest.
“It’s where my ashes
will be scattered when
I’m gone,” he said, “on the
family farm and maybe on
the Pacifi c Crest Trail in
Oregon.”