REGION
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
‘Compromise is never an option’
Republican candidates for next governor
promise Pendleton crowd victory and
conservative reform in Salem
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — There
wasn’t much daylight
between the eight candi-
dates on stage at a Tuesday,
March 24, Umatilla County
Republican Party guber-
natorial forum at the Pend-
leton Convention Center.
The candidates generally
agreed they were going to
reverse the policies of Dem-
ocratic Gov. Kate Brown,
the state should move to a
school choice model, the
Second Amendment needed
to be protected and all gov-
ernment mandates needed
to be repealed.
The candidates didn’t
get much time to expound
on their thoughts. The size
of the fi eld — West Linn
political consultant Bridget
Barton, Hillsboro retiree
Reed Christensen, Tigard
entrepreneur Nick Hess,
Baker City Mayor Kerry
McQuisten, Bend mar-
keting consultant Brandon
Merritt, White City mas-
sage therapist Amber Rich-
ardson, Redmond con-
tractor Bill Sizemore and
former Alsea School Dis-
trict Superintendent Marc
Thielman — had only 30
seconds each to answer
most questions.
But all candidates still
got a shot at making their
case to a good-sized audi-
ence in Pendleton. The
candidates were mostly
polite with one another but
occasionally took shots
at some of the candidates
who weren’t in Pendleton,
which included many of
the fi eld’s top fundraisers
— former state House
Minority Leader Christine
Drazan, of Canby, Salem
oncologist and 2016 Repub-
lican nominee Bud Pierce,
Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam
and former state representa-
tive and Oregon Republican
Party Chair Bob Tiernan, of
Lake Oswego.
Oregon hasn’t elected a
Republican governor since
1982, but each candidate
explained how they would
be the one to reverse the
trend.
Barton stressed to the
audience both her experi-
ence advocating for rural
Oregon and her status as
an “outsider.” She told the
audience that she would
work hard in Salem to
advance their priorities.
“I’m here to tell you that
I would stand in front of a
train for you,” she said.
As governor, Barton
said she would immediately
replace the state’s deputy
superintendent of public
instruction, who leads the
Oregon Department of
Education.
Christensen said the
most important issue was
to end Oregon’s vote-by-
mail system in favor of a
one-day, in-person election
so the state could get “elec-
tion integrity.”
He also highlighted
his participation in the
attempted insurrection in
Washington, D.C., in 2021.
Christensen faces federal
charges for assaulting Cap-
itol police.
“I was arrested by the
FBI,” he said. “I’m cur-
rently in the system. I care.”
In almost all of his
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Oregon Republican gubernatorial candidate Nick Hess and and seven other contenders express their views during a forum Thursday, March
24, 2022, at the Pendleton Convention Center.
answers, Hess said he would
work to make Oregon gov-
ernment more transparent
and listen to residents
instead of lobbyists.
Like former Gov. Vic
Atiyeh, Hess said he was a
Republican from the Port-
land metro area, which
would give him an advan-
tage in trying to break the
GOP’s losing streak in
gubernatorial elections.
“I know it sucks to think
about a Portland person, but
a Portland person is how we
get somebody who’s conser-
vative elected,” he said.
McQuisten used her
opening remarks to remind
the audience she helped
pass a Baker City resolution
that criticized Brown and
her COVID-19 restrictions.
“I wrote a resolution
you may have heard of that
told Kate Brown to pound
sand,” she said.
McQuisten said mod-
erates such as Pierce and
Knute Buehler couldn’t win
the general election, but
she, as a “staunch conserva-
tive,” could.
Nonaffi liated voters
recently surpassed Demo-
crats as the largest group
of voters in the state, and
Merritt said Republi-
cans needed to win those
voters if they were going to
win general elections and
govern eff ectively.
He also criticized
Drazan for allowing a
gun control bill to pass so
Republicans could get a seat
at the table for redistricting
only for Democrats to ger-
rymander anyway.
“Compromise is never an
option,” he said.
Richardson said she was
intentionally running her
campaign frugally, adding
she had only spent $3,000
on her campaign.
She also compared her-
self to former President
Donald Trump, saying
she was unpredictable and
was able to successfully
evade the state’s attempts to
censor her.
“The state doesn’t know
what I’m going to do next,”
she said. ”Every time I try
to do something, they never
know what to expect.”
Sizemore owns a
painting business, but
he might be best known
for passing multiple
ballot measures that lim-
ited property taxes in the
1990s. He also ran for gov-
ernor in 1996, but lost to
Gov. John Kitzhaber in a
landslide.
Sizemore leaned on his
experience passing ballot
measures and fi ghting with
public employee unions,
skills he thought would help
him reform Salem.
Thielman touted his
time as a “man of action”
in Alsea, where he and the
school board passed a res-
olution making face masks
optional before the state
lifted its own mandate.
He said the state should
require schools to teach
gun safety courses in fi fth,
eighth and 10th grade. As
governor, he also would
have the state arrest Mult-
nomah County District
Attorney Mike Schmidt.
CTUIR sees parallels between their own history and Ukraine
Tribes characterize
Russian invasion as
‘ongoing genocide’
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
MISSION — In 1856,
B. F. Shaw, a colonel with
the Washington Territory
Volunteer Infantry, led his
soldiers into the Grande
Ronde Valley and murdered
dozens of Cayuse who lived
in a village near present-day
Summerville.
In 2022, Russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin ordered
the invasion of Ukraine,
leading to the death of
more than 900 civilians,
as of Sunday, March 20,
according to NPR.
Centuries and conti-
nents separate these two
events, but for the leaders
of the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Res-
ervation, the parallels are
apparent.
On March 14, the CTUIR
announced its board of
Anna King/Northwest Public Broadcasting, File
Bobbie Conner, director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute near
Pendleton, in a statement drew comparisons between tribal history
and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
trustees approved a $5,000
donation to Doctors Without
Borders to aid in the bur-
geoning humanitarian crisis
unfolding in Ukraine. But
the announcement also
included more pointed lan-
guage condemning Putin
and Russia for the invasion
and the “ongoing genocide
of the Ukrainian people”
before drawing comparisons
between the current war and
its own history.
“Today, millions of
Ukrainians are (being) forc-
ibly removed, killed, or are
fl eeing their homelands. The
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla, Walla Walla, and
Cayuse experienced sim-
ilar assaults on our people,
our land and our sover-
eign rights in the 1850s,”
the press release states. Our
homelands were invaded
and many of our people
killed during that time. The
CTUIR ultimately ceded 6.4
million acres of our lands
and resources to the United
States in the Treaty of 1855,
and some of these lands
were illegally entered by
non-Indian settlers prior to
the ratifi cation of the Treaty
by the United States Con-
gress in 1859.”
In an interview, Bobbie
Conner, a tribal histo-
rian and the director of the
Tamástslikt Cultural Insti-
tute, said the treaty was
supposed to protect the
tribes from encroachment
and violence from settlers,
but that’s not what hap-
pened in 1856.
That year, Shaw attacked
the encampment killing
approximately 60 people
— men, women, children
and elders — in the pro-
cess. The infantry then
proceeded to destroy their
homes and confi scate their
horses. While contempo-
rary accounts described it as
a battle and lionized Shaw
and his army, Conner said
“massacre” was the more
appropriate term.
“These unprovoked
attacks on peaceful, coex-
isting people are exactly in
my mind a parallel of what
is happening now,” she said.
“Only the armaments and
the methods and the whole-
sale slaughter or annihila-
tion of people is much more
exponentially damaging.”
Conner further explained
how violence from Western
settlers and the U.S. gov-
ernment infl icted against
American Indians are often
mislabeled “cultural con-
fl icts,” but were more about
power and land.
“Rarely did anybody
who pointed a gun at us
and gave us an ultimatum
or fi red at us before giving
an ultimatum have any
comprehension of our cul-
ture,” she said. “You would
have to know something
to have a confl ict with our
culture. It is, historically,
extremely likely that they
knew nothing of our culture,
but deemed that their supe-
riority not only in power,
but with divine intervention
and military force, that they
had the right to do what
they did. It’s a question that
applies today. What right
does Putin have to con-
duct his actions? Justifi ca-
tions matter not because it is
genocidal.”
Conner said she thinks
Americans understand the
stakes of Ukraine’s sover-
eignty. She recalled how
she recently spoke with
another tribal employee
who could trace her lineage
to Kherson, the Ukrainian
region that was recently
claimed by the Russians.
She hopes the lesson people
take away from Ukraine and
the history of the CTUIR
is a better understanding of
the human condition.
“There’s an artifi cial
construct, that many of us
are of a diff erent race,” she
said. ”There is only one
race: the human race. I do
not have the right to do to
my neighbor what is hap-
pening there. Nor do my
neighbors have the right to
do it to me.”
More than $1.5 million in federal funds headed to Oregon
East Oregonian
WASHINGTON —
Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Jeff
Merkley and Ron Wyden
on Tuesday, March 22,
announced more than $1.5
million in Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency
funds is headed to Oregon
to help fund the Confeder-
ated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation acquisi-
tion of fi ve properties in the
fl oodplain.
“I saw fi rsthand how the
fl ood in February 2020 was
devastating to the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Uma-
tilla Indian Reservation and
other residents in Umatilla
County,” Merkley said in a
press release. “I am pleased
that CTUIR will now have
the funding needed to safely
remove structures that were
damaged beyond repair by
the raging fl oodwaters. This
cleanup is an important
step in the tribe’s remark-
able eff orts to restore fl ood-
plains and protect water
quality. I look forward to
continuing to work with
Oregon’s sovereign tribal
nations to ensure they have
the resources their commu-
nities need to thrive.”
“The impact of the
February 2020 fl oods in
Eastern Oregon was pain-
fully clear in the faces of
the community I met with
at the Red Cross shelter
and the emergency opera-
tions center,” Wyden said in
the release. “The destruc-
tion landed especially hard
on the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Res-
ervation. And I’m glad to
have teamed up with tribal
offi cials to secure these fed-
eral emergency funds for
this cleanup and property
acquisitions that are essen-
tial steps in the road to eco-
nomic recovery.”
The grant comes to a
total of $1,524,951.53 to
help fund the acquisition
of every structure on fi ve
properties in the fl oodplain
as well as the required
assessments, studies and
environmental historic
preservation review nec-
essary to demolish and/or
restore the properties in the
fl oodplain.
“This will help Umatilla
Indian Reservation residents
recover from the February
2020 fl ood of the Umatilla
River that was so devas-
tating to so many homes and
so much property,” said Kat
Brigham, chair of the Board
Union County Business Grants Available
The 2022 Union County Business Assistance Grant Program is currently
accepting applications from small businesses financially affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible applicants may receive up to $10,000.
Applications, eligibility requirements, and additional information is available
on the Union County website at www.union-county.org or by calling 541-963-
1001. Completed and signed applications packets must be received via email
at bizgrant@union-county.org or hand delivered to
1106 K Avenue by 12:00 noon on Friday, April 1, 2022.
This grant program is being made available due to federal funding received from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund.
of Trustees of the Confeder-
ated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation. We are
extremely grateful to Sen-
ator Merkley and Senator
Wyden for their support.”
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