Opinion
A4
Saturday, April 30, 2022
OUR VIEW
Join the ranks
of the unsung
volunteers
t is fi tting that a new event at the Elgin Stam-
pede will be named after longtime resident
Ty Hallgarth.
As many readers from that area probably
already know, the Elgin Stampede will include
Xtreme Bronc Riding to its lineup this year and it
will be named for Hallgarth, who died in January.
Hallgarth was president of the Elgin Stam-
peders and a member of the Stampeders board
since 2013.
His eff orts, his dedication to the event, are a
legacy that will be hard to surpass.
Hallgarth stands out because of his work ethic
and willingness to volunteer. He was steadfast
in his commitment to the Elgin Stampede, and
while he is no longer with us, the example he set
will be remembered.
Yet Hallgarth’s contributions to the Elgin rodeo
is emblematic of the many people — usually
unsung — who help with local events every year.
In a sense, he represents all of those people
who give up their time and step up to lend a
hand. He certainly didn’t do it for money but
because he cared about his community and about
the Elgin Stampede. For every area event, there
are crews who are committed to making the
events happen. When the gates open and we all
attend the Stampede or the Eastern Oregon Live-
stock Show in Union or the Union County Fair it
is often easy to forget all of the people — local
people — who toil behind the scenes to make
such happenings possible.
Whether we realize it or not, we depend on
people such as Hallgarth who every year vol-
unteer their time to ensure the events we love
remain part of our community fabric.
Becoming a volunteer isn’t just about lending
a hand. It sets an example and is a great way to
give back to the community. Hallgarth was ded-
icated to the Elgin Stampede and his work, his
foresight, paid dividends not only for the event
but for the entire county.
We need more people like Hallgarth, those
unsung volunteers who get involved and make a
diff erence.
I
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The curious case of crypto in politics
RANDY
STAPILUS
OTHER VIEWS
inners for election to the
U.S. House in Oregon,
who are mostly incum-
bents, typically raise campaign trea-
suries for the whole of an election
cycle of up to about $2 million.
Sometimes they raise more (as in
the 4th Congressional District race in
2020), but that’s unusual.
What’s happening this year in the
6th Congressional District, a new
district with no incumbent and not
even a clear front-running candidate,
is beyond unusual.
This new activity is in the Dem-
ocratic primary long before we’ve
gotten to the general election phase,
though not among the candidates
who have been active and successful
in Oregon politics. They include
state Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake
Oswego (who has many of the high-
est-profi le endorsements and has
looked like a front runner), Rep.
Teresa Alonso León, D-Woodburn,
and former Multnomah County
Commissioner Loretta Smith. They
and others have raised signifi cant but
normal-level funds.
The outside-the-norm here seems
to be driven by, of all things that
would never occur to most Orego-
nians, cryptocurrency.
First, there’s the treasury of can-
didate Cody Reynolds, who has
reported lending himself $2 million
for the campaign. As Steven Reyn-
olds, he ran for federal offi ces four
times up to 2018, including a 2016
eff ort as an independent for the U.S.
Senate, receiving only a smattering
of votes.
Whence this new infusion? Pre-
sumably, from the world of crypto-
currency; he has had an extensive
and sometimes complicated back-
ground with a number of crypto
fi rms over the last decade.
W
Phantom candidate
$5 million spend
Reynolds isn’t leading when
it comes to crypto (so far) in this
primary.
Carrick Flynn is an Oregon native
who spent most of his working life in
the Washington area, returning during
the pandemic to work from Oregon,
now at McMinnville, but never actively
involved in Oregon politics. Rivals
have called him a “phantom candi-
date,” and note he has voted just twice
in Oregon since 2000.
He would qualify as a complete
unknown with almost no chance of
winning but for this: A gusher of TV
ads backing his candidacy amounting
to $5 million from a political action
committee called Protect Our Future.
The committee is run by 30-year-old
billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, of
Phoenix, Arizona, whose money
seems to come from cryptocurrency.
The ads have overwhelmed TV
political advertising in the 6th. He has
been described as “the world’s richest
crypto billionaire.”
What’s an Arizona billionaire
doing in this Oregon race? Wikipedia
describes him as a high-end securities
trader who became heavily involved in
cryptocurrency about fi ve years ago.
“In January 2018, Bankman-Fried
organized an arbitrage trade, moving
up to $25M per day, to take advan-
tage of the higher price of bitcoin in
Japan compared to in America. After
attending a late 2018 cryptocurrency
conference in Macau, and while also
inspired by the concurrent fork (split)
of Bitcoin Cash, he moved to Hong
Kong. He founded FTX, a cryptocur-
rency derivatives exchange, in April
2019, and it then launched the fol-
lowing month.
On December 8, 2021, Bank-
man-Fried, along with other industry
executives, testifi ed before the Com-
mittee on Financial Services in rela-
tion to regulating the cryptocurrency
industry,” according to the Wikipedia
entry.
That last connects directly with
interest in races for the U.S. House.
Flynn has said he has no back-
ground in, or policy interest in cryp-
tocurrency, that his link to Protect
Our Future concerned pandemic
policy. But, especially at this stage
of the pandemic, that seems a thin
reason for spending $5 million.
That PAC infusion soon was fol-
lowed by another big assist from the
Democratic House Majority PAC,
“the only PAC focused exclusively
on electing Democrats to the U.S.
House of Representatives,” of about
$1 million. Usually it reserves dona-
tions for general election campaigns
rather than a primary, especially
where no incumbents are involved.
This got a lot of attention. U.S.
Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, com-
plained via Twitter: “I haven’t
endorsed in this race, but it’s fl at out
wrong for House Majority PAC to
be weighing in when we have mul-
tiple strong candidates vying for the
nomination.”
Most of the rest of the Demo-
cratic fi eld, including Salinas, León,
Smith, physician Kathleen Harder of
Salem, engineer Matt West and even
Reynolds signed an unusual letter of
protest.
“House Majority PAC — House
Democratic leadership’s super
PAC, allegedly tasked with holding
Republicans accountable and
electing Democrats to Congress —
should not be spending resources
to divide Democrats,” they wrote.
“With so much needed to defend the
House, how can they aff ord involve-
ment in a primary? Why is this
happening? Where is this money
coming from? And what does its
source want in exchange?”
Those questions, which sound
valid, are only a few that come to
mind. They might be obviated — for
now — by the results of the primary.
Or not.
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