Just out., October 01, 1990, Page 9, Image 9

LONSDALE
him.
But Hatfield’s dismal voting record on
human rights issues is only one reason
Lonsdale wants to dethrone the five-term
legislator.
“Mark Hatfield is the guy most respon­
sible for cutting down our ancient forests in
Oregon. I thought about running against Bob
Smith, who I think is wrong on issues, maybe
even more than Mark Hatfield is. That’s why
I’ve taken on Hatfield,” Lonsdale explains.
“He’s also wrong on other issues. He’s wrong
on choice, he’s wrong on campaign finance, but
the thing that I really hold against him the most
is his timber position.”
To Lonsdale, the timber in Oregon is a
Human rights, timber and
bounty because of its beauty. He fears the
campaign financing tops
timber industry won’t be stopped before that
bounty becomes logged booty.
Senate candidates agenda
“I’m really worried about the timber crisis
in our state. The state is more polarized over
this timber question now than it’s ever been.
What
he (Hatfield) is trying to do in timber is
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what Oregon was doing 25 years ago. Our state
has changed a lot in 25 years. We’re no longer
ll you really need to do to find out how
so strongly dependent on the timber industry as
Harry Lonsdale, candidate for U.S.
we were in 1966 when he was first elected. I
Senate, feels about gay and lesbian rights is to think he’s very much out of touch with the
walk through the front door of his campaign
Oregon economy.
office. There, on a folding table, amongst
“I think this is the finest quality of life in the
stacks of mimeographed news clippings
United States that we have here in Oregon. And
highlighting his campaign, is Lonsdale’s human
while I have great sympathy for timber workers
rights policy. The first statement says “I
who might be put out of their job because of the
support and promise to work for full civil and
human rights for all Americans, no matter their
race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Not one to skimp on the specifics, Lonsdale
"The state is more polarized
goes on to say he supports eliminating
over this timber question now than
discrimination against lesbians and gays in the
armed forces and in immigration policies and
it's ever been."
improving access for gay and lesbian couples to
federal entitlement and other programs. He also
supports adding a prohibition against discrimi­
preservation of the ancient forest, I also feel we
nation based on sexual orientation to the 1964
have to show compassion and help them find
Civil Rights Act.
new jobs.”
"We need to amend the civil rights act of
As an example of the possibilities that exist
1964 with a sexual orientation clause. You bet.
to reemploy displaced loggers, Lonsdale points
It’s an idea whose time has come, to use a
to a wooden doors and window frame business
cliché,” says Lonsdale, who has never held an
in Bend. When it began years ago it was quite
elected office. "The world’s changed a heck of
small and employed few. It has grown much
a lot in the last 10 years. It’s changed
and today it employs many of the mill workers
enormously and it’s time we recognized that in
displaced from their jobs because of automa­
the U.S. Congress.”
tion. "We need things like that in other timber-
Although Lonsdale says he doesn’t want to
dependent towns in Oregon,” Lonsdale says.
get into the debate over ACT UP’s outing of
“Old industries die, new industries are bom.
Sen. Mark Hatfield, he says he is willing to
I think we have to retrain and we have to have
attack Hatfield’s stand. “I don’t comment at all
people who are willing to be retrained. I’m not
on Mark Hatfield’s sexual orientation or
talking about training people for minimum-
anybody else’s,” Lonsdale says. “I am willing
wage jobs as hamburger flippers, like all these
to attack him (Hatfield) on his stand. I think
loggers seem to be worried about becoming. I
he’s been wrong. He’s one of the Senate’s gay- ' think there are well -paid jobs in the timber
bashers, he and Jesse Helms and this guy (Sen.)
products industry besides logging. Right now
Armstrong from Colorado. I think they are
there's a lot of denial going on out there,” he
three of the more prominent people that have
says. “People are saying, ‘We’ve been loggers
not shown courtesy or the right attitude toward
all our lives. Our grandfathers were loggers.’
people who see the world in a different way.
Folks, let’s face reality. The world changes all
They’ve just not been open-minded. Let’s say
the time.”
they’re close-minded. Hatfield’s in that crowd
Lonsdale says he believes the workers must
and I think that’s one of the reasons to remove
be willing to look at new jobs. “I just think they
LAYS IT ON
THE TABLE
A
PHOTO B Y B E TH A . A LLE N
In the back room of his campaign office, Lonsdale watches a news report o f an earlier interview.
can’t dig their heels in and say, ‘We’ll never be
retrained. All we know how to do is cut down
trees.’ I don’t believe they are dumb. I believe
these people are intelligent. They learned one
job, why can’t they learn another job?” he asks.
“They have to go beyond the denial stage and
say, ‘It’s going to change. Do we want to be out
on the street or do we want to have a new iob?’
My feeling is that we all want them to have
new jobs.
“I do think the feds have to supply money
for retraining. We need low-interest-rate loans
to create new businesses in timber-dependent
towns. We do need some government help to
help these businesses grow. We also have to
stop log exports immediately. Not just from
public lands but from private lands as well,”
Lonsdale insists. “We need to keep that raw
material here and create new jobs out of that
raw material.”
According to Lonsdale, Hatfield is obligated
to continue the tree harvesting because he has
accepted large contributions from timber
industry political action committees (PACs).
“More than anything else. I’m just sick of the
mess in Washington. People back there just
don’t seem to have any courage. They’re
owned by special interests, including our own
Sen. Mark Hatfield, who I think takes a whole
lot of money from special interests and is
beholden to some of that money, maybe all of
it,” Lonsdale adds.
The businessman from Bend insists his
campaign is not a personal vendetta against
Hatfield though. “He’ s taken a lot of his
money this time from timber industry PACs
and he’s become the chief spokesman for the
timber industry back in the Senate, but it isn’t
just him and just this issue. It’s the whole sort
of lack of integrity, the whole sort of lack of
courage back in Washington that has given us
the $3 trillion debt we have. We’re the largest
debtor nation in the world. It’s given us the
savings and loan scandal which is the largest
financial disaster in the history of our country. I
just think we need more integrity back in the
Senate, frankly,” Lonsdale says.
PAC contributions are the downfall of
campaign financing according to Lonsdale. “I
feel we need people back there who are
indebted to no one but their own constituents.
I’m working for the rest of us as opposed to the
special interests,” contends Lonsdale.
“Right now the only people that can run and
win are people with name recognition or are
rich or both,” says Lonsdale who has contrib­
uted $450,000 of his own money to his
campaign. “But people who are extremely good
or smart or capable or whatever, who are right
on all the issues have no chance of winning
unless they also have either name familiarity,
money or both and that’s just unfair. We have a
very uneven playing field. I think we need a
new way of electing people to office.”
Lonsdale says his idea to level the field is to
provide free television time to qualified
candidates, “Then people who aren’t rich but
are qualified could actually have a chance of
running and winning. We’re spending an
enormous amount of money right now for
television.” He said three quarters of his entire
campaign expenses, or about one half million
dollars, will be spent on television advertising.
It’s the need for a constant infusion of money to
feed the advertising monster that make PAC
contributions hard to turn down. “Most of those
people raise money from sources that they then
become indebted to.”
“The airwaves basically belong to all
citizens,” Lonsdale points out. “I would say,
‘Okay, stations, thou shalt provide X [number
of] hours a year for qualified political candi­
dates and you foot the bill.’ What they do is
they pass the cost of this free advertising on to
their customers. That’s what every legitimate
business docs. It would raise the cost of
advertising a trivial amount, maybe 1 percent.”
Lonsdale says most of the PAC money goes
to the incumbents. He believes the current
campaign finance system favors incumbents
three ways: They have name familiarity that
comes with being a member of Congress; they
PHOTO B Y CHRIS FON ES
have free mailing privileges; and they get
enormous campaign contributions. “So they’ve
got it their way three different ways,” he says.
“It’s just a very unfair game.”
If a chink can be found in Lonsdale’s armor
it’s in the minority make-up of his own
company. Bend Research, Inc., in Bend, Ore.
“It’s mostly a WASP company, I must
confess. I suppose our minority make-up is
pretty much like the minority make-up in Bend.
It’s a lily-white town,” he admits. “I think
there’s one black family in all of Bend out of
18,000 people. So our minority make-up may
not be anything like the national average.”
Women are nonexistent in management
positions on the technical side of his business,
but Lonsdale refuses to take full responsibility
for that situation.
“Our company is a high-tech company.
We’ve been searching for a long time for a very
qualified senior woman scientist and we
haven’t found one,” he says. Lonsdale says his
company has been looking for five years for a
woman with the right qualifications. “Right
now the company is run by three white males.
That’s not because we’re anti-black or anti­
woman. Only something like 10 percent of the
doctorates in science in this country are
women. So it’s a pretty slim field to pick from.
The women we have in management positions
run our personnel and our bookkeeping
department but they don’t run the technical side
of our company.“ Lonsdale says he doesn’t
know of any gay men or lesbians working for
him in Bend.
"I feel we need people back
there who are indebted to no one
but their own constituents."
His campaign staff is also lacking racial
minorities, although women account for about
half the staff. And his office administrator,
Bruce Ansbury, is a gay man. Lonsdale said his
connection with Right to Privacy PAC leaders,
John Baker and Kccston Lowery, will help
keep him in touch with the changing needs of
the gay and lesbian community. “I’ve gone to
their functions and they’ve come to mine so I
feel pretty well connected with them.”
Acknowledging that some candidates have
used gay and lesbian support then turned their
backs on the community and that he has no
voting record to prove himself, Lonsdale said
it’s the basic integrity he has built his life on
that will have to be his record.
“I don’t plan to say one thing and do
something else, “ he says. “I’ve built a fife of
integrity and I don’t plan to walk away from
that.”
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