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From the Left
Does Steve Novick speak for Oregon?
by Jaymee R. Cuti
Experience makes the
experience that much better.
R ealty T rust
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Kim Trip
503.309.1 828
3902 NF SANDY BIN D. PORTLAND
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Steve Novick thinks voters need something different in the U.S. Senate. He hopes to be the
change.
.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., is vulnerable.
That’s the message the Oregon Democrats
have been trying to communicate since, well,
since Steve Novick summed it up in the
Jan. 31 Willamette Week article “If 1 Ran.”
It’s been echoed on the blogosphere, particularly by devo
tees of Blue Oregon, Loaded Orygun and the national site
Daily Kos. Buzz has only increased since Novick announced
his candidacy for Smith’s U.S. Senate seat April 18.
Yet Novick—a political operative who is so smart, all the
plasticine in the Body Worlds 3 exhibit couldn’t contain his
brain—has yet to be embraced by a mainstream press still
waiting for some better-known Democrat to step forward.
That wait might end July 31, when Oregon House
Speaker Jeff Merk ley, D-Portland, will reportedly announce
whether he will run. Others on the short list of candidates—
including liberal U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Eugene, state
Sen. Kate Brown of Portland and former Oregon Gov. John
Kitzhaber—have declined.
Meanwhile, say insiders, Novick’s campaign is building
credibility, especially since announcing that the candidate
has raised more then $190,000 in the second quarter.
While his record of demonstrated support for the queer
community is somewhat sparse (he has attended some galas,
has asked friends for money to support campaigns protecting
gay rights and rocks a “Two Men, Two Women, What’s the
Problem?" bumper sticker), Novick talks the gay rights talk
in a common-sense way—that gay rights are basic rights.
Novick stands 4 feet 9 inches tall. He was bom without
fibulas and sports a hook for a left hand, although he says he
has never personally experienced discrimination.
. The New Jersey native moved to Cottage Grove when
he was 10 years old. He’s worked as an attorney with the
environmental division of the U.S. Justice Department,
where he fought polluters who violated the Clean Air and
Clean Water Acts, and served as lead counsel on the
notorious Love Canal pollution case in 1995.
In Oregon, Novick t<x>k on Bill Sizemore’s Measure 91,
which proposed a 20 percent state budget cut to schools,
health care and public safety. In 1999, he became a critic of
the Oregon Lottery’s practice of favoring retailers over schools
and instigated a successful lawsuit against the institution.
Despite the watchdog role Novick has taken on, he’s no
outsider in Oregon politics. He works as the senior project
manager for Pyramid Communications, a consulting firm
working primarily with nonprofit organizations. He was poli
cy director for Tom Bruggere’s 1996 Senate campaign and
served as chief of staff to the Oregon Senate Demcxrrats from
1997 to 1999.
Gordon Smith is vulnerable. The Oregon Democrats
have made that exhaustively clear. But how would the
“fighter with a hard left h<x)k" represent Oregonians in the
U.S.1 Senate? Read on to see if Steve Novick speaks for you.