But do all those packed town halls — 2,000 people in
Bend alone — mean that Walden is vulnerable in the 2018
election?
Walden has more than $1 million cash on hand for the
election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Previous Democratic challenger Jim Crary has filed
against him. Para-Olympian and Iditarod racer Rachael
Scdoris-Salerno announced May 16 that she intends to run,
and Willamette Week reports that Chris Van Dyke, the son
of actor Dick Van Dyke, and stonemason Michael Byrne
are running as Democrats as well. And the Bend Bulletin
adds to that number with reports that Dr. Julian Bell of
Ashland, who ran against Gov. Kate Brown in the Demo-
cratic Primary, is entering the contest.
Former Oregon Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins, now
chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon, is cautiously
optimistic that Walden’s opponents could have a better
chance in the 2018 election.
“There could be a significant difference in his electabil-
ity in this very election season,” she says, but adds that
“I’m not so foolish to think that the strong advantages Re-
publicans have will be overcome in one election cycle.”
She points to the nearly weekly protests outside
Walden’s Bend and Jackson County offices and the high
now, Atkins says it’s “really important for people to go
through their Rolodex and see who they know in eastern
Oregon to help them have a stronger voice.”
While she says she hopes Walden is listening to people
all over the state, “It’s more powerful from someone in the
district.”
Barb Campbell is one of those people in Walden’s dis-
trict — Campbell is on the Bend City Council. EW caught
her on the phone as she finished up a protest outside
Walden’s Bend offices. Campbell echoes Nolan’s senti-
ment that the health care bill is a tax bill, saying it will
redistribute wealth from the very poor to the very rich.
According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, the
bill would cut taxes “by nearly $900 billion over the next
decade, mostly benefitting the highest-income Americans.”
The TPC’s analysis shows that the highest income 20 per-
cent of households, those making $150,000 or more, would
receive 80 percent of the benefits of the tax cuts. The top 1
percent, who will be making $772,000 or more, would get
half the benefit, and those in the top 0.1 percent, who will
be making $4 million-plus, would get 28 percent.”
“One of our concerns here in Bend is Mr. Walden seems
to divide his time quite clearly between folks in places he is
getting money — and most of that money is coming from
big business interests Big Tobacco, Big Pharma.” But then,
Campbell says, Walden spends his time “farther east in
those tiny little towns getting his votes from people on the
edge of poverty but convincing them he’s in their corner,
playing both sides of the field.”
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that
the top five industries contributing to Walden’s campaign
voted for Trump, the Donald won by 20 points in Walden’s
2nd congressional district as a whole.
University of Oregon geography professor Peter Walker
spends a great deal of his time on Oregon’s east side. He’s
at work on a book on the Malheur occupation by the Bundy
family and others who believe in the privatization of public
lands — a group made up mostly of people, Walker re-
minds us, who are not from Oregon.
“The irony is the Bundys of Nevada came to eastern
Oregon and their aspirations were much more radical than
people understood at the time —the overthrow of the U.S.
government.” An ideology Walker says, most people in
Harney County did not support.
However, Walker says, Walden, who has a long history
of opposing federal involvement in land use, “made a fa-
mous speech a few days after the Malheur takeover hap-
pened and tried to have it both ways. He doesn’t condone
violence,” Walker says, but “it’s pretty clear he’s sympa-
thetic to the basic ideological view of the Bundys — fed-
eral control should be minimal or nonexistent.”
Arran Robertson of Oregon Wild says of Walden’s
stances on public lands and logging that “I feel like Greg
Walden adapts with whatever position he needs to adapt to
in his current role”
For his book, Walker says he interviewed ranchers who
are “steadfastly, staunchly opposed to the Bundy ideology
and occupation,” but voted for Trump because they are
“genetic Republicans who could not conceive of not vot-
ing for a Republican.” Ironically, Trump’s administration,
whose policies Walden’s votes indicate he is in lockstep
with, actually has reduced local control by removing Bu-
‘Here’s a guy who traffics on being likeable and
he’s become ONE OF THEM. He’s the swamp.’
— J A C K O H M A N , E D I T O R I A L C A R TO O N I S T
town hall turnout, which she attributes to Democrats who
would have been working against him anyway, but also
to his faithful Republican constituents who were appalled
that he was the lead person on the health care bill.
Atkins says that because Oregon so thoroughly jumped
in on the health care expansion, doctors can provide heath
care in a way they didn’t before, due to the increase in in-
surance.
In Oregon, 654,000 people will be affected if a new
health bill removes protections for those with pre-existing
conditions, Atkins says.
In Walden’s district alone, 129,000 constituents have
health care as a result of the ACA Medicaid expansion, she
says, and stand to lose it under Trumpcare.
In the middle of the battle over health care, Oregon is
dealing with a Medicaid error: The state got approval to
skip the annual eligibility check on its Medicaid clients but
then failed to check later to see if recipients still qualified,
meaning it dispensed millions of dollars in Medicaid as-
sistance with no idea if the Oregonians receiving it were
still eligible.
Post Trump, the Democratic central committee is seeing
a huge influx all over the state and the group will hold its
next central committee meeting in Burns because, Atkins
says, “We do want to be visible in eastern Oregon, and be-
cause Harney County has revitalized itself I think Walden
will be hearing a much louder Democratic voice than he
has in the past.”
One change that looms for Walden’s vast district won’t
occur until after the 2020 census. As cities such as Bend
grow, many are predicting Oregon will be re-districted, and
a 6th congressional district might be created.
For those who want to hold Walden accountable right
14
May 25, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
in 2015-16 were TV/movies/music, pharmaceuticals/
health products, health professionals, telecom services and
oil and gas.
In addition to taking issue with Walden on heath care,
Campbell points to a lack of progress on infrastructure
such as roads, and a lack of funding for education during
Walden’s tenure. “There are children in Greg Walden’s dis-
trict — in the U.S. — who can’t afford to go to school five
days a week” because of a lack of education funding, she
says.
“A lot of voters in Bend see him as he doesn’t do any
harm and he’s super powerful and it’s good for us to have
someone who has been there forever.”
At an April town hall in Hood River, Walden was asked
about immigration in front of a crowd full of fairly left
leaning voters. “Unless you’re Native American,” he re-
sponded, “we’re all immigrants.”
A good answer for that liberal crowd, but they were less
satisfied with the rest of his answer, which mentioned bor-
der security. “It’s time to make sure we have a legal work-
force that can come and go,” he told the crowd.
The representative then assured his constituents that
former President Obama deported more immigrants than
any other administration. And he reminded them that,
while only 31 percent of people in the Hood River area
reau of Land Management advisory groups and local land
use input.
“A lot of these ranchers are feeling like he’s going on
the opposite direction from where they wanted him to be
going,” Walker says.
“There’s a lot of grumbling about health care,” Walker
continues. “Rural people, ranchers, loggers — they are not
stupid and they know when something’s being taken away
from them.” But at the same time, he says, the protesters
who have shown up at town halls are “not really the style
of a lot of people in that area. People have compared it to
the Tea Party movement where the most outraged are the
ones who show up.”
Walden’s district is “deeply conservative,” Walker says,
and people have a sense that they are not being listened
to by those on Oregon’s west side, in Eugene, Salem and
Portland.
“For people in eastern Oregon, it’s not controversial, or
even in question that there’s been a long simmering sense
of not being listened to, and Walden has been a key voice
in that.”
In his Jan. 16. 2016 remarks before Congress on the
Malheur armed takeover, Walden said, “We need to be bet-
ter at hearing people from all walks of life and all regions
of our country and understanding this anger that is out
there and what we can do to bring about correct change
and peaceful resolution.”
Voters in Walden’s vast eastern district have histori-
cally not felt heard by the rest of Oregon and by politi-
cians. Fast-forward to the recent town halls full of angry
post-health-care-vote constituents and the question arises:
As Walden throws his lot in with Trump in vote after vote,
is it Walden who isn’t listening?