A4 THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
Obituaries
Redistricting roils legislative races east of Cascades
Mary Louise Bliven
(nee Delger)
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
In Oregon politics, the Cas-
cades have served as a polit-
ical firewall for the past de-
cade.
Democrats and Republi-
cans running for the Oregon
Legislature would slug it out
in the Portland suburbs, along
the coast, spots in the Willa-
mette Valley, and the timber-
lands of the southwest.
But east of the mountains
was rock-solid red Republi-
can.
Any state lawmaker from
The Dalles, Bend and Klam-
ath Falls and east more than
250 miles to Hermiston,
Pendleton, the Wallowas,
Baker City, La Grande, and
Ontario, was sure to have an
“R” for Republican party des-
ignation in Salem. It was pos-
sible to drive nine hours from
Hells Canyon in the far north-
east to Klamath Lake in the
far southwest and never pass
through a Democratic district.
Until 2020.
Now, halfway along that
route, soon after turning left
from U.S. Highway 26 onto
U.S. Highway 97 is House Dis-
trict 54 in Bend, represented
for the past two years by Dem-
ocrat Jason Kropf. His election
ended Democrats’ frustration
at a decade of losses to a string
of moderate Republicans —
Jason Conger, Knute Buehler,
and Cheri Helt.
Now, redistricting for the
2022 election has scrambled
familiar political boundaries
across the state, putting old
strongholds of each party un-
der siege.
Democrats are looking to
hold or expand the 2020 elec-
tion results that gave them a
37-22 edge in the House and
an 18-12 advantage in the
Senate.
“Our base is fired up and
we are eager to take our mes-
sage to voters in November,”
said Oliver Muggli, executive
director of the Senate Demo-
cratic Leadership Fund.
Republicans want to at the
very least deny Democrats
their current three-fifths su-
permajorities that allow the
party to pass taxes and other
financial bills without any Re-
publican votes.
GOP strategists say polls
giving outgoing incumbent
Gov. Kate Brown poor per-
formance marks will trans-
late into a cool reception for
continued Democratic domi-
nance in Salem.
“It is 2022 and we have the
worst governor in America,
and Oregonians who really ar-
en’t happy with the direction
the state is going,” said Bryan
Iverson, a Prineville politi-
cal consultant for Republican
races for the Legislature. He’s
also the husband of House
March 15, 1944 — May
13, 2022
Born March 15, 1944, in
Fort Worth, Texas, Mary
moved to St. Paul, Minne-
sota in early
childhood and
graduated from
St. Paul Murray
High School
in 1962. She
Bliven
attended the
University of
Idaho, graduating in 1966
with a bachelor’s degree in
Art. It was there that she
met her first husband, Jerry
Bliven. They moved to Red-
mond, where Jerry taught
at Redmond Junior High
School, and Mary taught
Art for 25 years at Red-
mond High School.
After Jerry’s pass-
ing in 1983, Mary mar-
ried Chancy Ball in 1986.
Chancy also taught in the
Redmond School District
and coached wrestling for
many years. After retire-
ment, they enjoyed travel-
ling the United States and
to many places around the
world. Mary loved her his-
toric Redmond home, the
yard in the summer, and
her time with friends and
family.
Mary was an accom-
plished watercolor artist.
She was a past President of
the Watercolor Society of
Oregon, the Juniper Liter-
ary Club and the Central
Oregon Retired Educators.
She was a member of Kappa
Alpha Theta Fraternity.
Mary is survived by her
husband, Chancy Ball,
of Oro Valley, Arizona;
son, Max Bliven, of Red-
mond; daughter, Sara Califf
(Mathias) of Camas, Wash-
ington; four grandchildren;
sister, Anne Hilton (Robert)
of Tucson, Arizona; sister
Jane Delger (Jens) of Apen,
Germany. Mary was pre-
ceded in death by her par-
ents, Josephine and Arnold
Delger, and her first hus-
band Jerry Bliven.
In lieu of flowers, memo-
rial gifts to the University of
Minnesota School of Phar-
macy — Arnold D Delger
Fund for Pharmacy Student
Leadership — Fund #2315
are suggested.
Tim Gruver / The Center Square
The Oregon state capitol building in Salem, Oregon
“Our base is fired up and we are eager to
take our message to voters in November.”
“It is 2022 and we have the worst governor in America, and Oregonians
who really aren’t happy with the direction the state is going.”
— Oliver Muggli, executive director of the Senate
Democratic Leadership Fund
— Bryan Iverson, Prineville political consultant for Republican races for the
Legislature
Minority Leader Vikki Bre-
ese-Iverson, R-Prineville.
Both Democrats and Re-
publicans, along with much of
the media, have used Dave’s
Redistricting, a deeply detailed
breakdown of political dis-
tricts across the nation, to esti-
mate odds in the new districts.
The non-partisan website
takes a cross-section of records
to estimate partisan strength.
The result is a rating of which
party is favored, D for Demo-
crat or R for Republican, and a
percentage partisan tilt.
Redistricting and new cal-
culations have both parties
scanning the map for seats to
flip or double down to hold.
Most of the swing districts are
west of the Cascades, with the
Salem area, Portland suburbs,
the far northwest and Ashland
area receiving party leaders’
attention.
But after becoming a new
battleground in 2020, Demo-
crats are hoping to keep a toe-
hold in the Bend area and ex-
pand outward along with the
ongoing population growth.
Rebalancing districts would
mean populous areas having
more seats covering less area.
Rural areas would have fewer
seats covering larger areas.
House District 54 still covers
most of Bend and has a D+24
partisan edge. Kropf is seek-
ing re-election and will face
Republican Judy Trego.
Just to the north is House
District 53, where Rep. Jack
Zika, R-Redmond, is the in-
cumbent. Nicknamed “the
doughnut district” to describe
how it wrapped around Bend,
it took in Redmond, part
of north Bend, and swung
around to pull in Sunriver and
La Pine.
Population growth put the
old district well over the max-
imum for each House seat.
Mapmakers cleaved off the
southern portion. What’s left
is a district that’s gone from
R+6 to D+4. Zika announced
last November that he
wouldn’t seek another term.
Bend attorney Emerson
Levy is the Democratic nomi-
nee. She gave Zika a close race
in 2020 and now competes in
a district with a much better
shot of going for a Democrat.
Michael Sipe, a north Bend
businessman, was the sole Re-
publican primary candidate
and will fight Levy to hold the
seat for the GOP.
Beyond the immediate
Bend area, the stretching and
swerving of lines for less pop-
ulated areas created some-
times troubling musical chairs
for GOP lawmakers.
Sunriver had been part of
House District 53, held by
Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sun-
river, for 16 years before he re-
tired in 2018. Though a Red-
mond resident, Zika was still
in the same county.
Under the new maps, Sun-
river and La Pine are the
northern end of the realigned
House District 55, a long,
skinny swath roughly parallel-
ing Highway 97 all the way to
the California border. Rep. E.
Werner Reschke, R-Klamath
Falls, is the Republican nom-
inee for the new district and
the overwhelming favorite to
win in November.
Redistricting also lopped
off much of the former dis-
trict of Rep. Daniel Bonham,
R-The Dalles. To stay in the
House, he would have had to
challenge Rep. Greg Smith,
R-Heppner, the longest-serv-
ing member of the House.
Bonham was thrown
a political lifeline of sorts
when Sen. Chuck Thomsen,
R-Hood River, decided not to
seek another term. Bonham
switched to the Senate race in
the strongly Republican dis-
trict.
Breese-Iverson won an un-
contested primary for the new
House District 59. She previ-
ously represented House Dis-
trict 55, but did not move.
But redistricting pushed
her district north and west, to
include all of Crook County,
parts of Jefferson County and
the northernmost chunk of
Deschutes County. Lawrence
Jones, a retired state worker
from Alaska who now lives in
Prineville and is a substitute
teacher in local schools, is the
Democratic nominee.
In a sign of how redistrict-
ing has stretched the acreage
of rural districts, Brothers in
Deschutes County will be one
of the towns in House District
60, which covers six counties
in two time zones. Rep. Mark
Owens, R-Crane, is running
for re-election. No Democrat
filed for the race in the over-
whelming GOP stronghold.
The full political reckoning
in the Central Oregon area
won’t be known until 2024,
when the Senate District 27
seat of Senate Minority Leader
Tim Knopp, R-Bend, will be
up for election. Knopp won
a tight race in 2020 against
Democrat Eileen Kiely of
Sunriver.
Despite redistricting, sena-
tors like Knopp whose terms
aren’t up for another two years
retain their seats until 2024.
But any bid for re-election
would be in a more Demo-
cratic-tilted district centered
around Bend and Redmond.
The marquee race in No-
vember will certainly be
among a trio of major can-
didates for governor: Demo-
crat Tina Kotek, Republican
Christine Drazan, and Betsy
Johnson, who is running
without party affiliation.
But it will be the race for
the legislature that will deter-
mine the mix of lawmakers
they will be dealing with for
the next two years.
█
Continued from A1
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Richard Kuehn of Red-
mond, formerly Corvallis
and Northern Iowa, re-
cently passed away..
Services: Memorial ser-
vice for Richard Kuehn
will be held Sat., June 25, at
11 a.m. at Zion Lutheran
Church in Redmond, Or-
egon.
gwarner@eomediagroup.com
March
A large group rallies during March for Our Lives, a gun violence protest in Bend Saturday.
Richard Kuehn, M.D.
“You can still have the sec-
ond amendment, a person
can still protect themselves
and protect their home, they
don’t need an automatic
weapon to do it,” Miller said.
“You don’t hunt with an auto-
matic weapon.”
Miller said she believes
there are a lot of gun owners
who see the importance of
gun reform.
“I do think there are a lot
of gun owners now that are
starting to look at this and
starting to say ‘there is a com-
promise that we can make,
that needs to be made and we
need to hold our lawmakers
accountable,’” she added.
Hayden Kasal-Barsky, who
graduated from Bend High
School last year and is now
attending the University of
Hawaii at Manoa on Oahu, is
pursuing a degree in teaching
special education. She is back
in Bend visiting her family
and decided to come to the
protest on Saturday to stand
in solidarity with victims of
gun violence.
“I’m really sick and tired of
being a 19 year old, a young
person, and just standing
around while other people are
getting murdered and poli-
ticians are calling it a mental
health crisis instead of a gun
issue,” Kasal-Barsky said.
Kasal-Barsky said recent
mass shootings have made
her a little uneasy when it
comes to going back to school
in the fall and she called on
the
community to stand with
students.
“I am even more scared to
go back to school,” she added.
“Anyone can get shot at any
moment, so just stand with
us.”
█
jsiess@bendbulletin.com,
541-617-7820