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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2018
Marquis: ‘I intend to be more outspoken’
get involved with that.” Rog-
ers said. “Voters in Clatsop
County haven’t had much of
a choice.”
Continued from Page 1A
“It was a very odd way to
enter elected office,” he said.
“That was very challenging.”
‘Fortunate’
Top prosecutor
As the county’s top prose-
cutor, Marquis handled many
of the most high-profile trials
over the past few decades. But
he also delegated cases to dep-
uties such as Dawn McIntosh
— now a Circuit Court judge
— and Chief Deputy District
Attorney Ron Brown.
Brown is expected to run
for district attorney in the May
election.
“As much as I enjoyed it,
I was never going to give oth-
ers in my office the chance to
learn how to do it and, frankly,
two brains are better than
one,” Marquis said. “Part of
that, I think, is just growing
up as a manager, particularly
of a DA’s office.”
He most clearly recalled
the cases over his career where
he developed a relationship
with the victim’s family.
The most recent exam-
ple came in the case of Jes-
sica Smith, a Washington state
woman who was sentenced
in 2016 to life in prison for
drowning her infant daugh-
ter and attempting to kill her
teenage daughter at a Cannon
Beach hotel.
Marquis was giving a lec-
ture to law students in Chicago
in 2014 when he received the
call about the case. He hur-
ried home and spent the next
few days in Cannon Beach
as authorities searched for
Smith. Over the course of the
two-year case, he developed
relationships with the daugh-
ter who survived the attack as
well as the father, he said.
Vocal district attorney
Marquis, who describes
himself as a centrist Demo-
crat, has cultivated a reputa-
tion as one of the most vocal
district attorneys in Oregon
and across the country.
He has been a leader in
prosecuting animal abuse and
elder abuse crimes. He has
spoken out against marijuana
legalization and the reclassi-
fication of heroin and meth-
amphetamine possession from
felonies to misdemeanors. He
has advocated for truth in sen-
tencing and the death pen-
alty. He has also been among
the biggest skeptics of reform
initiatives intended to reduce
prison use for drug and prop-
erty crimes.
His columns have been
published in newspapers from
The Daily Astorian and The
Oregonian to The New York
Times, and he has made a host
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
District Attorney Josh Marquis announces to his staff Wednesday that he will not seek re-election.
of national television appear-
ances. A frequent voice on
criminal justice issues at the
state Capitol in Salem, Mar-
quis has also testified before
Congress five times.
“I’ve seen Josh on just
about everything,” Brown
said. “He’s been on Court TV
and you name it. He enjoys
that kind of thing.”
David Rogers, the execu-
tive director of the American
Civil Liberties Union of Ore-
gon, has challenged Marquis
on a number of issues. But
his ability to convey his view-
points is not one of them.
“Mr. Marquis likes atten-
tion and puts himself out
there,” Rogers said. “There’s
probably much more knowl-
edge of where he stands than
of other district attorneys in
the state.”
Marquis, a former journal-
ist, shrugs off the suggestion
that he courts publicity.
“The thrill of being in The
New York Times sort of wore
off about 10 years ago,” he
said.
Marquis said the only
higher office he’s considered
was U.S. attorney in Oregon.
After campaigning for Barack
Obama for president in 2008,
he was a finalist for the job
but eventually passed over, he
said.
District Attorney Josh Marquis works in his office on the
third floor of the courthouse in Astoria.
“In reflection, I’m prob-
ably glad I didn’t get it. You
don’t have as much auton-
omy as I do as district attor-
ney,” Marquis said. “I’ve
never sought any other polit-
ical office and, frankly, being
the DA is a terrible way to do
it. You piss off too many peo-
ple either by prosecuting them
or not prosecuting them.”
Local duels
Marquis has long sup-
ported a new county jail and
fought to move drunken-driv-
ing cases from Astoria Munic-
ipal Court to Circuit Court.
The Clatsop County Board
of Commissioners briefly
revoked his stipend in 2007
before it was reinstated, a
move that Marquis maintains
was a political jab.
“I’m sure people feel like
it’s playing whack-a-mole to
shut me up sometimes. I was
annoying.” Marquis said. “I
have never withdrawn from
public debate out of concern
that this is going to bite me
in my political ambitions, and
I’m sure I’ve paid a price for it
as a result.”
Most recently, he has bat-
tled the ACLU, which raises a
stern eyebrow to what it views
as Marquis’ tough-on-crime
policies. The organization
also launched a campaign last
year to inform voters about
district attorneys in the hopes
that it will lead to criminal jus-
tice reform. Marquis has criti-
cized the campaign, saying it
has been led by out-of-state
interests.
As a core example of what
it says is a lack of account-
ability among district attor-
neys, the ACLU has pointed
to a number of top prosecu-
tors in the state, like Marquis,
who often run unopposed.
Marquis said, though, that
the campaign did not influ-
ence his decision not to seek
re-election.
“If it was up to that, I’d run
again just to prove to them
that I can get elected for a sev-
enth term,” Marquis said.
Rogers doesn’t doubt that.
“Josh Marquis is a strong-
minded person,” Rogers said.
“It would be great if we had
that ability and power with
him, but he seems stuck in his
ways.”
Rogers points to that ten-
dency as a possible reason
why opponents have rarely
challenged Marquis around
election season.
“He certainly doesn’t hesi-
tate to show harsh words with
those he’s disagreed with.
People may not be willing to
Marquis
credits
his
upbringing for his ability to
juggle multiple things at once.
His mother came from
a Mormon family, and his
great-grandfather was a
polygamist. His father was a
refugee from Nazi Germany.
They did not have a television
in the house until he was 17
years old, forcing him to read
books night and day.
“I was very fortunate who
my parents were,” Marquis
said.
The curiosity from read-
ing led him to pursue a career
in journalism in college. Even
after attending law school, he
spent time in the early 1980s
both as a reporter for the Los
Angeles Daily Journal — a
legal newspaper — and as a
speechwriter for then-Cal-
ifornia Attorney General
John Van de Kamp.
“I
really thought I was going to
be a journalist when I was
an undergraduate,” Marquis
said. “Most of my friends
were journalists, most of the
women I was dating were
reporters until, in fact, I mar-
ried Cindy in 1995.”
His wife, Cindy Price,
serves on the Astoria City
Council.
Journalism offered Mar-
quis a glimpse into a number
of realms, including district
attorneys’ offices.
“I just found what they
did in the DA’s office abso-
lutely fascinating,” Marquis
said. “My time as a reporter
made me learn that if I wanted
to defend the poor and the
helpless and the vulnera-
ble, it wasn’t going to be as a
defense attorney. It was going
to be as a prosecutor.”
Marquis does not plan to
run for political office, he
said. He also vowed not to try
to run the district attorney’s
office from the outside.
“If they want my counsel,
they’ll ask for it,” he said. “I
don’t plan on thinking that I
can continue running or influ-
encing that office any more
than any other citizen.”
But don’t expect him
to back away from public
debate. In retirement, he will
have more time to read, to
write and to talk. He will also
have more freedom to express
his opinions.
“I intend to be more out-
spoken — not to be the shy,
soft-spoken, cautious individ-
ual I’ve been for the last 24
years,” Marquis said.
He was only half-joking.
Measure 101: Sen. Johnson supports measure Alley: ‘People have
to use the bathroom’
Continued from Page 1A
An estimated $320 million
in tax revenue the measure
is referring to voters would
be matched by $963 million
from the federal government if
approved, Wentz said.
“Without Measure 101,
we’re facing a $1.3 billion
budget cut,” she said.
Thorsen said the hospi-
tal’s finances have improved
as more people have become
insured under the federal
Affordable Care Act and
the state’s Medicaid expan-
sion. Low-income patients
used to visit the emergency
room when they became sick,
because they had no health
insurance, and the hospital
was forced to write off its most
expensive care as a loss. Now
most of those same patients
have insurance and access to
primary care doctors, resulting
in better treatment.
Thorsen and the other
proponents argued that any
increase in the uninsured pop-
ulation would hurt preventa-
tive and long-term health care
for low-income Oregonians,
while threatening jobs and
programs.
State Sen. Betsy Johnson,
who supports the measure,
said the state is faced with two
choices — come up with the
funding, or take as many as
350,000 people off insurance.
“There will be very dire
consequences” if the measure
fails, she said.
Parrish and Hayden met
Continued from Page 1A
The Daily Astorian
Voters will decide on new taxes for health care on Jan. 23.
with The Daily Astorian in
December to make their case
against Measure 101. They
say the taxes being referred to
voters in the measure unfairly
place the burden for funding
Medicaid on individuals, small
businesses, school districts
and college students, while
exempting unions and large,
self-insured employers. They
also argue the state is inflating
the caseload of people on Med-
icaid and planning to use some
of the new tax revenue for pur-
poses besides health care.
“We’re pretty convinced
that in the first biennium,
they have about $195 million
already earmarked for other
purposes that will come out
of these taxes,” Hayden said,
adding that amount will only
grow each biennium.
Parrish, a critic of the state’s
handling of Medicaid expan-
sion, called the measure a hid-
den sales tax on Oregonians
buying health care insurance.
“The Legislature, and the
governor and the agency have
broken health care at every
step of the way,” she said.
“This is an opportunity to
fix it, and that’s how I would
explain it,” she added. “It is
a tax. It is unfair … in terms
of who it has been levied on,
and we can’t keep allowing the
hundreds of millions of dol-
lars of waste of our health care
dollars.”
increase in the homeless
population downtown are
problems the city has heard
more of over the past few
weeks, City Manager Brett
Estes. These issues will be
among the topics discussed
at two meetings next week:
On Tuesday at the second
meeting of a newly formed
homelessness task force, and
on Wednesday at an Astoria
City Council work session.
Calls regarding the home-
less, transient camps and
other related issues like pub-
lic urination and defeca-
tion outside businesses and
in city parks soared in 2015.
That year, a mayor-appointed
committee working on a list
of recommendations about
how to address homeless-
ness across the community
talked about the lack of pub-
lic restrooms. They began to
consider setting up portable
restrooms along the Astoria
Riverwalk. This would end
up being one of the few con-
crete suggestions to come
from the committee.
The portable restrooms
are still in place at Peo-
ples Park. Until this year,
they had not experienced
the vandalism people feared
they would, Estes said. Still,
many downtown businesses
offer bathrooms to custom-
ers only. The closest public
bathroom to most of down-
town is located on Exchange
Street, across from the his-
toric YMCA building.
Feces found in front of the
old J.C. Penney’s recently
were cleaned up by a home-
less man who was upset
about the mess and knew the
homeless person who had
done it, Interim Police Chief
Geoff Spalding said.
Though reports don’t
seem to be coming into police
as often as in past years,
Spalding said that, given the
lack of public bathrooms, “I
am guessing there’s a lot of it
going on.”
John Samp cleaned the
13th Street alley last week-
end. It took him several
hours because he hadn’t had
time to get to it very often
during the busy holiday sea-
son. He was glad he took the
time, though. Not long after
he finished, a woman push-
ing a stroller with a young
child riding inside turned
down the alley.
The Samps say they are
sympathetic to the plight of
the homeless.
“People have to use the
bathroom,” said Rosie Samp.
She caught her husband’s eye
as he made a noise of protest
and glanced back toward the
door that leads to the 13th
Street alley. “That’s just it,”
she said. “But where are they
going to go?”