4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2018
Election: Democrat has fundraising
edge in state House District 32 race
Continued from Page 1A
lic Employees Retirement
System. Her state job and her
ties to labor have raised ques-
tions about whether she would
work to address the $25 billion
unfunded liability in the pen-
sion system.
She has acknowledged a
problem of affordability among
higher-paid recipients, but said
public employees are too often
vilified. While the state cannot
walk back promises to employ-
ees, it needs to get creative in
paying down pension obliga-
tions, such as incentivizing
agencies to find cost savings
and spending any extra in bud-
gets toward paying down the
liability, she said.
Mitchell has focused her
campaign on popular social
issues such as making health
care and housing more afford-
able, while raising taxes on
the wealthy and corporations
to provide more revenue. She
has also called for more fund-
ing and career-technical oppor-
tunities in education.
Lower has emerged as the
more industry-friendly can-
didate. As of Friday, she had
raised nearly $84,000 in cash
and $32,000 worth of in-kind
contributions. Josi crossed
party lines to endorse Lower,
who has also gathered some
of his support from timber,
construction and other trade
groups, along with Republican
political action committees and
incumbents around the state.
“He gets that I want to work
on bipartisan solutions, and that
I get what the timber industry
is doing,” she said of Josi’s
endorsement. “I get what our
fishing industry is doing and
what they’re up against, and
how they’re already very heav-
ily regulated.”
Lower, a teacher, has also
focused her campaign on
improving roads and educa-
tion. She has called for more
infrastructure improvements
to the North Coast’s highways
and bridges, including a bypass
for commercial traffic around
Astoria.
Vineeta
Lower
Tiffiny
Mitchell
Like Mitchell, she has
called for more career-techni-
cal educational opportunities,
along with career assessments
to direct students toward cer-
tain career tracks and profes-
sional visits to expose them to
local jobs.
Lower declined to comment
on how she would address the
unfunded pension liability, or
her opinion on a statewide mea-
sure to ban taxes on groceries.
One area where Mitchell
and Lower differ is Measure
105, a state initiative to repeal
Oregon’s sanctuary law.
Mitchell opposes the mea-
sure, saying the state should
not waste resources helping
law enforcement go after peo-
ple whose only crime is being
in the country illegally.
Lower, an immigrant from
India, supports the measure. “If
someone is illegal, and they are
harming us, I don’t think that
they should be protected,” she
said.
Brian Halvorsen, an Inde-
pendent candidate and pro-
gressive organizer from Rock-
away Beach, has focused
his campaign almost exclu-
sively on campaign finance
reform and economic justice.
He recently formed a candi-
date committee but as of Friday
had not reported any campaign
contributions.
Like Mitchell, Halvorsen
has called on raising taxes on
the wealthy and corporations to
provide more state revenue. He
has also called for eliminating
unlimited political contribu-
tions by individuals, businesses
or unions, and closing tax loop-
holes. He advocates for rehab-
bing vacant properties and cre-
ating publicly funded housing
to address affordability.
Randell Carlson, a project
manager for engineering firm
CH2M Hill who lives in Tilla-
mook, is the Libertarian candi-
date in the race. A native of the
Southwest, he moved to the
area several years ago to work
on semiconductor manufac-
turing at Intel in Hillsboro, he
said.
A former Republican, Carl-
son said he became disillu-
sioned with the party and inter-
ested in libertarian ideas like
his father. His campaign focus
is largely on decentralizing
government.
“I’m hoping to return power
back to the people at a lower
level, to get rid of the national
bipartisan argument that goes
back and forth,” he said.
EDP: Stemper’s music is
now on several TV shows
Continued from Page 1A
After earning her English
degree, Stemper sought a
change of pace — and cooler
weather — and decided to
make the journey to Portland.
She took a job with Welo-
calize, where she would lis-
ten to transcripts of requests
people would make and then
correct their grammar to help
develop Siri’s language skills.
“The hardest ones to listen
to were the ones about break-
ups or relationship issues,”
she said.
While entertaining, Stem-
per couldn’t help but feel rest-
less and unfulfilled at a desk
job. So she quit and decided
to head west, driving up and
down the Oregon Coast hand-
ing out resumes until she
landed a job at Pelican Brew-
ing Co. in Cannon Beach.
She had made the decision
to make music her career,
“but bills needed to be paid,”
she joked.
She started recording
and sharing new songs and
covers aimed for television
shows on the music platform
SoundCloud. She describes
her music as cinematic and
ethereal, and draws inspira-
tion from her own life and the
characters of TV shows she
enjoys.
“I love writing in other
people’s shoes. It’s my way
of exploring other emotions,”
she said. “At first I thought
about just producing and
pitching an album, but there’s
something fun about being a
part of another piece of art.”
About a year ago she
signed up with Crucial
Music, a label that represents
artists and pitches their work
to television networks. Soon
after, she received the news
her song “Wilderness” was
going to be featured on “The
Fosters” and “Once Upon a
Time,” two TV shows on the
ABC network.
Since then, her work has
been featured on “The Shan-
nara Chronicles” on Spike
TV, “You Me Her” on the
Audience Network, and
“Love Island,” a British real-
ity TV show.
“That’s when I realized I
can really do this,” she said.
With her songs streaming
on platforms, Stemper can
now pay for about half her
living expenses with royalty
checks, she said. Her profile
is slowly rising on the music
scene, and she’s not entirely
sure where it will take her.
What Stemper does know
is fame is not the end goal.
“I just want to make
enough money to do what I
love,” she said. “I just want
to do this thing that I love for
the rest of my life, however I
need to make that happen.”
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