Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 14, 2019)
OFF PAGE ONE Saturday, December 14, 2019 East Oregonian A11 Voter: Disappointment from both sides makes it hard for some to choose Continued from Page A1 for Barack Obama in 2008, for example, but not 2012. He said the best way to spur change is to focus on the best candidates instead of auto- matically voting by party. “People either want to vote for red or vote for blue or vote for the best guy out there,” he said. Exactly half of Oregon’s 36 counties now have more unaffiliated voters than vot- ers with a single politi- cal party, according to data from the Oregon Secretary of State. Most of those 18 coun- ties are on the west side of the state, but the three that aren’t have the highest rates of unaffiliated voters. Uma- tilla County comes in second at 41.8%, Morrow County comes in third at 40.8% and Malheur County has the highest unaffiliated rate in the state at 43.1%. Wheeler County, which is majority-Republican, has the lowest number at 25.5%. The most obvious reason for the rise of the unaffiliated in Oregon is the 2016 law that automatically registers peo- ple to vote when they get or renew a driver’s license. The newly registered voters get sent a postcard asking if they want to register as a mem- ber of a political party, but a majority never send it back. The law helped increase Umatilla County’s unaffil- iated voters from 8,424 in October 2015 to 13,141 a year later, and in 2017 unaffiliated voters in the county officially passed the number of regis- tered Republicans. There are now 18,510 unaffiliated vot- ers in the county. Unaffiliated voters had been on the rise at a slower pace for several years before that, however, matching a nationwide increase. In 2018, the Pew Research Cen- ter found that 37% of vot- ers across the United States were not registered with a specific party, compared with 30% in 1994. Jeffery Dense, a political science professor at Eastern Oregon University, said in an email many unaffiliated voters aren’t right down the middle in their views. Pew Research Center found about 80% tend to lean toward one party or the other. “While the rise of inde- pendent/unaffiliated voters is interesting, the real issue is the United States has the low- est voter turnout rate of any industrialized democracy in the world,” Dense said. “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” He said a state’s primary system can have an effect on the number of unaffiliated voters. Some states, such as Washington and California, have a primary system where the top two vote-getters from the primaries advance, regardless of party. In Ore- gon, unaffiliated voters are shut out of the primary pro- cess for partisan races, with Republicans and Democrats each holding their own con- test open only to voters regis- tered to their party. Suni Danforth, chair of the Umatilla County Repub- licans, said getting to vote in the primaries should be an incentive for people to reg- ister to whatever party most closely aligns with their views, even if they don’t agree 100% with everything that party does. That way, they can help a candidate they like move on to the gen- eral election. “When you’re an unaf- filiated voter, that voice is mute,” she said. If people want to change their registration, she said, they can do it online, but the best way is to fill out a paper version by hand at the county elections office. That way the state can have the most cur- rent version of their signature on file to compare with their ballot signature, instead of one pulled from their drivers license or other older records. Antone Minthorn, co-chair of the Umatilla County Dem- ocratic Party, said he has been involved in the Demo- cratic Party since the 1970s and has attended many state and national Democratic conventions. He said many times in his work with the party he has been the only Native American in the room, underscoring what he sees as an important benefit to belonging to a party. Hav- ing Native American voices directly involved in the political parties that con- trol government helps them to understand Native Amer- ican issues and place impor- tance on tribal priorities, such as salmon. “They begin to see who we are, to sponsor Native American issues,” he said. Minthorn also said it takes “a whole lot of energy” at the local, state and national level to generate and support good candidates for government positions. When people lend their time and talents to a political party, they can help with that. Despite some of the bene- fits of choosing a party, some unaffiliated voters still see upsides to staying indepen- dent. They say they get hit up for donations to candidates and causes less often, and are bothered with fewer phone calls and mailers during an election. And some people just can’t bring themselves to adopt a label when they have been disappointed by actions on both sides. Delaney Clara switched to unaffiliated when she moved to Pendleton from Colorado. She said she feels not labeling herself with one party helps her be less biased when con- sidering new information, and helps her keep in mind that “the truth lies somewhere in the middle of extremes.” “The extremeness of both political parties in Oregon was a huge turn off,” she said. “People seem to just vote for people because they identify as their party, even if (the candidate’s) true values and intentions don’t actually line up with their own morals.” Departures: 10 lawmakers have announced that they won’t seek re-election in 2020 Continued from Page A1 partisan divisions they feel have come to characterize the Oregon Capitol. “The saddest thing I’ve seen happen over the 12 years I’ve been at the state- house is the steady ero- sion of bipartisanship,” said Bentz, “And it’s one of the reasons I’m leaving.” Yet Bentz, an Ontario lawyer, is leaving the Capitol for what is almost certainly the most divisive building in the country: the U.S. Cap- itol, where he hopes to rep- resent Oregon’s massive 2nd Congressional District in the House. He is one of several law- makers who have announced plans to leave the colorfully carpeted chambers of the Legislature to pursue other offices. Sen. Mark Hass, D-Bea- verton, and Rep. Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, are not seeking re-election to their seats in hopes of being chosen as the Democratic Party’s candidate for secre- tary of state in the May 2020 primary. And then there’s Rep. Sherrie Sprenger, R-Scio, who after 13 years in the Legislature, is eager to work on the local level once more. She’s seeking election to the Linn County Commission. “The closer you are, the greater your ability to impact is,” Sprenger said. “I’m 76,” said Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha. “I’ll be 77 next year. So it’s kind of time to move on anyway. But my caucus kind of moved on away from me and it felt more like D.C. than Oregon last year.” Barker, the longtime chair of the House Judiciary Com- mittee and former police lieutenant, felt slighted when he was told that Speaker Tina Kotek would give the committee chairmanship to Williamson for the 2019 session. “That made the decision a little easier,” Barker said. “I’d made the decision before the real divisive ses- sion last (time),” Monnes Anderson said. “But that’s certainly something that I don’t like. It’s not me. It’s not my personality. I like bring- ing people together and try- ing to work out a solution.” The retirees Alongside Monnes Anderson, Bentz, Sprenger, Roblan, Greenlick and Barker, lawmakers exiting the public arena in 2020 also include Rep. Carla Piluso, D-Gresham; Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay; for- mer House Minority Leader Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass; and Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove. Having recently returned from a trip to Maryland to see his grandchildren, Roblan, a Coos Bay Demo- crat, said he didn’t want to spend another summer on what’ll likely be an expen- sive campaign defending his seat, in a district where he bested the Republican by just 349 votes in 2016. Roblan, who will be 72 when his term expires next year, said he’s accomplished many of his goals around education and coastal issues during his nearly two decades in the Legislature and it’s time to give some- one else a chance. “I think there are times when you look back and you think, ‘OK, I came here to do certain things and I’ve gotten a lot of those accom- plished,’” he said. Among the departures are lawmakers who have been influential in shaping state policy: Roblan helped lead the charge for a mas- sive $2 billion business tax increase to fund schools this year. Bentz and Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay, who is also not running for re-election, were instrumen- tal in getting the Legislature to pass a landmark transpor- tation bill in 2017 that will fund projects for a decade. Greenlick and Barker were longtime committee chairs; and Monnes Ander- son served as the official stand-in, or Senate presi- dent pro tempore, when Sen- ate President Peter Courtney couldn’t be at the dais. While the impact of their departure on policymaking may be felt, some say the exodus is nothing new. “This doesn’t feel to me like an unusual year at all,” Greenlick said. “Given the nature of the citizen legislature, we rou- tinely see about 25-30% turnover every cycle,” House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Port- land, said in a statement. For Republicans, who mostly represent more rural areas of the state and have to travel further to get to the Capitol in Salem, that distance can “have greater impact on their personal and professional lives,” Kotek said. “Some of them, just really, they’re done,” Court- ney said. “They’ve served on city councils and county commissions. They don’t care to go on being an elected official.” From concord to discord Roblan, a Democrat who has represented his district on Oregon’s south coast for nearly two decades, recalled a relatively recent time of bipartisan harmony. In 2011, the Oregon House was evenly split 30-30 between the two major par- ties. Roblan, then a represen- tative, shared speaker duties with Republican Bruce Hanna. “Speaker Hanna and I got along very well, and we fought out a lot of things qui- etly realizing that you have to work together,” he said. Democrats then took back control of the House, and the 2018 election gave the party supermajorities in each chamber. Roblan, elected to the Senate in 2012, said that the Democrats’ lopsided major- ities meant they no longer needed the minority party to get things done. “The expectations from your base become greater that you will move more pro- gressive legislation,” he said. He said some legisla- tors have asked themselves, “Am I getting things done that I care about in this environment?” Barker was elected to the House in 2002, when Dem- ocrats were in the minority. He served when the House was split equally between Democrats and Republicans in 2011. “But it just seems more divisive this year,” Barker said. “I think the national (politics) has bled down a bit, you know, where peo- ple are having trouble listen- ing to each other and it’s just like, my way or the highway. And I don’t like that. I mean, I don’t think that is good for Oregon.” Monnes Anderson also points to the influence of national politics, saying that in comparing notes with col- leagues from other state leg- islatures, political circum- stances are just as toxic in Montana and Idaho. Greenlick, for his part, described the House as “collegial” during the 2019 session. Bentz says about 80 percent of policymak- ing in Salem is driven by consensus. “It’s work that needs to be done,” Bentz said. “The everyday stuff. But the 20 percent that remains is almost always really big stuff, the cutting edge of pol- itics. It’s there that if you’re going to be successful at all you need an ‘all together’ approach to politics. That’s not happening now, and it’s extraordinarily frustrating to us who work really hard in trying to make sure our state is a collective effort, not an urban driven, city-centered thing.” Barker, a self-described moderate, thinks the two major parties opening their primaries up to all voters — not just party members — could temper partisan- ship. As things are, he said, primaries often see the most liberal Democrat and the most conservative Republi- can clinch the nomination. Monnes Anderson said Oregon politics are more fraught. “We are becoming more fractured even within our own caucus,” Monnes Anderson said. “I miss work- ing with the Republicans.” The 2019 legislative ses- sion ended in acrimony. With supermajorities in both chambers and con- trol of the governor’s office, Democrats attempted to push through an ambitious agenda that included a con- troversial bill to set up a state-run system to cap car- bon emissions. The bill faced a backlash over how it could impact rural economies. It never made it to a vote in the Senate after Repub- licans walked out, deny- ing Democrats the quorum needed to vote. Threats, formal com- plaints and two recall attempts against Gov. Kate Brown followed. Trump: The fourth president to face impeachment, the first while seeking re-election Continued from Page A1 and endangered national security by asking Ukraine to investigate his politi- cal rivals, including Demo- crat Joe Biden, while with- holding U.S. military aid as leverage. That bene- fited Russia over the U.S. as Ukraine, an American ally, fought Russian aggression, the Democrats said. Trump then obstructed Congress by ordering cur- rent and former officials to defy House subpoenas call- ing them to testify, and by blocking access to docu- ments, the charges say. By his conduct, Trump “demonstrated he will remain a threat to national secu- rity and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office,” the nine-page impeachment resolution says. Trump is just the fourth U.S. president to face impeachment proceed- ings, after Andrew John- son, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, and the first to be running for re-election at the same time. Although the House impeached both Johnson and Clinton, neither was removed from office. Nixon faced impeach- ment, but he resigned before the House voted. Trump’s case is markedly different from his predeces- sors, in Jackson’s view. “Trump’s connection to foreign powers and the alleged attack on Dem- ocratic processes in the United States makes this a quite different set of cir- cumstances,” Jackson said. “In many ways, we are in new territory.” AP Photo/Patrick Semansky Members of the House Judiciary Committee markup the arti- cles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Fri- day on Capitol Hill in Washington. The full House is expected to vote on the articles of impeachment next week. Trump insists he did nothing wrong and blasts the Democrats’ effort daily as a sham that’s harming Amer- ica. Republican allies seem unwavering in their oppo- sition to expelling Trump, and he claims to be looking ahead to swift acquittal in a Senate trial. Despite the gaping par- tisan chasm, Jackson’s said he’s not sure the impeach- ment process will frac- ture the nation more than it already is. “It may reveal more con- sensus in the country about the president’s behavior than people imagine,” he said. “The partisan spectacle in Congress may, in fact, be obscuring this reality.” Jackson said he views the impeachment process as a “good thing” as it relates to the overall democracy of the country, but it isn’t without flaws. “It is one of the pri- mary checks we have on presidents who abuse their power,” he said. “I do think one problem with the cur- rent impeachment proceed- ings is that they are too narrow. The abuse of Con- stitutional power by this president far exceeds the Ukraine situation.” Jackson said though the news coverage of the impeachment proceed- ings has been nonstop, he believes journalists have missed a crucial fact. “Presidents can be impeached for action that may not violate a specific criminal law,” he said. “It is why a successful impeach- ment leads to a removal from office and not a term in jail.” The next steps in the process are expected to come swiftly after months of investigation into the Ukraine matter and special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year Russia probe. ——— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
