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Saturday, December 14, 2019
East Oregonian
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Voter: Disappointment from both sides makes it hard for some to choose
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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
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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.