OREGON
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
East Oregonian
A9
Bentz fundraising swamps congressional challenger
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
WASHINGTON — U.S.
Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario,
has raised 32 times more in
campaign contributions than
Democrat Joe Yetter in the
race for the 2nd Congressional
District, according to federal
reports.
Bentz received $124,932
in campaign contributions in
April, May and June, accord-
ing to his quarterly campaign
finance filing with the Federal
Elections Commission.
The new money brings
Bentz’s fundraising total for
the 2021-22 election cycle
to $913,183. After expendi-
tures, Bentz reports having
$558,204 cash on hand.
Joe Yetter, a retired Army
colonel, physician and former
associate clinical professor at
the University of Washing-
ton School of Medicine is the
Democratic nominee. He lives
in Azalea in Douglas County.
The FEC reports Yetter
has raised $28,614 and spent
$20,344 during the election
cycle, leaving $8,270 in the
bank.
Bentz was elected in
2020 to the 2nd Congressio-
nal District seat held for two
decades by U.S. Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Hood River. He’s
seeking a second two-year
term.
The 2nd district currently
includes all of Oregon east of
Yasser Marte/East Oregonian
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, talks with the East Oregonian on July 7, 2022, about the 2nd Congressional District and its
future. Bentz has raised 32 times more in campaign contributions than Democrat Joe Yetter in the race for the district, ac-
cording to federal reports.
the Cascades, and a portion
of the southwestern part of
the state near Medford. He’ll
represent the area until the
new Congress elected this
November is sworn into office
next January.
Under redistricting after
the 2020 census, a portion of
MENTAL HEALTH
Oregon’s psilocybin
therapy likely won’t be
available until late 2023
By LIZZY ACKER
The Oregonian
SALEM — Some aspects
of Oregon’s voter-approved
legal psilocybin program
are underway, but the public
might not get a chance to
experience the therapy until
late next year, according to
the head of a nonprofit that
supports the program.
During a press confer-
ence Thursday, July 14, Sam
Chapman, executive direc-
tor of the Healing Advocacy
Fund, said it would likely take
some months after the official
start of the program on Jan.
2, 2023, for the infrastructure
of the nation’s first statewide
legal psychedelic mushroom
program to be fully in place
and ready for participants. On
its website, Chapman’s orga-
nization says it’s working
with experts, researchers and
advocates to design the state’s
psilocybin therapy program.
“We do not anticipate
services to be available to the
general public until fall, if not
winter of 2023,” Chapman
said. “There’s so many things
that have to happen after an
application or during that
period to where we’re just not
going to be seeing services
until later on in 2023.”
The Oregon Health
Authority, which is develop-
ing and will administer the
state’s psilocybin program,
said technically it was possi-
ble the services would begin
sooner.
“O regon Psilocybi n
Services will be adopting
rules by Dec. 31, 2022, and
will begin accepting applica-
tions for licensure on Jan. 2,
2023,” said Erica Heartquist,
a spokesperson for the Oregon
Health Authority. “If licens-
ees meet all of the criteria in
statute and rule, we will issue
a license to them. If appli-
cants are ready to apply on,
or close to, the Jan. 2, 2023,
date, services may be avail-
able earlier than fall/winter.”
“Since we do not know
when applicants will be
ready to apply, it is diffi-
cult to provide an estimated
timeline for when services
will be available in Oregon,”
Heartquist added.
But, before clients can
enter the doors of a legal
psilocybin facility, providers
and manufacturers will need
to move through a process
that can only begin once the
state starts issuing licenses.
First, manufacturers,
facilitators, testing labs and
service centers all must be
licensed.
Oregon Health Authority
is accepting applications for
facilitator training programs,
though there is a possible
hitch — these programs may
need to be also licensed by
Oregon’s Higher Education
Coordinating Commission,
the body that licenses private
career schools.
The commission has iden-
tified two possible challenges
for gaining licensure: the abil-
ity of training programs to
get insurance and “a restric-
tive definition of ‘qualified
instructor.’”
In a statement, the
commission said it wants to
resolve the questions as fast
as possible and in a way that
supports licensing and oper-
ation of psilocybin facilitator
training programs.
The Oregon Health
Authority Psilocybin Services
Section is encouraging appli-
cants to address any questions
with the Higher Education
Coordinating Commission
but has said in a newsletter
that commission licensing is
not a prerequisite to getting
curriculum approval from the
Psilocybin Services Section.
If the licensing of facilita-
tor trainers can be worked out,
businesses will still have to be
built from the ground up.
Oregon’s psilocybin law
has clear rules about where
a facility can be located.
Service centers cannot be
within 1,000 feet of a school
or in an exclusively residen-
tial-zoned neighborhood.
Facilities must have secure
storage for the substance,
and it cannot be sold retail
or marketed or consumed
off-site.
And, as some Oregon
counties consider trying
to ban psilocybin facili-
ties within their borders and
others have the option to add
restrictions, there’s an open
question of where a facility
can be located.
“There’s so many aspects
that go into running this type
of business,” Chapman said,
“that it will take some addi-
tional time for doors to be
open to the general public.”
VISIT US ON THE WEB AT:
www.EastOregonian.com
northern Deschutes County
that includes Bend and
Redmond was moved into the
5th district, which stretches
across the Cascades and into
Linn, Marion, Clackamas and
Multnomah counties.
The winner of the race
between Democrat Jamie
McLeod-Skinner of Terre-
bonne and Republican Lori
Chavez-DeRemer will repre-
sent the new 5th district after
being sworn into office in
January.
The district has the
narrowest partisan division of
any of the six Oregon congres-
sional districts, with a slight
Democratic edge in earlier
voting patterns. But national
Republicans have put the race
on the list of key targets, espe-
cially after McLeod-Skinner
defeated incumbent U.S. Rep.
Kurt Schrader, D-Canby.
The 2nd District remains
overwhelmingly Republi-
can-leaning. It will include
most of Eastern and Central
Oregon, including Prineville,
Madras and La Pine. The
new district will also extend
farther into southwestern
Oregon.
Notable large contribu-
tors to Bentz during the most
recent period, along with their
total contributions through
the current elections cycle,
include: the National Asso-
ciation of Broadcasters PAC
($9,000), American Forest
Resources Council PAC
($8,000), combined contri-
butions from Michael and
Gina Wheelock of Gray-
back Forestry in Roseburg
($6,400), Republican Main-
street Partnership PAC
($6,000), Marc Brickmayer,
chair of Idaho Forest Group
($5,900), the Pechanga Band
of Indians in Temecula, Cali-
fornia ($5,800), POWERPAC
of Edison Electric ($5,500)
Gerald Scott of Eugene,
CEO of Elmer’s Restaurants
($5,300), Raymond Lackey
of Redmond, an analyst for
MST Corp.($5,000), National
Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. PAC
($5,000), HuckPAC, created
by former Arkansas Gov.
Mike Huckabee ($5,000) and
KOCHPAC, created by the
conservative Koch family of
Kansas ($3,500).
Yetter’s largest outside
contribution is $5,000 for the
Democratic Party of Oregon.
Tributes pour forth for Hatfield’s centennial
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Three of his
successors as Oregon gover-
nor, two men whose insti-
tutions benefited from his
work as a U.S. senator and
afterward, and his youngest
son all spoke at a centennial
celebration of Mark Hatfield,
whose 46 years in public
office included eight years as
governor and 30 years in the
Senate.
More than 100 people
attended the celebration
July 12 at the Oregon Histor-
ical Society in Portland.
Hatfield was born 100 years
ago in the mid-Willamette
Valley town of Dallas; he
died Aug. 7, 2011, in Portland
at age 89.
In addition to Charles
“Visko” Hatfield, the young-
est of four children, other
family members in atten-
dance were daughter Theresa
and son-in-law Greg Keller,
who was married 37 years
to Dr. Elizabeth Hatfield
Keller. She died Sept. 13,
2021, of multiple cancers.
Mark O. Hatfield Jr. was
absent; he is chief security
officer at Miami-Dade Inter-
national Airport, where he
has worked since 2016 after
14 years at the federal Trans-
portation Security Adminis-
tration.
Hatfield’s wife of 53
years, Antoinette Kuzman-
ich Hatfield, survives him at
age 93. She also was absent
from the celebration, though
she makes occasional public
appearances.
Hatfield was governor
from 1959 to 1967 — he
remains the youngest person
ever elected to that office —
and a U.S. senator from 1967
to 1997. His Senate tenure, a
record for Oregon, will soon
be eclipsed by Ron Wyden,
who has been a senator for
more than 26 years and is up
for re-election to a fifth full
term Nov. 8.
The governors, all Demo-
crats, focused on Hatfield’s
public record and personal
qualities. Two other speak-
ers represented Portland
State University — Hatfield
raised money for the school
of government named after
him in 2000 — and Oregon
Health & Science University,
which benefited from an esti-
mated $300 million in federal
grants that Hatfield steered
to it while a senior member
and chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
“ Visko” Hat f ield’s
message was much darker.
He said his father would have
been appalled at the current
state of Oregon — particu-
larly Portland, where Hatfield
spent most of his years after
Peter Wong/Pamplin Media Group
Gov. Kate Brown speaks at the centennial celebration for Mark Hatfield on July 12, 2022, at
the Oregon Historical Society in Portland as Kerry Tymchuk, OHS executive director, right,
looks on.
leaving the Senate — and
its sharply divided politics.
Hatfield was a Republi-
can, but he won eight times
statewide going back to the
mid-1950s, after registered
Democrats began to outnum-
ber Republicans in Oregon.
Kerry Tymchuk, Oregon
Historical Society execu-
tive director and a one-time
intern for Hatfield, closed
with Hatfield’s comments in
Hatfield’s final public appear-
ance at the Oregon Capitol in
Salem on Jan. 8, 2007. The
occasion was the swearing-in
of another former Hatfield
intern, Jeff Merkley, as
speaker of the Oregon House.
Merkley won Hatfield’s
former Senate seat in 2008.
Hatfield said
“Years from now, Orego-
nians will not remember how
many members of the House
of Representatives were
Republicans or Democrats.
What they will remember
is whether or not they were
men and women of goodwill,
whether they were Orego-
nians first — and politicians
and partisans second.”
Excerpts from their
comments are below:
Gov. Kate Brown
“Senator Mark Hatfield’s
impact on this state has
always been a def in-
ing factor in what makes
Oregon, Oregon. His exam-
ple is perhaps more import-
ant now than ever. He was a
bridge builder, not a bomb
thrower. He formed work-
ing relationships and friend-
ships across partisan lines.
He was gracious in disagree-
ment, and comfortable with
nuance. He opposed the Viet-
nam War when it was not
politically expedient to do so.
He put principle above poli-
tics, breaking with his party
on plenty of consequential
votes.
“He set the example
for Oregon that by work-
ing together, we can remain
stewards and protectors
of our environment while
supporting our agricultural
and timber industries. His
example would set the stan-
dard for what has come to be
known as the Oregon Way —
the commitment to working
together through differing
perspectives and conflicting
interests, in the service of
building a better state for all
who call Oregon home. And
he made this a better state.”
Former Gov. Barbara
Roberts, 1991-95
She descr ibed t wo
instances when as governor
herself, she called on Hatfield
for advice.
One was an unidentified
death penalty case, which
did not reach the stage where
Roberts was faced with a
public choice of commuting
the sentence or letting the
execution stand. Hatfield as
governor in 1962 let stand the
execution of Leroy Sanford
McGauthey, convicted of
the murders of a mother and
child, though he opposed
the death penalty. (Hatfield
said years later he might
have decided it differently.
After voters repealed the
death penalty in 1964, he
commuted the sentences of
the three inmates on death
row, including a woman.)
“My dut y and my
conscience were in direct
conflict. He felt my pain —
and I felt his heart and his
wisdom.”
The other was inter-
nal opposition within the
Oregon National Guard
to her appointee as adju-
tant general, in defiance
of the governor’s author-
ity as commander in chief.
Roberts said she turned to
Hatfield, who was not only
a former governor but a
World War II Navy veteran
with combat experience in
the Pacific.
Roberts left Oregon
upon her high school grad-
uation and marriage in
1954 — her then-husband
was in military service —
and returned in 1960 when
Hatfield was governor.
“I never dreamed that
one day I would hold that
same office,” she said.
“The day would come
when I would turn to Sena-
tor Hatfield for help and
advice. Today we remem-
ber the many facets of this
remarkable man.”
Former Gov. Ted
Kulongoski, 2003-11
“That other side of
the coin is what I remem-
ber most about Senator
Hatfield. He believed in
those values of honor, duty,
respect, loyalty, patriotism,
tolerance, religion — and
above all, his oath.
“He understood that
standing up for what is
the right thing to do is not
always easy or comfortable.
“I believe Senator
Hatfield’s lasting legacy will
be his personal values: His
leadership, his courage and
his dignity as a representa-
tive of the people of Oregon.
Character does matter.
Senator Hatfield’s tangi-
ble accomplishments will
stand the test of time. But his
legacy will be the quality of
the person he was — a kind
and caring human being.”