State
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
A7
Oregon Republicans downplay Trump, tout issues
By Claire Withycombe
Capital Bureau
Capital Bureau/Claire Withycombe
Former Trump campaign adviser and self-styled ‘provocateur’ Roger Stone was the headline speaker at Saturday’s
Dorchester Conference in Salem. He is shown with a conference attendee.
Capital Bureau/Claire Withycombe
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, talks with Oregon College
Republicans Saturday at the Dorchester Conference.
Dennis Richardson told con-
ference attendees in a speech
Saturday morning that their
identity as Oregonians should
come before their identity as
Republicans if they wanted
their party to win.
Richardson speaks from
experience: In 2016, Richard-
son was the first Republican
to win statewide office since
2002, besting Democrat Brad
Avakian, the state’s labor
commissioner.
“I would not be here unless
I got Democratic votes, Green
Party votes, Independent par-
ty of Oregon votes, Working
Family Party votes and votes
from non-affiliated Orego-
nians,” Richardson said. “And
why? Because they wanted to
elect somebody who would
keep his promise to do that
which was best for our state.
I said when I was elected you
wouldn’t be able to tell if
there was an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ be-
hind my name, and I hope that
you can see that I’ve tried to
live up to that.”
Smith, the gubernatorial
candidate, also argues that
Republicans can win state-
wide elections by homing on
issues that voters in Portland
SESSION
Continued from Page A1
“Really, the session
worked the way it should,”
said House Speaker Tina
Kotek. “There were emerg-
ing issues. We dealt with
them, and we did strategic
investments for communi-
ties that needed some things.
We balanced the budget. We
also were able to take on
some of the bigger issues
facing the state.”
Republican leaders Rep.
Mike McLane of Powell
Butte, and Sen. Jackie Win-
ters of Salem said the short
session remains “broken.”
“Oregonians sent us here
to adjust budgets, make
minor policy tweaks, and
respond to emergencies.
Instead, the majority party
introduced significant par-
tisan policy changes that
were impossible to properly
vet in such a short amount
of time,” they said in a joint
statement. “While thankful-
ly many of these bills failed
to make it to the Governor’s
desk, it’s hard to escape the
reality that the short session
is increasingly becoming
more about political postur-
ing than good policy mak-
ing.”
Health care
Lawmakers passed two
bills aimed at understanding
the high price of prescrip-
tion drugs and shining light
on coordinated care organi-
zations, which provide gov-
ernment-subsidized health
care to indigent Oregonians
through the state’s version of
Medicaid.
House Bill 4005 requires
pharmaceutical
manufac-
turers to disclose reasons
for increases in the price of
prescription drugs when the
increase exceeds 10 percent.
House Bill 4018 makes
public the meetings of the
state’s 15 CCOs and requires
the organizations to give at
least three months’ notice
before ending a contract
care about, such as health
care, education and homeless-
ness.
State Rep. Knute Buehler,
R-Bend, who is also jostling
for the governor’s mansion,
also criticized focusing too
much on the White House: He
claimed in a speech that while
he was solving local problems
in the Legislature, Demo-
cratic Gov. Kate Brown was
“fixated on divisive national
politics.”
The Saturday-night head-
liner was former Trump cam-
paign adviser and self-styled
“provocateur” Roger Stone,
who gave a speech touting
what he believes to be the
accomplishments of the pres-
ident and condemning Dem-
ocrats.
He is a controversial figure
who remains in the national
limelight for his ties to Trump.
A former adviser to the
campaign, which he part-
ed ways with in August of
2015, Stone has also lobbied
on Trump’s behalf on Capi-
tol Hill and says he urged the
New York real estate tycoon
to run for president first in
1988. Stone got his start in
national politics working on
Richard Nixon’s Committee
To Re-Elect The President
(CREEP).
Stone claimed the presi-
dent brought African-Amer-
ican employment to the low-
est level on record, said the
president is committed to free
trade, and celebrated the con-
tributions of alternative right-
wing media outlets and social
media to Trump’s campaign.
“The rise of a vibrant, ro-
bust alternative media, the
rise of social media, Twitter,
Facebook and so on, is what
allowed for the election of an
outsider candidate who the
mainstream media sought to
destroy,” Stone said.
Stone also warned of what
he described as a “tech left”
that he believes seeks to cen-
sor right-wing perspectives on
social media platforms.
The Atlantic reported last
week that Stone had corre-
sponded directly with radi-
cal-transparency organization
WikiLeaks, which is suspect-
ed to have ties to Russia, be-
fore the 2016 election. The
magazine reported Stone had
told the committee under
oath he’d corresponded with
Wikileaks through an “inter-
mediary.”
Stone, who on Saturday
would have on the state’s
small businesses.
The bill was intended to
stem state revenue losses
from federal tax reform late
last year. The change is ex-
pected to result in $244 mil-
lion in tax dollars in the ex-
isting two-year budget than
if the state had allowed the
deduction.
the principles of “net neu-
trality.” That means con-
tractors may not block, slow
down or charge more for cer-
tain content.
Net neutrality
Portland Tribune/Jaime Valdez
The 2018 Oregon Legislative Assembly at the Oregon
State Capitol in Salem. Legislative leaders Saturday
celebrated several accomplishments this year and a
marked increase in bipartisanship and efficiency.
with the state, an effort to
stabilize the health care sys-
tem.
on vetoing the bill. She
raised some concerns during
session over the impact it
State lawmakers have no
authority to regulate inter-
net companies. However,
they can pass laws to use
the state’s buying power to
encourage certain business
practices.
In this case, they required
that internet providers that
contract with government
entities in the state abide by
Climate change
An ambitious proposal
to enact a cap-and-invest
program this year moved
through the session without
legislative action.
The program would have
charged companies for emit-
ting carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere and invested
the proceeds into projects
designed to offset global
warming.
Kotek and Courtney said
they want to pass the legis-
lation next year during the
Legislature’s five-month-
long session. They also an-
nounced the creation of a new
Joint Legislative Committee
on Carbon Reduction.
Lawmakers also added
$1.4 million to the state bud-
get as part of the budget rec-
onciliation bill to create a car-
bon policy office in the state
Department of Administrative
Services.
Health care
Portland Rep. Mitch
Greenlick’s third try to refer
a constitutional amendment
to voters to make access
to affordable and effective
health care a fundamental
right was blocked in the Sen-
ate. Opponents were con-
cerned about potential cost
and litigation that could re-
sult from the constitutional
provision.
Guns
A bill to strip gun rights
from convicted stalkers and
intimate partners convicted
of abuse passed both cham-
bers. Known as closure of
the “boyfriend” or “intimate
partner” loophole, the fix
was a priority of Gov. Kate
Brown for this session.
Housing
Lawmakers boosted rev-
enue to fund affordable
housing by raising the real
estate document recording
fee from $20 to $60. The fee
is the state’s only source of
revenue dedicated to paying
for affordable housing.
The increase is projected
to generate an additional $60
million every two years.
Business taxes
Lawmakers eliminated a
federal deduction for busi-
nesses on state tax returns.
While the state’s income
tax code is largely tied to
federal code, business own-
ers with “pass-through”
income on their personal
income taxes will not be
allowed to deduct up to 20
percent of their income in
2018.
It was unclear Saturday
whether the governor plans
43561
Republican gubernatorial
candidate Jeff Smith claims
he’s got a winning strategy,
one that he’s willing to share
with his competitors: Don’t
talk about Trump.
“I am working hard to con-
vince them that the issue is not
Donald Trump,” Smith said,
standing in front of his booth
at the 54th annual Dorchester
Conference, the annual gath-
ering of Oregon Republicans,
in Salem on Saturday. “The
issue is winning.”
Although Smith is less-
er-known among the broad
bench of Republicans seeking
the GOP nomination for gov-
ernor, he’s confident enough
that he says he bet the cam-
paign manager for fellow
candidate Sam Carpenter —
whose slogan is “Make Or-
egon Great Again” — $100
that he beats Carpenter in the
primary.
“Should I make it $1,000?”
he asked a reporter.
Following the online publi-
cation of this story, Jeff Smith
and David Gulliver, manager
of the Sam Carpenter cam-
paign, contacted the Capital
Bureau to clarify that they
did not bet on the outcome of
the Republican primary. In-
stead, they say, Smith agreed
to donate $100 to Carpenter’s
campaign if Carpenter wins
the GOP primary, and Gulli-
ver agreed to donate $100 to
Smith’s campaign if he wins
the primary. It is illegal under
Oregon law for a candidate to
bet on the outcome of a race,
or for any person to bet to in-
fluence the result of an elec-
tion.
Smith’s is one of a spec-
trum of opinions about the
role of partisanship and the
president at the conference,
about eight months ahead of
the 2018 election, when state
legislative races, congressio-
nal seats and the governor’s
seat will be up for grabs.
Meanwhile, the top Re-
publican in statewide office
urged attendees to identify as
Oregonians before they iden-
tified as Republicans.
Oregon Secretary of State
dismissed what he called “the
Russian collusion delusion,”
told the magazine he provided
the full exchange to the House
Intelligence
Committee,
which is investigating wheth-
er the Trump campaign co-
ordinated with Russia to un-
dermine Trump’s Democratic
opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The main speaker Friday,
Fox News commentator, au-
thor and radio host Kevin
Jackson, likewise praised the
president and lambasted “left-
ists.”
“What a world you peo-
ple created on Nov. 8, 2016,”
Jackson said, referring to the
day Trump was elected pres-
ident, to applause. “I’ll never
forget the look on those sis-
sies’ faces.”
He disparaged feminists,
prioritized the rights of Amer-
ican citizens first and “human
beings second,” and criticized
the study of the humanities
and social justice in the na-
tion’s colleges.
“I’m done with feminists,”
he said.
The chairwoman of the
Democratic Party of Oregon,
Jeanne Atkins, said in a state-
ment earlier this week that
the choice of speakers for the
conference was “appalling.”
“Republicans are increas-
ingly out of touch with voters
and their promotion of speak-
ers who are known for hate
speech and public deceit is
frightening,” Atkins said.
Greg Astley, president of
the conference, defended the
choice of speakers such as
Jackson and Stone and said
that the Dorchester Confer-
ence was a “big tent.”
The value of the confer-
ence, he said, was that Ore-
gonians from across the state
could interact face-to-face
with prominent figures, re-
calling how, attending the
conference at 14, he met for-
mer Gov. Vic Atiyeh.
If attendees disagreed with
a speaker’s views, they could
go talk to them directly or ask
questions, Astley said.
“If we shut down all that
kind of conversation, I don’t
think we’ll be any better than
the progressive far left,” Ast-
ley said.