STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
A7
Rural Oregonians from
#TimberUnity visit White House
Growing political
group points to
similarities with
their movement and
Trump’s populist rise
By Sierra Dawn McClain
EO Media Group
Oregon Capital Bureau/Aubrey Wieber
State Sen. Brian Boquist
Legislators reject legal advice,
allow Boquist to work in the Capitol
Senator must notify
officials 12 hours before
entering building
By Aubrey Wieber and Claire
Withycombe
Oregon Capital Bureau
State Sen. Brian Boquist will have
to alert officials before he arrives to
work in the Capitol so additional state
troopers can be put on duty — steps
in reaction to his threatening remarks
in the closing days of the legislative
session.
The Senate Special Committee on
Conduct on Monday also warned the
Republican from Dallas not to retali-
ate against anyone who reported being
fearful to work in the Capitol because
of his statements. He also was directed
to not act out against anyone who par-
ticipates in the ongoing investigation
into his conduct.
Committee chair Sen. Floyd
Prozanski, D-Eugene, said the com-
mittee’s decision was effective imme-
diately and doesn’t need full Senate
approval. Others joining Prozanski in
a unanimous vote to impose the condi-
tions were Sen. Alan Olsen, R-Canby;
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend; and Sen.
James Manning, D-Eugene.
The unusual hearing comes on the
heels of two statements Boquist made
June 19. He reacted to Gov. Kate
Brown’s announcement she would send
state troopers after Republican senators
threatened a walkout. They made good
on their threat.
In comments on the Senate floor
in June, Boquist, who maintains state
police can’t come onto his property
to arrest him without a warrant, laid
into Senate President Peter Courtney,
D-Salem.
“If you send the state police to get
me, Hell’s coming to visit you person-
ally,” he said.
Shortly after, Boquist gave inter-
views to reporters, giving the now-infa-
mous quote to KGW, which posted it on
Twitter. If Brown sends police, Boquist
said, they better “send bachelors and
come heavily armed.”
Attorney Brenda Baumgart of Stoel
Rives, hired by the Legislature to han-
dle workplace complaints, concluded in
a recent report that Boquist’s statements
caused a workplace issue and concerns
over safety were credible, recommend-
ing Boquist be kept out of the building
until the investigation was completed.
She testified at the hearing Mon-
day, saying her legal advice was in line
with practices in the private sector, and
would relieve the Legislature of liabil-
ity if Boquist caused new issues at the
Capitol.
Disciplining an elected official is dif-
ferent than an employee. Neither Court-
ney, nor the conduct committee, can fire
Boquist. Courtney could limit his power
by removing him from committees, but
that’s largely the extent of his power.
The Senate as a whole can vote to expel
a member with a two-thirds vote, but
that has never happened. The Senate
could also censure Boquist — essen-
tially publicly condemning his actions
— but that hasn’t happened since 1971.
The committee voted against propos-
als to bar Boquist from the Capitol or
require he be escorted by police when
in the building. Instead, it imposed on
him a requirement to notify Senate offi-
cials 12 hours before he expected to be
in the building.
Boquist declined to comment fol-
lowing the hearing, which quickly
turned into partisan sniping as Dem-
ocrats expressed more alarm over the
statements and Republicans said safety
concerns were overblown.
Knopp said he doesn’t believe there
is a safety issue.
“I share an office wall with Sen.
Boquist, so if anyone ought to be con-
cerned, it should be me,” he said.
Prozanski said that Boquist has
been back in the building several times
since the comments were made without
incident.
“I believe the workplace is OK for
the employees to be in,” he said.
Baumgart said she is glad the legis-
lature is reminding Boquist to not retal-
iate, but that people working in the
building could still be fearful. Manning
also made that point, saying a fellow
senator texted him during the hearing to
express concern.
“There are people here that have real
fear,” he said.
Baumgart said she didn’t interview
Boquist, Courtney or state troopers as
part of her initial investigation.
Baumgart said she based her con-
clusions about Boquist’s conduct on
his statements, not how Boquist meant
them or how they were received. A rea-
sonable person, she said, could fear
going to work in the Capitol following
those statements.
She said that, in private business,
an executive would be placed on leave
pending an investigation, and if the
reports were found credible, they would
be fired.
Baumgart said multiple reports about
workplace safety were made by legisla-
tors and staff, some through email and
some verbally. None came directly to
her.
Manning said the statements, both
videotaped, are clear.
“There is no other interpretation of
that, no matter how hard we try to gas-
light it,” he said.
Boquist gave a brief statement to
the committee but walked away after
Prozanski asked if he would take
questions.
Boquist alleged the committee
hadn’t followed due process. Last week,
he requested from Courtney’s office
records showing concerns with his
statements. On Friday, he sued Court-
ney in Marion County Circuit Court,
seeking to compel disclosure of records
he said hadn’t been provided.
Boquist claimed in his court com-
plaint that public records were “denied,
hidden and blocked from release by
Legislative Counsel” and others serv-
ing under Courtney.
“It was clear that zero due process
had existed, and that very clearly a large
stack of public records existed some-
place,” the lawsuit maintains.
Boquist said his family “received
multiple death threats” after disclo-
sure of Baumgart’s initial investigation
results.
“The facts of the present situa-
tion, and continued endangerment of
my family and staff, merit an immedi-
ate court order directing the release of
withheld public records, to establish
the facts of the matter,” Boquist’s suit
states.
Two representatives of Ore-
gon’s #TimberUnity move-
ment were at the White House
Monday, where they had been
invited to hear President Don-
ald Trump deliver remarks
on “America’s environmental
leadership.”
The president had invited
Todd Stoffel of GT Stoffel
Trucking and Marie Bow-
ers of Bashaw Land & Seed
to represent Oregon’s truck-
ing, logging and agricultural
industries.
“It’s not very often that
you get invited to the White
House, especially as a rural
Oregonian,” said Bowers.
“Just the honor of that was
pretty astounding.”
The president’s invitation
came after the 2019 Oregon
Legislative session, which
brought thousands of rural
Oregonians — along with
their tractors and trucks — to
the Capitol in Salem to pro-
test controversial climate bills
such as House Bill 2020, a bill
to limit carbon emissions.
The group #TimberUnity,
which Stoffel and Bowers rep-
resented at the White House
Monday, started as a grass-
roots effort to fight HB 2020
and is now a registered polit-
ical action committee devoted
to standing up for loggers,
ranchers, truckers and other
working-class Oregonians.
In his speech Monday,
Trump focused on his admin-
istration’s
environmental
achievements. He said his pri-
orities were promoting the
“cleanest air,” “crystal clean”
water, reducing carbon emis-
sions and “being a good stew-
ard of public land.”
The president invited his
various administration offi-
cials, including Environmen-
tal Protection Agency Chief
Andrew Wheeler and Inte-
rior Department Chief David
Barnhardt, to take turns at the
lecturn.
Trump has raised the ire of
environmental groups by roll-
ing back more than 80 envi-
ronmental regulations and
withdrawing the U.S. from the
Paris climate change accord.
In his speech, the presi-
dent said he withdrew from
the Paris agreement because
it disadvantaged American
workers and taxpayers.
“Punishing Americans is
never the right way to pro-
tect the environment,” he said.
“We will defend the environ-
ment, but we will also defend
American prosperity.”
Trump also said that he
does not support the “Green
New Deal” Democrats in
Congress are pushing for,
which he claimed would cost
the U.S. nearly $100 trillion.
“That’s not affordable even
in the best of times,” he said.
Bowers, who helped lead
the fight to kill HB 2020 in
Oregon, said she agrees with
the president.
“My biggest takeaway
from this weekend is that you
shouldn’t ‘fix’ the environ-
ment at the cost of jobs,” she
said. “The two aren’t mutually
exclusive.”
Bowers said that she and
Stoffel, along with the rest of
the #TimberUnity movement
leaders, are continuing to for-
mulate what their movement
means and what it will stand
for moving forward.
Contributed photo/Marie Bowers
Marie Bowers, right, a fifth-generation Oregonian grass seed
farmer, with Ivanka Trump.
“There are a lot of issues we
could stand for that don’t get
attention,” she said. “The main
thing is that we’ll be advocat-
ing for natural resources and
working people.”
Stoffel couldn’t be reached
for comment after the event
but said last week there are
parallels between #Timbe-
rUnity and the national upris-
ing of rural, working-class
Americans who have become
more vocal since Trump took
office.
“This is a voice for rural
Oregon, rural America, that
we’re tired of being steam-
rolled, which is what a lot of
the policies seem to do for
us. The stuff that’s passed
is about the big cities, espe-
cially in Oregon. There are
other parts of the state of Ore-
gon other than just Portland.”
The Timber Unity move-
ment casts itself as purely
grassroots, according to sev-
eral Republican lawmakers
and protesters.
However, they are in part
financed by Stimson Lum-
ber CEO Andrew Miller, a
frequent GOP donor who
is prominent on the Timber
Unity Facebook page and
has a letter explaining his
$5,000 seed donation on their
website.
Stoffel said he didn’t know
what their current funding
level is. Its political action
committee shows $31,457,
according to state campaign
finance records.
A GoFundMe campaign
that popped up when the
group was getting organized
received money from several
sympathetic business part-
ners, though the group has
moved to a direct funding
channel on their website.
Stoffel said Timber Unity
shut down the GoFundMe as
organizers learned it didn’t
comply with state require-
ments to report political
spending and contributions.
Timber Unity’s website
shows its organizers as three
truckers: Jeff Leavy, Adam
Lardy and Scott Hileman.
The White House invi-
tation is the apparent cul-
mination of several weeks
of national attention on the
Republican walkout, which
was picked up by outlets from
the New York Times to Vice to
Fox News.
At least one environmen-
tal advocate worried it could
“deepen” divides between
parties on the issue of how to
tackle climate change.
“Growing up here, there
was not this strong, parti-
san us-versus-them divide,”
said Meredith Connolly, Ore-
gon director for Climate Solu-
tions, which was a strong sup-
porter of cap and trade. “And
I think adopting this man-
tle of Trump’s White House
and his agenda, I fear, will
deepen those divides here in
Oregon, and I want us to be
moving forward toward solu-
tions that work for all of Ore-
gon. And I think the more
this is influenced by Donald
Trump’s divisiveness, I worry
this will take us in the wrong
direction.”
Stoffel said issue is rural
versus urban, Republican ver-
sus Democrat.
He said Democrats at the
Legislature “snubbed their
noses” at loggers and truckers
who wanted to understand the
bill. Republicans embraced
them, he said.
But it was Senate President
Peter Courtney, D-Salem, who
ended the walkout and stand-
off over cap-and-trade by
announcing that his own cau-
cus didn’t have the votes to
pass the bill.
“The rural parts of this
country have been ignored
for years,” Stoffel said, add-
ing Trump’s election proves
that. “The majority of Ameri-
cans are tired of the same old,
same old.”
Stoffel said he under-
stands the majority of vot-
ers put Democrats who ran
on cap and trade in office,
but said that’s because rural
voters have routinely been
pushed down. They stay
home because they know
they will be “steamrolled”
by the Democratic agenda,
he said.
Democrats and environ-
mentalists pushing climate
legislation said House Bill
2020 was tailored to protect
rural Oregon, driving dollars
from the cities to projects in
rural communities.
Stoffel said that could be
true, and many might be mis-
understanding the bill, but if
so, that’s on Democratic law-
makers for not taking the time
to clearly explain it.
“If you read the bill and
you read all the legal jargon,
the normal person cannot fig-
ure out what they are saying,”
he said. “When we were in the
House and Senate chambers,
they read so fast and push
everything so fast, that you
can’t understand what’s going
on.”
Stoffel said the invitation
shows rural voices in Ore-
gon and other states across the
country are being heard.
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