Democracy in Action: Left and Right in Oregon
I HAVE ALWAYS VOTED straight Democratic, starting with George McGovern in the 1972 Presidential Election. Living in Rhode Island, which the Democratic Party has dominated since the Great Depression, I didn’t give it a lot of thought, though I often wrestled out loud over presidential primary candidates. State ballot measures almost always concerned bonds, which I invariably approved; Rhode Island does not allow the initiative and referendum process that, for better or worse, channels grassroots democracy in other states.
In Southern Oregon—where campaign signs seem to decorate front lawns months before an election—politics are lively, if not inescapable. Passions run deep, from the governorship and gun control down to races for municipal court judge and county sheriff. I figured I needed a crash course on Oregon’s political landscape before the 2018 midterms, and in the two weeks since the election, I’ve been parsing the results.
Putting on a journalist’s hat, here’s what I learned, including the importance of digging into the divisions that mark most elections.
In May 2008, political blogger Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight posted a short piece about Oregon politics under the provocative headline, “Oregon: Swing State or latte-drinking, Prius-driving lesbian commune?” “Democrats like to pretend that Oregon, like Wisconsin, isn’t really a swing state because they’ve usually managed to win it in the end,” Silver writes. “But a swing state it is,” Silver continues. “Al Gore won there by less than 7,000 votes, and John Kerry improved on those numbers, but not by much.”
The decade since Silver’s analysis, however, has put Oregon decidedly in the Democratic column. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump 50 to 39 percent in the 2016 Presidential elections. The state’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, are among the Senate’s most liberal; Merkley’s voting record ranks alongside Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The 2018 midterms deepened the leftward trend. Oregon Democrats won three-fifths supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, prevailed on all the major statewide ballot measures, and saw Democratic Gov. Kate Brown re-elected by a comfortable 6-point margin. Voters returned all four Democratic incumbent representatives to Congress, although my favorite candidate, the progressive-lesbian-civil engineer-rancher Jamie McLeod Skinner, lost to the one incumbent Republican. Voter turnout, 61.3 percent, was third in the nation behind Minnesota and Colorado.
“That was, hands down, the best night for Democrats in Oregon I have ever witnessed,” Oregon’s State Treasurer said. “This wave—however big or small it was nationally—became a tsunami by the time it got to Oregon.”
(A note: A citizen’s initiative in 1998 established vote-by-mail as the standard mechanism for voting in Oregon. Two years later, Oregon became the first state in the nation to conduct a presidential election entirely by mail. About 80 percent of registered voters participated. Indeed, Oregon’s voting system has been called the most convenient in the country—registered voters receive a ballot two to three weeks before an election, giving time to research issues or candidates. The state consistently ranks as a national leader in voter turnout.)
The divisions Silver suggested remain, however. Oregon liberals, exit polls suggest, are the most liberal of any state in the country; the same is true for the conservatives.
Predictably, the liberals dominate urban Portland, Eugene, and Salem and the conservatives the state’s vast rural spaces. The rural population in Oregon is 29 percent of the state population but occupies 86 percent of the state’s land. Ten of Oregon’s 36 counties are defined as “frontier,” with six or fewer people per square mile. Rural Harney County (10,226 square miles) in southeastern Oregon is larger in area than six U.S. states. Here, 500 ranches and farms produce cattle, dairy products and hay—and cattle outnumber people 14-to-1.
These two geographic realities, and the ideological divides they reflect, live side-by-side. They show up not only in Democratic vs. Republican candidate tallies, but also in state propositions and local ballot measures—and how they play out, once approved.
Oregon’s landmark Death with Dignity Act (a.k.a. physician-assisted suicide) is a case in point. Approved in 1994 by 51 percent of the voters and reaffirmed in 1997 by 60 percent, voter support in the state’s rural counties—where Evangelicals cluster—was tepid. The same is true of the rollout. Of the 1,127 Oregonians who died using Death with Dignity medication between 1998 and 2016, only 88 lived east of the Cascade Range, Oregon’s rural flank. Here, providers willing or able to dispense the lethal drugs are virtually nonexistent.
Marijuana legislation in Oregon follows a similar script. Oregon was the first U.S. state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis (1973) and among the first to authorize its use for medical purposes (1998). Then in 2014, voters legalized non-medical cultivation and uses of marijuana 56 to 44 percent. But there was a catch: Cities and counties that voted 55 percent or more in opposition to Measure 91 had a year to opt out without putting the decision to a vote in the next general election. Sixteen counties and 75 towns, mostly rural, chose this route. While hardly a wave, four Oregon cities did vote to lift their bans on Election Day 2018 (including Klamath Falls, featured in a previous post).
The urban-rural split weaves through this year’s statewide propositions, too. Fifty-seven percent of Oregon voters approved a measure to combine public and private dollars to increase affordable housing, but the majority of voters in 19 rural counties said “No.” A measure to ban taxes on groceries was defeated statewide 57 to 43 percent—the measure was a pre-emptive strike against the state adopting a sales tax, even though in the vast majority of states that have sales taxes, groceries are exempt. In ten rural counties, however, over 60 percent of voters approved the tax ban.
Measure 105 would have repealed Oregon’s sanctuary law, passed overwhelmingly in 1987. Sixty-three percent of Oregon voters rejected the repeal; however, voters in 18 rural counties approved it, sometimes by wide margins. A measure to prohibit public funds from being spent on abortions was rejected by 64 percent of voters, but supported by the majority of voters in 17 rural counties (and opposed by 85 percent of the voters in Multnomah County, home to Portland).
As I studied the mail ballot I’d received in advance of the November election, I was stunned by the last item, “Second Amendment Preservation Ordinances,” that would give county sheriffs the authority to determine if state and federal gun laws are constitutional and bar county resources from being used to enforce them. Those living in counties that approved the measure would have the right to own semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, regardless of the law.
The voter guide that accompanied the ballot didn’t offer a back story, so I did my own research, as the guide recommended. As you might guess, I found myself thick in the militia movement.
I had followed the 2016 standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, where armed militia occupied the refuge headquarters for 41 days, arguing that the government had too much control of land in the west. After that I lost track.
It turns out that in the two years since Malheur, an Oregon gun rights group called the Committee for the Preservation of the Second Amendment—with broad support from the members of two militia groups, the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers—had campaigned and organized for the ordinance across the state. They succeeded in getting it on the ballot in ten counties, all militia strongholds except two, and won in eight of the ten. In the county adjacent to mine, a militia stronghold, 22,737 voters approved unrestricted gun ownership, while 8,302 voters objected. In my (Jackson) county, 32,818 voted yes (more than I would have thought!) and 44,210 voted no.
An Oregon Firearms Federation press release promoting the measure promised it would protect residents against “Portland liberals” and “new, Bloomberg-funded attacks on your rights.”
Even in these second amendment counties, though, there has been pushback. A nonprofit group called the Rural Organizing Project urges citizens to organize around shared values and publicly resist attempts by outside groups (agitators from national militia groups are common) to speak for them. The stagnant economies of rural Oregon—whose wealth, largely based on natural resource extraction, dried up in the 1980s and 1990s—are prime areas for resentment, especially those where the federal government owns lots of land.
In “Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement,” ROP.org offers stories from the field, about “how rural Oregonians on the frontlines have successfully organized to take back their communities.” Josephine County (just northwest of Ashland) is an example.
In April 2015, “Up in Arms” reports, the Oath Keepers of Josephine County began a month-long armed encampment at the Sugar Pine Mine in support of gold miners who were in a dispute with the Bureau of Land Management. Paramilitary groups from across the country began posting Twitter updates and YouTube videos of themselves driving out to Josephine County for another Malheur Wildlife Refuge-like standoff.
Alarmed Josephine County residents began calling neighbors, friends, and community leaders and formed a group, Together for Josephine County, that shared information, invited and brought in new people to every meeting, and created resources for the community struggling to understand what was going on.
The group placed a signature ad in the local paper:
“We are Josephine County residents working to build a prosperous local economy and a safe environment in which to raise our families. We are active community members, including teachers, farmers, business owners, faith leaders and parents who love our children. Some of us have lived in this beautiful county our entire lives, while many of us have settled here after falling in love with it. We may have diverse opinions, backgrounds and experiences, but we are all privileged to call this place home.
We support a vision of a county where:
- All can live in safety and without fear or intimidation.
- Democracy thrives and those living in the community decide who represent and speak for us.
- Problems are resolved peacefully through negotiation and with respect for all parties involved.”
Over 100 people signed onto the signature ad within 24 hours, and after over a month of armed encampments and intimidation, the Oath Keepers announced they were standing down.
In today’s tribal politics, I am reminded, there are upstanders on both sides.
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