As we post this, only four days remain for your ballot to either be dropped or postmarked – you have until May 21. So, we’re rerunning our endorsements below, frankly to remind, nag or nudge you into voting, because we think it matters. Let’s remember, our current mayor won by only 34 votes.
Also, maybe you missed these when we originally ran them. So without further ado…
President: We are endorsing Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination because he’s doing a nuanced and effective job. His climate legislation alone, while not perfect, should be enough of a recommendation – but also bear in mind that no president since Clinton has worked so effectively with a divided congress, as well. The Advocateers that study such things, say history will likely view Biden far more favorably than the current scuttlebutt would indicate.
We know many voters will see Biden’s Midde East policies as potentially disqualifying, but we would caution that you may want to consider those polices against the backdrop of what his almost certain opponent will likely do if elected, both in that region, and here at home. Given what a second Donald Trump term would likely mean for the Middle East, we’d encourage you to lobby for Biden with any swing state pals you may have.
Which brings us to the Republican primary contest. Nikki Haley may have been a far surer bet against Biden in the fall – but she is no longer an option. We suppose you could cast a write-in vote for her, which is what we would endorse, but yeah… this is over. We think that’s unfortunate, given that Haley seemed to be proof positive that true conservatives can still roam the earth with intelligence, pragmatism, and substantive foreign policy chops. We can’t say any of that about Donald Trump.
Oregon Secretary of State: We are endorsing Tobias Read for the Democratic nomination. His only major opponent is Sen. James Manning, who we have liked as a legislator. But, the Secretary of State position is executive in nature, and Read has the right experience for the job.
Read has served as Oregon’s Treasurer since 2017, and one can easily argue he’s put that office onto a firmer footing – and that he’s been good for the state’s finances. Read has a reputation for approaching questions deeply and pragmatically – and he’s often been plainspoken when others have been less so.
With all the turnover and scandal at Oregon’s Secretary of State office – we think Read is uniquely qualified to turn it around, and we hope Oregon’s voters will agree.
For the Republican primary, you have two candidates that want to do away with mailed ballots, and another that’s a straight-up election denier – and we’re not endorsing any of that, nosiree.
Oregon Treasurer: We are endorsing Elizabeth Steiner in the Democratic primary. Her opponent, Jeff Gudman has run for the office twice as a Republican, and we think he makes some valid points concerning investment strategies, but there’s more to the job than that.
In the Oregon Senate, Steiner served on the Ways and Means Committee, and if she’s elected as Treasurer, she’ll hit the ground running with deep knowledge of the state’s finances and its budgeting process. She has also been a physician, and talks frequently about the way health and money intersect. Steiner has a mix of experience that is both high-level and down-to-earth – and she’s been a fierce advocate on the questions that are most salient right now.
The winner of the Democratic primary for Treasurer will go on to face Sen. Brian Boquist in fall’s general election – he is running unopposed in the Republican primary.
Oregon Attorney General: We are endorsing Rep. Dan Rayfield. His opponent is Shaina Maxey Pomerantz, a Portland attorney, and the Executive Director of Race Talks – and she recently won a $425,000 race discrimination settlement in a case against the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. But she doesn’t have Rayfield’s experience, for instance, his nine years in the Oregon House, where he would eventually become Speaker.
As Speaker of the House, Rayfield earned bipartisan trust, and cemented a reputation as a fair-minded and even-handed leader, even as he pushed his own party’s agenda. These are good traits for a prospective Attorney General. Last year, as the State Senate bogged down amid a Republican walkout, Rayfield was able to keep House working together.
As an added bonus, Rayfield is a longtime Corvallis resident.
On the Republican side, we’re endorsing Will Lathrop. He has spent years working with nonprofits seeking to end human trafficking, and has worked with the faith-based International Justice Mission. He has also worked as a Yamhill and Marion County Prosecutor.
He talks in terms of restoring more safety for Oregonians, and would also seek to increase consumer protections. He would also like to connect Oregon’s local law enforcement agencies to national and international strategies for combating fentanyl distribution.
Lathrop’s opponent is Michael Cross, who also ran in 2020. He does not have a law degree, and does subscribe to the occasional conspiracy theory. This one is not even close, Republicans will want Will Lathrop as their nominee.
Corvallis’ State Representative, District 16: In this race, we are endorsing Sami Al-Abdrabbuh. However, we have to say, Al-Abdrabbuh’s opponent, Sarah Finger McDonald, made this a hard choice – she is an enormously well qualified and compelling candidate, that is widely respected.
So, here’s what swayed our decision. Most everyone we’ve talked with about Al-Abdrabbuh focused on both his deep intelligence, and his seemingly inexhaustible ability to show up and get things done. And these observations square with our experiences of Al-Abdrabbuh over the years.
For instance, both he and his opponent are Corvallis School Board members, but it is Al-Abdrabbuh that ascended to the presidency of the Oregon School Boards Association – a position he took amid a certain amount of controversy, but nonetheless, then leveraged the new job to meet with school district leaders throughout the state. He likes pointing out that most of Oregon’s districts serve small conservative communities, but that all the districts statewide share a common goal to educate the students they serve.
This is typical of Al-Abdrabbuh – there are those that love him, and others that don’t, but everyone would stipulate that he puts in the work and seeks divergent opinions.
Two endorsements cited in a couple of Al-Abdrabbuh’s mailers stirred some controversy. Both Rep. Dacia Grayber and Rep. Tom Andersen were included as endorsing Al-Abdrabbuh, when in fact, they hadn’t. In the instance of Grayber, we talked with the Al-Abdrabbuh campaign worker that mistakenly placed the representative’s name in the campaign literature from a list of prospective endorsers, while then leaving another endorser’s name from that list off the mailer that was supposed to be included.
We can relate, it’s the kind of mistake that happens at newspapers too – people get overly rushed when a print deadline approaches. In the instance of Andersen, both he and Al-Abdrabbuh have both said they talked, and both seem to believe that the other could have misinterpreted, and neither believes they can recount the conversation well enough to offer a full recounting. We noted that Al-Abdrabbuh issued a prominently displayed correction on his campaign site upon learning of the error.
In the debate we hosted for this race, Al-Abdrabbuh consistently demonstrated a compellingly wide and deep understanding across issues, but we sometimes had to pin him down. He often struck us as knowing so much that he didn’t quite know where to start, which isn’t entirely uncommon for the candidates we’ve hosted over the years. Likewise, Al-Abdrabbuh is also generally guarded in his comments, something we often see in candidates and officials that are thinking forward to how they’re going to seek common ground with others, given that no legislator is an island.
Conversely, Finger McDonald also has an excellent reputation among peers, and is universally liked. She is also more able to quickly come to a sound position. In the debate we hosted, she was refreshingly direct, which we’ve also seen in our past interactions with her. In fact, if we were judging on issues alone, some of us preferred Finger McDonald’s positions.
Notably, her debate answers on the prospect of legislation that could impact our local landfill was direct – she won’t support anything that will take veto authority away from the County if it chooses to deny an expansion, but she still may look to impose more rigorous health and environmental protections on a statewide basis.
On the other hand, when we asked about Optum’s takeover of The Corvallis Clinic, neither candidate was, in our opinion, satisfyingly definitive. But it was Al-Abdrabbuh that talked about working the phone to see what could be done – and sometimes – really – it’s the work behind the scenes that makes things happen.
At least to our way of thinking, both candidates demonstrated different but roughly equal approaches concerning issues, so our support for Al-Abdrabbuh comes down to our belief that he’s more likely to bring home the bacon. We know that’s not the loftiest consideration, but it’s not unimportant, and our fair burgh’s current Representative in Salem has proved capable in this regard.
When we asked the candidates which committees they would like to sit on, Al-Abdrabbuh replied he’d like to get on the House Ways and Means Committee. Which, even with his caveat that he knows that’s not likely to happen in his first term, seems brazen. But, given a term or two, we can see Al-Abdrabbuh getting it done, if only by the sheer force of his work ethic alone.
There are no Republicans vying for this nomination.
County Commissioner: We are endorsing Liz Irish in this race. Her opponent, Gabe Shepherd, has some great ideas, and we like his outlook in some areas – but we also think the county has deeper challenges, and we believe Irish is better able to meet them head-on.
Irish is a member of the Benton County planning commission and has also served on the County’s Trash Talks workgroup that examined the landfill. Albany’s Mayor, Alex Johnson, tells us she was pivotal in that city’s well-regarded work on housing.
When asked about housing and homelessness at the debate we hosted for this race, both candidates expressed the belief we need more transitional and low barrier options, but it was Irish the cited specific policies that are getting in the way, and others that may help. It was also Irish that offered specific numbers.
On affordable housing, we liked Shepherd’s notion that the county become more permissive about accessory dwelling units on local farmland, and we would encourage the county to pursue a policy in this direction, regardless of how this election turns out.
When we asked about the local shortage of mental health workers, Shepherd centered on paying competitively, which Irish also talked about. But then, Irish went beyond that, suggesting that county officials work with the state’s universities on building expedited two-year programs for mental health workers. Irish also pointed to state mandated requirements for counties to hire more mental health professionals that had the effect of pitting counties against one another, and that the mandate could have been staggered. Shepherd didn’t offer the same level of specificity.
When asked about building partnerships with outside organizations as a means of helping folks needing a mental health professional, Shepherd shared general skepticism about contracting with private organizations. Irish, however, didn’t seem to have such a general objection, but she did say that our local healthcare organizations don’t have the necessary staffing either. She pointed specifically to Samaritan’s mental health cuts these last few years.
And this is where Irish’s backstory becomes relevant – there are serious mental health issues in her late husband’s family, and she has regularly found herself seeking help for loved ones, including one of her own kids. And when it comes to housing, her own family had experienced homelessness for a short while – and she’s gone on to be a success in the mortgage industry, and as a volunteer public servant.
We know some voters have expressed worry that Irish was once a Republican. But we respect people that grow and evolve, and openly chart new courses for themselves – and we know that’s doubly difficult for public people.
Some of the folks in the local Democratic party have been somewhat unwelcoming towards people making this journey – and we think that for any political party, this is a self-defeating and unconstructive attitude.
In this race, we have Shepherd as the chair of the local Democratic party, being endorsed by Corvallis’ mayor, Charles Maughan, also a Democrat. We also have Irish, endorsed by all three of Benton County’s sitting commissioners, all of whom are also Democrats. And, while it’s interesting to see how a local party absent any real competitive threat starts dividing into parties within itself – both of which are progressive in slightly different flavors – it’s worth remembering that on a local level, road projects don’t come with an ideological bent, they just need doing.
And this is why we’re supporting Irish – she has a pragmatic bent towards getting things done, and she seems more able to work with more kinds of people than many of our area’s currently elected folks – and the County needs that right now.
A fact, one of our readers put succinctly when he said he feels like County officials have been more interested in handling voter sentiments, than really hearing them these last few years. The result has been a County that often zigs when the electorate is clearly asking for zag. For instance, County officials were actually surprised when voters trounced their jail construction bond by thirteen points. Even now, officials think it was either because of the taxes involved or that it was somehow overly complicated, which it wasn’t.
Of late, officials are making the same errors in judgment concerning the landfill, and we will credit Shepherd for showing more proper skepticism about the dump’s operation and prospective expansion than our current officials have been.
In our view, it seems naïve to think the County would accept assurances that the DEQ or EPA would have certain enough funding to reliably regulate the site into the future, it’s a plan that has obviously failed. Whoever is elected, we think the County should look at monitoring potentially hazardous sites like these for itself, with renumeration coming from the operators – and we think the County should grow some regulatory teeth too.
Similarly, constituents now see Corvallis’ city government unfavorably too – different problems, but same governmental tone deafness and inefficacy.
Shepherd, as both a City Councilor and Democratic party chair has been in a position to apply pressure towards a more constructive direction for the City, and given our offline conversations, we believe he understands the problems. But we haven’t seen his fingerprints on an effective solution, whereas Irish has been, by all accounts, highly effective across a number of roles.
In short, Liz Irish has a track record of meeting difficult issues and circumstances by becoming deeply informed, and then turning what she learns into practical solutions – and she gets things done.
In our interactions, we’ve found Irish to be refreshingly outspoken and candid, which together with her diverse background, puts her in good stead to be an asset to the County. We hope you will join us in voting for her.
This is another race in which no Republicans have filed.
Do you have a story for The Advocate? Email editor@corvallisadvocate.com