Dan Rayfield, Democratic Representative from the Corvallis area to the Oregon State Legislature, has been named the Legislature’s Speaker of the House of Representatives, replacing Tina Kotek who had held the Speakership since 2013.
On February 10, I was able to interview Speaker Rayfield about his recent promotion. My first question was whether he’d had his eye on the Speaker’s chair for a while, to which he said no.
He said that “some people come to the Legislature with their eyes on a specific office, but not me.” Instead, he said, he had a specific aspect of the job of legislation that he was interested in, one that many would prefer to avoid: “the budget. Not everybody would volunteer to get involved in it, but I said I would.”
Rayfield found Speaker Kotek’s withdrawal from the Speakership as unforeseen, and said he was sought out because “they wanted someone who could form teams quickly to deal with crises. So, I talked it over with my wife – you don’t take a job like that without consulting with your wife.”
Going back to the budget, I asked the Speaker how he felt about the recent revelation of the state budget’s $800 million surplus.
“Oregon is blessedly fortunate,” he said. “An independent review found that we’re one of the best-prepared states to deal with a possible economic downturn, which is good, considering how many things we need to make top priorities: homelessness, housing, keeping kids in school, preventing teacher burnout, cost of living. Federal money is going to dry up at some point, the economy is bound to lull, and we’ll have to deal with all of these things on our own.”
To get a better idea of how he might handle statewide issues, I asked him about something well-known locally, the recently-opened Crisis Center, which he had worked on. I wondered how he had settled on supporting it, as opposed to other projects which could have received the funding which went to it.
“I try not to make big decisions by myself,” he said. “I asked others what would make the biggest impact, and I want to credit people at the Health Department for making the Crisis Center ready to receive that support. If they hadn’t been working to make the project ready to begin, it wouldn’t have been there for me to approve its funding.”
From the Crisis Center, it was logical to ask what he thought about the new Justice Center.
“I’m interested to see how the community responds,” he said. “Colocation is a good idea, of course. I love our existing Courthouse, but it’s not seismic-ready, and we have to take that into consideration. I do like the vision behind the new Justice Center.”
Having begun the interview by asking him whether he’d had ambitions for the Speakership when he first came to Salem, I finished by asking Speaker Rayfield whether he had any ambitions beyond the Speakership, of becoming Governor, or of going to Washington DC.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to have for dinner tonight,” he said. “I have a list of things I’d like to accomplish this session as Speaker – my to-do list does not include running for Governor.”
Speaker Rayfield has clearly come a long way from working as a Jungle Cruise skipper at Walt Disney World – much less from being fired from Walt Disney World.
By John M. Burt
Do you have a story for The Advocate? Email editor@corvallisadvocate.com