Opinion by Mark Kirchmeier
Just name an important issue. Whether standing up to the Trump administration, tackling homelessness, boosting Portland Public Schools, or funding the Oregon Health Plan, Governor Tina Kotek has been a skillful advocate for our city and state.
Kotek has been a more effective governor than her predecessor Kate Brown, and, if re-elected, could become one of the best Oregon governors in decades.
Her values also fit Portland like a hand in a glove, more so than her opponent, state Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby. The sunniness of Drazan’s beautifully produced television commercials belies the harshness of her campaign positions.
Drazan’s focus is gutting the Corporate Activity and Estate taxes for high incomes and vetoing any other increase on high-income- bracket businesses and individuals. Those actions would reduce state revenues, thus harming public schools and universities, hollowing out state health coverage for many, and under-cutting Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s efforts to reduce homelessness.
Drazan is also a Climate Change denier and vows as governor to reverse decades of state environmental, land-use and consumer protections.
And Drazan is a President Donald Trump ally. The Clackamas County Republican has supported or been complicit in Trump’s authoritarian assaults on Oregon, including inflation-creating tariffs, federal climate and health care cuts, forcing utility rate increases by sabotaging the Bonneville Power Administration, and trying to place Army National Guardsmen on the he streets of Portland with e contrived excuse of law and order.
Kotek and Attorney General Dan Rayfield have battled Trump blow-to-blow with legal challenges to his every attack on our state. Drazan almost certainly won’t even try.
Kotek has room for improvement. She stumbled early in her term by involving her wife, Aimee Wilson, in state policy matters that were inappropriate. Her management of the state transportation budget deficit could have been much better. Kotek also has a serious, tech-minded personality that hurts her with some voters impressed with Drazan’s extroversion and cosmetic qualities. But on substance, Tina Kotek is a champ. Many N/NE Portlanders remember well her long service as state legislator and Speaker of the House before becoming governor. She’s had a strong first term. Portland needs her for another.
[The writer ran against Kotek in a three-person race for the Oregon House of Representative’s District 44 seat in the May 2006 election. NPReviewmk@gmail.com]