Lane County Democrats bring energy from Chicago convention to local races

The Democratic Party of Lane County begins the fall campaign with a chili cookoff. KEPW’s Todd Boyle was there. On Aug. 25:

[00:00:11] Rep. Nancy Nathanson: I’m Nancy Nathanson. And if you help get me re-elected, I will be the senior Democrat in the Oregon House of Representatives. So I’m going to tell you a little bit about what I’ve been doing this past year and what I plan to do next year. Congress has failed to act to rein in pharmacy benefit managers. They are raking in profits and squeezing pharmacies out of business. I took them on last year. I won, and we’re going to do more next year.

[00:00:53] Congress has also failed to keep health care in the hands of doctors and health professionals. And instead Congress is turning a blind eye to the corporatization of health care. You know the phrases ‘vertical integration,’ ‘antitrust.’ Investor-owned businesses are buying up healthcare businesses and we have seen vertical integration like we’ve never seen it before.

Right now those investor-owned groups that are controlling things, they control everything from the billing service to the pharmacy to the pharmacy benefit manager and to our doctor’s office. We’ve got to put a stop to this.

So you remember one of the problems was non-compete agreements. That’s what was preventing doctors from seeing patients if they went to a different practice. The Federal Trade Commission wrote a rule forbidding those non-compete agreements ever again. A court is turning down that rule. What Congress can’t do federally, we’re going to do in Oregon next year.

[00:02:12] On July 4, I put the flag up in front of my house. We usually take it down at night. I now have a light that stays on all night. I am leaving my flag up every day. That American flag is for all of us, not one party. I’m proud to be patriotic and flying my flag.

[00:02:46] (Take back the flag!)

[00:02:47] Take back the flag. I have a few favorite quotes from the convention that we were all just watching or listening to. Maybe some of you remember those. You know, the one about ‘our candidate who has a resume and the other one who has a rap sheet.’ Did you like that one? ‘We’re not going back.’

[00:03:02] And now I’m going to end my comments with saying, after we finish our chili, after we get a good night’s sleep, now ‘let’s do something.’

[00:03:26] I am really pleased that my friend Heather Buch is here, County Commissioner.

[00:03:31] Heather Buch (Lane County commissioner): Hi, everybody. Can you hear me all right? You know, (a life-size standup figure of Democratic presidential candidate) Kamala is now standing over there in the corner, and although I have never met her, maybe one day I will, I want to thank her for helping me run for office in the first place. Many people don’t know that she was the co-founder of Emerge America. It was born out of her running for office in California..,,,. and them recognizing that they didn’t have a way to help women run for office.

[00:04:29] And I’m a proud Emerge alum. We’ve got a lot of electeds here that are proud Emerge alums. And I couldn’t be more grateful because that forethought is what helped people like me who never thought I could run for office, give it a shot. And without that support, it wouldn’t happen.

[00:04:48] Now many of you know that I am now sitting on a conservative-leaning board of county commissioners. And unfortunately, most of my time is taken up defending democracy. And we have got an issue on our plate on the November ballot I want to make sure you are all aware of.

We hear about gerrymandering across the country and in other states. But you may not know that it is on your ballot here in Lane County in November and we’re not going to stand for it. We had an independent redistricting committee change our district lines a few years ago with an arms-length away from county commissioners and that is in effect today.

However, our conservative-leaning Board of County Commissioners has decided to put on the ballot to redistrict again and you know what that means? They’re trying to cheat the system. And we don’t do that in Lane County.

They’re going to couch this in a way which it sounds like we’re putting into our charter an independent redistricting committee. However, we already did that. What they’re trying to sneak in is to redistrict our county districts all over again in order to change them so we will have a permanent 4-1 conservative-leaning Board of County Commissioners. We can’t let that happen. (No!)

So I need you to pay real close attention to your ballots here in the fall. I know you’re all voters and I know which way you’re likely to vote on a lot of things, but this one might sound confusing when you see it. So when you see a charter amendment from the Board of County Commissioners regarding redistricting, please vote ‘No.’

[00:06:49] On the positive side, I don’t want to leave you just with a downer message, on the positive side we have been able to get one really excellent policy through, just recently. And that is a brand new state-of-the-art recycling facility that will be put into Goshen that will increase our recycling rates, bring down greenhouse gas emissions in our area, and be a role model throughout the state. I can’t wait for it to start. And with that I’m going to introduce our mayor, Lucy Vinis.

[00:07:32] Lucy Vinis (Eugene mayor): Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Democrats of Lane County. You all are so instrumental in enabling me to run for office and hold my office and do all the work I’ve done and I’m so grateful to you…Thank you for all you have done to reinforce progressive politics in our community.

[00:08:14] The city of Eugene, as with all cities, all of the issues that you talk about, the national level, the state level, the county level, they come to rest on city streets.

[00:08:26] Climate change, housing, homelessness, public safety come to rest on city streets. We absolutely need a progressive county government in order to support what the city is doing. We need a progressive state government in order to support what the city is doing. We need progressive Congresspeople, Val Hoyle, in order to support what the city is doing. We need Kamala Harris in order to support what the city is doing. We cannot do it alone.

It’s that relationship of government to government at all levels of government that actually make us strong, raise the foundation, and enables us to create enduring policies that improve people’s lives. So vote the whole ticket, pay attention to it all, it all matters, but the county is critical, the county has served to undermine so much of what we want to do in our city.

[00:09:22] Jo Beaudreau (Democratic candidate for Senate District 5): My name is Jo Beaudreau and I’m a Florence city councilor and you guys say, ‘Oh, why is somebody from the coast out here?’ Well, that’s because I am running for Senate District 5. And that goes from Coos Bay / North Bend all the way up to just below Tillamook. And I wanted to introduce myself to you and let you know the importance of the Senate District 5 position.

[00:09:47] I am a working mom. I have a 19-month-old daughter named Octavia and I also own my own small business in Florence called BeauxArts Fine Arts Materials.

[00:10:00] I am a champion for working people. My platform is that I am working for better jobs and wages on the coast and our rural communities, improving infrastructure and access to healthcare, as well as diversifying and increasing our housing supply and being smart about it.

And I would like to continue and put a lot of support in for education and job training opportunities as well as affordable health care and in-home care. Because everybody needs support.

I’d like to add that Senate District 5 is a targeted district and that means that people are really paying attention to District 5 right out on the coast from Veneta that way in Lane County.

[00:10:56] Lisa Fragala (Democratic candidate, House District 8): So my name is Lisa Fragala. I am honored to have won the Democratic primary for House District 8, which Paul Holvey will be stepping down from. For those of you who don’t know me, I am an elementary public school teacher, up close to 25 years. And so my favorite quote from the convention would be: ‘Never underestimate a public school teacher.’

[00:11:18] If you want someone who can get it done, I’ve had classrooms of 33 students. I know how to get something done.

[00:11:41] I also serve on the LCC Board of Education and I love the college. I’m very proud to have served on that and to also be thinking about an affordable pathway to higher education and career technology education. And I’ve also been a community organizer in this community for over two decades on a broad range of issues.

[00:12:05] In all of these roles, I’ve seen and heard from community members, right, the challenges that our community faces. I talked to students that I taught in kindergarten when I was knocking on doors in this last election who can’t afford to live here. They want to live here but they can’t afford to live here right and so I know that housing is a critical issue.

And that is something I am very excited to work on as a state representative, finding solutions for affordable housing and for affordable rental opportunities. I was also very (applause) some of the issues that Rep. Nathanson was discussing, right? A lack of access to health care. We’re finally getting to the point where the majority of people actually have health insurance, but we don’t have access to health care.

[00:13:11] I went through a significant illness in the last year. I didn’t have a primary care provider when I was diagnosed with cancer last summer. It’s a very big challenge. And standing here today as a breast cancer survivor, I can guarantee you, I am going to work with other state representatives to do something about corporate control of our health care.

[00:13:37] I also want to take a minute to give a shout-out to Paul Holvey for his very long service in this district. Let’s all give him a round of applause. I also appreciate both Rep. Holvey and Sen. Prozanski, who have been great supporters of me as I transition to being a state representative. So I’m very excited to serve in the state legislature. I’ve been out engaging with community members and stakeholders.

[00:14:17] Please feel free to reach out to me. It’s very, very important that I stay in connection to the local community. So I’m really proud to introduce Michelle Emmons, who’s running for the House.

[00:14:36] Michelle Emmons (Democratic candidate, House District 12): So how was that Harris speech this week? Was anybody else as excited as I was? I took a lot from that. I am living in Oakridge, a single mom with two kids, I’ve got three grandkids. I’ve got nothing. I worked really, really hard. I put myself through college and I realized the American dream, just like Kamala Harris worked hard and realized the American dream.

[00:15:04] And now we’re both running for office. That is the Democratic dream, that we all have enough equity to get to where we want to go, that we all have access to what we need to be successful as Americans. This race is super important for Oregon…

[00:15:24] During this week’s DNC speeches, we heard about unification. We heard about what is the common ground that we all want to have. And the reality is, we all want to have our own dignity. We all want to belong. We all want to be part of something bigger and we all want to move forward together (applause).

[00:15:49] Where I come from, we are very reliant upon our farms and forests. And folks who are in the urban districts are reliant upon my constituents to make sure that they take care of the water that flows into the Eugene-Springfield urban areas. You are dependent on my district for local foods as they’re grown in the farms that surround the urban areas. So farms and forests are really important.

[00:16:27] My opponent, he wants to do away with the private forest accord. He thinks that timber industries are better at managing our forests than our public agencies are. Because he’s a scientist? No, because he owns a timber company.

[00:16:46] Our farms and forests are absolutely critical for our well-being. That’s our clean air, that’s our clean water. So please, if you’re not in House District 12, consider joining us for a canvass, write some postcards with us, be a part of our movement. My chili over here, by the way, is called ‘Girl’s Got Game.’ I think I’ve got some game, and the work I’ve done has been about building coalitions, getting people together, getting the voices at the table. And that is what we’re going to do for House District 12, so that we can find common ground. We can get past the divide between the urban communities and the rural communities.

[00:17:36] We can come together. We can protect our personal freedoms. We can breathe clean air. We can drink clean water, we can have a great education, we can have living wage jobs, and we can have booming economies.

[00:17:48] And I need you to help get the word out about Emmons for Oregon. Thank you very much.

Got to save the best for last, right? I’m going to go ahead and introduce Val Hoyle’s campaign. Come on up.

[00:18:13] Steven Richmond (Val Hoyle campaign, organizing director): How’s it going folks? My name is Steven and I’m Val’s organizing director, which means I’m in charge of all the volunteer efforts that we do: all of the field programming, all of the door-knocking, the phone-calling and the postcarding that Val’s campaign is doing. And let me tell you: We are going to be doing so much this cycle, more than I think we’ve seen in quite a few years.

[00:18:32] How many of you guys were fired up and feeling hopeful at that DNC convention? Right? Right? I was sitting in my living room, and I was watching one of the Obama speeches, and I felt something that I swear that I haven’t felt in four years or more, and that was hope, passion, and the feeling that I’m fired up and ready to go! Let me ask you: Are you guys fired up? Are you guys ready to go? That’s what I want to hear.

So if you want Kamala to get the office, to have the Congress that she needs to pass the things that we want, things like health care, things like abortion access, and everything else that we hold dear, she needs a Congress that will fight for her and fight with her.

What that means is that we need to get not only Val Hoyle into office, but Andrea Salinas and Janelle Bynum. The Democratic National Committee has identified three congressional races in Oregon. that are considered frontline races. Races that we need to spend all of our energy on because they are not guaranteed to win or we are not guaranteed to pick up a seat.

[00:19:47] To do that, we need you. I’ve got to ask you: Are you guys fired up? Yeah! Are you guys ready to go? Yeah! Are you guys ready to do something? Let’s get out there, let’s start volunteering, let’s start knocking on doors, let’s get up and do something. Thank you.

[00:20:13] John Q: See complete coverage of the DPLC event on Todd Boyle’s YouTube channel.

Michelle Emmons (left) and Jo Beaudreau at the DPLC chili cookoff Aug. 25, 2024, courtesy Todd Boyle.