Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Bud Pierce made a campaign stop at the Portland Hilton to open the State of Reform conference Wednesday, continuing his attempts to appeal to voters who are dissatisfied with Democrats controlling all levels of state government in Oregon.
The Salem oncologist sounded at times like he was running for president of the Oregon Medical Association, talking about how to best provide care to patients or fight obesity, but with ballots going in the mail next month, he did provide several public policy points where he differs with incumbent governor Kate Brown.
The state is looking at a budget gap of nearly $2 billion as the rise in the cost of government exceeds the sizable gains in state revenue from the improved economy. The costs are led by an increase in the state share of Medicaid and increased liabilities for public pensions.
The Democrats are seeking to solve this problem with a $6 billion increase in corporate tax revenues -- Ballot Measure 97. Pierce, who opposes the measure, wants to look at reducing the cost of government within the dollars it already has. .
Public employees unions have long been the staunchest allies and biggest campaign contributors to the Democrats, but the Republican Pierce, while saying he didn’t seek to lay off people, said state agencies may need to cut their administrative costs.
Pierce compared Oregon critically to Indiana -- a state with 6.6 million people which has only 30,000 public employees, compared to Oregon’s 4 million people and 40,000 public employees.
The Republican was hesitant to say outright that Oregon has too many public employees, later clarifying in an interview that the state has too few front-line employees like child welfare caseworkers -- but was top-heavy with management.
“People say we are at maximum efficiency, I don’t believe that,” he said in an interview with The Lund Report following his speech.
It was the third time The Lund Report interviewed Pierce since he launched his candidacy a year ago. His opponent, Brown, has not agreed to any interviews to counter what Pierce has been saying.
Gun Control
Despite his moderate leanings, Pierce does hew to Republican orthodoxy on one big hot-button issue -- gun control. He said if Democrats send him new laws further regulating firearms, he was apt to veto them, although he conceded he would have to read over any specific legislation before making such a commitment.
Some Democrats, such as Rep. Barbara Smith Warner of Portland, have sought to frame the country’s loose gun laws as a public health threat. Although the state has been the setting of high profile massacres like the Umpqua Community College shooting, the vast majority of gun deaths in Oregon are suicides. Guns are both easy to obtain and the surest way for a mentally unstable person to take their own life.
Oregon had 18 suicides per 100,000 people in 2012, a rate 42 percent higher than the national average, according to a thorough report from the Oregon Health Authority.
State Democrats have passed piecemeal legislation to close background check loopholes in recent years and will likely introduce new restrictions in 2017. Oregon’s gun laws are still much more liberal than those in California, the Northeast or the blue parts of the Midwest -- there’s little to stop someone from packing firearms at a school or the state capitol, gun owners do not need a license, and guns do not have to be registered. Military assault rifles are also legal for civilian purchase as are large-capacity ammo magazines.
Pierce noted that most gun deaths in Oregon are suicide but said that was an indication of the state’s flailing community mental system, which he said needs to be overhauled. Despite having one of the highest rates in the United States, the state’s rate is still lower than Japan, a country where almost no civilians have guns.
Brown’s support for former New York Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s slate of gun proposals led him to write her campaign a check for $250,000.
Pollster Calls Race Competitive
But the quarter-million donation from Bloomberg also indicates some vulnerability for Brown -- since Bloomberg probably would not have needed to cut such as a whopper of a check if she had the race sealed up.
The Oregon gubernatorial race has attracted scant attention otherwise, and most observers have marked Brown as a shoo-in for election. No Republican has been elected governor in Oregon since 1982, a losing streak second only to Washington, where none have been elected since 1980.
But pollster Mike Riley of Portland-based Riley Research said the race may be closer than it appears: “Bud Pierce is behind, but he’s competitive,” he said.
Riley said he expected Pierce would be a much more active governor than Brown, confronting legislative Democrats on many issues rather than letting the Legislature take the lead as she’s done thus far.
But at the same time, he said he was not a traditional Republican and noted he would keep the Medicaid expansion and the state’s unique delivery transformation through coordinated care organizations.
“I don’t see that changing as a result of the governor’s race,” Riley said.
As a member of the Mid-Valley Independent Practitioners Association and a past president of the Oregon Medical Association, Pierce has been very supportive of the latter reforms.
Passing over NBA journeyman Chris Dudley, Pierce said his party hadn’t nominated a moderate since former attorney general Dave Frohnmayer in 1990, and a resulting schism between traditional Northwest Republicans like Bob Packwood and an unelectable but ascendant anti-abortion, evangelical Christian wing had led to a string of defeats.
Pierce said he was “boring” enough in his personal life -- one marriage, respectable children, runs a successful small business -- that he could appeal to conservative-minded folks in southern and eastern Oregon despite his centrist views, which he could carry into the general election.
“The Republican Party, if it has any hope, it has to become a center party,” he said.
