Three Oregon gubernatorial candidates — with vastly different visions for the state — squared off in an hour-long debate on Tuesday night, not long before mail-in ballots are set to go out and less than 35 days before the competitive election.
Former Oregon House Republican leader and GOP nominee Christine Drazan, former Democrat state senator-turned independent Betsy Johnson, and former Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) sparred over the Beaver State’s most pressing issues, including crime, homelessness, housing, and education.
The debate was hosted by KATU in Portland and moderated by the station’s Steve Dunn. The debate also featured video questions from everyday Oregonians.
Debate Highlights
The candidates could not have been more different in how they addressed Oregonians. Johnson spoke in an abrupt, no-nonsense sort of way and pitched herself as the middle-of-the road, gun-toting, abortion-loving third option. Drazan was more gentle but direct, not shying away from her conservative values but instead promising to use common sense to pull Oregon back from the pits of leftist insanity. Kotek seemed more nervous given current far-left Gov. Kate Brown’s extremely low popularity and often relied on vague personal anecdotes rather than fully explaining her decade-long record, which helped create the conditions of present-day Oregon.
Four consecutive surveys before the debate have shown Drazan narrowly leading Kotek within the margin of error, with Johnson potentially siphoning votes away from her Democrat opponent.
The Fallout from Measure 110
A huge point of debate throughout the general election cycle has been Measure 110, a ballot measure approved by Oregon voters in 2020 that decriminalized hard drugs, including cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, and meth. As Breitbart News’ John Nolte previously detailed, the only punishment is a $100 ticket, which is “the equivalent of a busted taillight.” After its passage, overdose deaths in the state hit a record high. Both Johnson and Kotek voted to implement Measure 110, which Drazan opposed. Now, Johnson has joined Drazan in calling to repeal the measure. Kotek contends the measure still has potential and has been improperly overseen by Gov. Brown.
“Has it gone well? No. I think Governor Brown has been absent in making sure those dollars got out in an efficient and effective manner. We have to make sure the providers and the goal is to provide more recovery and treatment for individuals who are ready, to come and recover from their addiction. We need to make that happen. We don’t throw in the towel. We don’t send people away,” Kotek argued.
“We make sure they have the services they need. But I will say for Portland in particular, in addition to making Measure 110 work, we need a meth stabilization center in Portland. We need a place for cops to take folks, not the emergency departments, when they are in a meth-related psychosis,” she added.
Drazan called the measure an outright “failure,” pointing to the increased rate of overdose deaths, as well as the state’s slow speed in getting “money out the door in support of services.”
“As I have been on the campaign trail, I’ve heard from Oregonians across our entire state who have real concerns about the impacts of Measure 110 in their families and in their communities,” Drazan said. “…I will call on the state legislature to refer a measure back out to voters, which removes the portion of the measure which decriminalized possession of hard drugs, and instead commit to continue to fund supportive services and give people the opportunity to get into treatment so that they can enter into lifetime of recovery.”
Johnson slammed the measure for essentially creating “open-air drug markets that come frequently with violence and intimidation.”
“I think we need an honest conversation about the nexus between lethal drugs, homelessness, mental health deterioration, crime, and violence. It’s all inexorably tied,” Johnson added. “And when you add that to the cartels now running much of the southern part of the state in the black market marijuana, Oregon’s laissez-faire attitude about drugs has accelerated much of our urban decay and has led to death and violence.”
Skyrocketing Crime and Gun Control
Portland’s “summer of love” after the death of George Floyd turned into years of violence, anti-law enforcement rhetoric, and defunding efforts. Drazan pointed to how Portland’s homicide rate is “up over 200 percent over a two-year period,” and surmised that “we have never had streets that are as unsafe as they are right now.” She also blamed Kotek and the current governor for turning blind eye to the violent riots, which resulted in tens of millions of dollars in damage and death.
“It is a tragedy. It is entirely preventable. We need more law enforcement. We need to hire more police. We need more troopers. We need more police on our streets,” Drazan said. “That is a dramatic difference between Governor Kate Brown’s approach and frankly, Speaker of the House Tina Kotek’s approach when it came to public safety. More often than not, we’re talking about women who made the decision to allow riots to continue — who made the decision to make all of us less safe.”
Kotek did not comment on her past complicity but admitted that “we’re all feeling unsafe.” She proposed “going specifically after drug cartels” to get “dangerous drugs off the street,” (which seems contrary to her support of decriminalization). She also said she would “go after illegal firearms that are causing a lot of violent crimes and deaths…” and said she would fund the Oregon State Police.
All three candidates weighed in on proposed Ballot Measure 114, which would limit magazine capacity to ten rounds, require a permit to buy any gun, safety training, and tougher background checks.
Both Drazan and Johnson, who have high ratings from the National Rifle Association (NRA), called the measure problematic and said they would oppose it.
“I will be voting no on ballot Measure 114. This happens to be a measure that infringes upon Second Amendment rights,” Drazan said, adding that Oregon needs to put more funding into mental health response and law enforcement presence.
“Measure 114 is brought to Oregon by people that want to limit the constitutional Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens,” Johnson added.
Kotek said she would support the measure, pointed to her opponents’ NRA ratings as a supposed negative, called guns “weapons of war,” and advocated moving the age of purchase from 18 to 21.
Tent Cities and the Homelessness Crisis
Both Johnson and Drazan credited Kotek with exacerbating Oregon’s homelessness crisis by increasing regulations that have “burdened developers and home builders.”
“Tina Kotek has styled herself as the architect of Oregon’s housing policy. I would pose the question, ‘then why is it getting worse?’ We’re better at pitching tents than we are at pulling permits,” Johnson said.
“I think it’s really important to set the record straight on this issue. You know, as Speaker of the House, Tina Kotek at every opportunity increased the regulatory burden on housing, increased the cost to Oregon families,” Drazan said. “Frankly, she was driving through a tax increase — it would’ve increased gas prices by up to $3 a gallon, and she did it as speaker of the house without ever worrying about the dramatic harm that happens in everyday Oregon families.”
Kotek accused her opponents of failing to support an eviction moratorium during the pandemic and declining to support a plan to convert motels into shelters. Drazan responded by saying there is “no greater indictment of Tina Kotez’s failed leadership than the homeless situation we see on our streets.”
“She is personally responsible for legislation which has created the tent cities that we see every day across our state,” Drazan said. “There is no doubt that she has in fact created an environment that has enabled and encouraged the existence of homelessness across our state and used it as an excuse to increase government programs and government costs to no benefit to the people that are struggling.”
Education and Abortion
“Never close the schools again,” Johnson fired off when asked about the fallout of draconian pandemic policies. “We close down the schools unnecessarily for two years. We have no measure of the social mental health or emotional damage that we did, but we have certainly gotten a snapshot of the academic damage.”
Oregon shut down schools longer than almost any state during the pandemic. In late September, the Oregon Department of Education announced that “students’ reading, writing, and math skills plummeted due to pandemic-induced disruptions to schooling,” local media reported, noting that it could “take years to repair and may in some cases never be made up for.”
Drazan slammed Kotek for shooting down legislation she had presented to reopen schools and fully fund schools.
“I am a mom of three and I can tell you from personal experience that the COVID period was absolutely an abysmal failure. It hurt our kids. It hurt my kids. It hurt kids across our entire state. Kate Brown and Tina Kotek harmed our students,” she said.
Kotek did not say whether she regrets keeping schools closed for so long but said, “it’s been difficult.” Instead, she proposed smaller class sizes, more mental health support, more career and technical education, and gun violence prevention. She also touted her effort to fund schools and accused Johnson and Drazan of trying to cut funding.
On the issue of abortion, both Kotek and Johnson tried to paint pro-life Drazan as some sort of extremist for valuing the lives of unborn children. Drazan did not shy away from her pro-life position but said she would enforce Oregon law as it is if elected governor. The state notably codified abortion into law in 2017 and allows abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
When the debate moderator pointed to the state’s extreme abortion laws and asked, “is Oregon out of step with the national mainstream…?” Johnson contended that “it’s Christine Drazan who’s out of step with Oregon.” She also called ending the lives of unborn children “an absolute bedrock value” and touted her previous service on a Planned Parenthood board.
Kotek fear-mongered about abortion — like most vulnerable far-left Democrats — by claiming that the “national Republican agenda is trying to ban abortion across the country, even in places like Oregon.”
“Christine Drazan wants to ban abortion. She is backed by an extremist organization that wants to ban abortion. And she even co-sponsored a bill that would have thrown doctors in jail if they performed abortions. I know people are scared right now. They are worried after the decision by the Supreme Court. I will always stand up for Oregonians to control their bodies and have access to healthcare,” Kotek said, also touting endorsements from Planned Parenthood PAC of Oregon and Pro-Choice Oregon.
Drazan accused her opponents of trying to manipulate voters to “hold onto power.”
“This is the only issue that my opponents in this race want to be on the ballot this election. They would like to make you believe that choice is on the ballot. It’s not,” Drazan said. “Do not be manipulated by people that just want to hold onto power.”
“The fact that this is all my opponents want to talk about means that this is all they have to run on. And it’s a little bit pathetic,” she added.
Dealing with Division
An Oregonian named Eugene asked the candidates how they would deal with ever-increasing division between political parties. All three candidates promised to be a governor for all Oregonians despite political differences, though Kotek caveated by saying “we are a divided world.”
“I want be honest with everyone. We are a divided world — our country and our state. The pandemic has made it harder for us to be with each other and talk respectfully and civilly with each other. It’s going take all of us be engaged in dialogue for the benefit of our entire state,” she said.
Subsequently, Kotek in her closing statements employed the overused and incendiary terms “threat to democracy” and “right-wing” to describe her GOP opponent.
“Christine Drazan wants to ban abortion,” Kotek reasserted despite Drazan’s clarification. “She co-sponsored a bill that would make sure doctors would be thrown in jail if they did abortions. And she campaigns with people who are active threats to our democracy. If we want to move to the right wing, then you have choices, but I have always stood in my public service with the values of Oregonians, and I will always be standing with working families, and I would be honored to have your votes.”
Drazan, in her closing statement, credited both Johnson and Kotek for Oregon’s “decade of decline.”
“They have held the reins, they have been in charge, they have held the power. If you feel like our state is a mess, if you feel like homelessness is a challenge and our streets are not safe and our schools are not strong enough, I would ask for you to join me. I am committed to serving Oregonians, to being a governor for all Oregonians and leading our state in a new direction,” she said.
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