This is the second installment of a two-part exploration of certain, probable, and/or needed changes to the Oregon delegation to the US House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.
Map 2. This map shows more than 15 million acres of public lands administered by the Forest Service, and certain, but not all, public lands administered by the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. It mostly doesn’t show nearly 16 million acres of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the vast majority of them in the Oregon 2nd in the southeast part of the state. The two fundamental units of ecological organization are the watershed and the congressional district. Source: Oregon Legislative Assembly.
Let’s review. Oregon 5th is a highly competitive district, currently represented by a Republican. Oregon 3rd is a solidly Democratic district that’s completely up for grabs in the 2024 election. Oregon 6th is a competitive district that leans Democratic where the Democratic incumbent won by the slimmest of margins in 2022. For the sake of public lands, we can hope for Democratic wins in all these districts in 2024.
Oregon’s 1st and 2nd districts are locks for the incumbents, and we’ll review those first in this installment. Oregon 4th is a much more interesting race and bears more detailed scrutiny. This race in particular calls for citizen engagement to steer it toward a good outcome for nature and the climate.
Oregon 1st
Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D) has served in the US House of Representatives since 2013 and will likely continue as long as she wants. She has repeatedly and easily dispatched any Republican challenger.
Figure 1. Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1st). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Given her safe seat, it’s time for Bonamici to work on her conservation legacy for public lands in her district. For example, she could introduce legislation to establish wilderness areas including Mount Hebo and all those Columbia River islands in the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge. (Perhaps the wilderness area there could be named in honor of someone other than Meriweather Lewis and William Clark.) Legislation could also be introduced to establish the High Peak–Moon Creek and North Fork Wilson River Outstanding Natural Areas on Bureau of Land Management holdings in her district. In an earlier era, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) legislated outstanding natural area status for Yaquina Head.
Oregon 2nd
Representative Cliff Bentz (R) is no friend of nature. Unfortunately, his congressional district, while containing one-sixth of Oregon’s population, encompasses three-quarters of the state’s land area—a disproportionately high amount of which is federal public lands. All the more reason that the conservation of public lands in Oregon must be a statewide, if not a national, issue.
Figure 3/ Representative Cliff Bentz (R-OR-2nd). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Figure 5. Representative Cliff Bentz (R-OR-2nd). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Oregon 4th
Representative Val Hoyle (D) easily won her first congressional primary election in 2022, after being blessed by the outgoing incumbent, Peter DeFazio. In the general election, she got 50.5 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Alek Skarlatos (most noted for being part of a spontaneous team that stopped a gunman on a train to Paris from Amsterdam in 2015).
Figure 3. Representative Val Hoyle (D-OR-4th). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Hoyle is serving her first—and I would hope last—term in Congress. She should be primaried (challenged in a primary election) by a more politically creditable and environmentally concerned candidate. Democrats should nominate someone who is greener, less ethically challenged, more bureaucratically competent, and less politically vulnerable.
Unable to See the Forest for the Logs
I’ve always been lukewarm at best on Val. From the time she was a state representative (2009 to 2017) to her tenure as Oregon commissioner of labor (2019 to 2022), I just have never warmed to her. Hoyle’s lifetime rating of correct votes in the Oregon House of Representatives of 86 percent from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters was relatively okay, but it could have been better, given the district she represented. Hoyle seems to have taken the page from her predecessor’s playbook to do enough for Big Timber so they don’t fund her opponent in the next election. The best campaign contribution for an incumbent is the money one’s opponent didn’t get.
Last June 15, during a hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources, I want from lukewarm to ice cold on Hoyle. She used her five minutes of questioning time to press Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Nada Culver to guarantee in writing that a proposed BLM “conservation rule” will not override a statute pertaining to those BLM public lands that are termed O&C lands. The O&C lands are ~2.1 million acres of federal public lands granted to what would become the Southern Pacific Railroad and in 1916 returned to the federal estate for the Southern Pacific’s gross violations of the terms of the grant.
In 1937, Congress enacted the Oregon and California Lands Act (OCLA), arguably the body’s first attempt to write the policy of “multiple use” into law (though they forgot wildlife as one of the multiple uses). Despite this multiple-use mandate, BLM long interpreted the law as a dominant-use statute, with timber (no surprise) being that dominant use. In 1976, Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which states that in the case of conflicts “insofar as they relate to management of timber resources, and disposition of revenues from lands and resources,” OCLA should prevail over FLPMA. This provision was inserted by Oregon’s then–US Senator Mark Hatfield (see my Public Lands Blog post entitled “Mark Odom Hatfield, Part 1: Oregon Forest Destroyer”).
Since the northern spotted owl hit the fan in the late 1980s, the federal courts have repeatedly upheld recent (in the last three+ decades) BLM interpretations that OCLA is indeed a multiple-use statute, with timber as but one of several equally authorized uses. The courts have also found that the agency’s setting aside of significant amounts of forest for the conservation of nature is consistent with OCLA. Most of Big Timber has moved on and adapted to dramatically lower logging levels, and most western Oregon counties have adapted to getting direct payments rather than a share of the timber receipts from liquidating old-growth forests. But not quite all wood-processing mills and counties have so moved.
Neither has Hoyle. In her questioning of BLM’s Culver (starting at 1:17:50 in the C-SPAN video), Hoyle demanded that the forthcoming BLM conservation rule explicitly eschew any applicability to BLM’s O&C lands, noting, “It is critical that the O&C Lands Act prevails.” If Val’s version of OCLA prevails, BLM will resume clear-cutting old-growth forests. Viewing the tape, one can see that Hoyle was reading off of notes—a very common occurrence—but her delivery was awkward, dramatic, and stumbling. If I had to guess, I’d say she was fed her questions by the American Forest Resource Council (AFRC). AFRC is basically the last industry trade association left standing that represents mills consuming federal timber in the West.
Ethically Challenged
Recent reporting by Sophie Peel in Willamette Week says that in her tenure as labor commissioner, Hoyle “oversaw an office that made key decisions outside of public scrutiny.” The article goes on:
In particular, Hoyle repeatedly appeared to intercede on behalf of a top campaign donor, Rosa Cazares, the co-founder of the embattled cannabis dispensary chain La Mota. On at least two occasions, Hoyle stepped in when Cazares’ interests were at stake. And five months after WW revealed Hoyle’s actions on Cazares’ behalf, the congresswoman still hasn’t turned over her personal devices so state officials can see what public business she conducted on them.
In April, Hoyle’s actions were largely overshadowed by WW’s revelation that then–Secretary of State Shemia Fagan had taken a consulting contract with La Mota—a career move that is now under federal criminal investigation. But the slow drip of records provided by the agency Hoyle once ran could make her grip on her congressional seat less certain than before.
Hoyle has steadfastly refused to turn over her personal cell phones (apparently she has more than one) to the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), the agency she, as labor commissioner, oversaw. She said she would search them with her own attorney to determine what public records they contained. Since the September article quoted from above, Willamette Week reported in November that Hoyle, through her lawyer, had turned over a first tranche of documents.
Still, it was poor judgment to conduct the public’s business on personal devices and not simply carry around two different cell phones with distinguishing rings, one to conduct official business and one to conduct personal affairs. Her refusal to turn over everything and instead to decide (with her layer) what is a public record makes it appear that Hoyle has something to hide—although if there is something to hide, it may well just be personal and not criminal. An inability or unwillingness to cope with two cell phones is indicative of not always remembering the bright line between one’s public and private life.
Managerially Incompetent
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) recently settled a lawsuit from a former employee who alleged racial hostility during the tenure of then–Oregon labor fommissioner Hoyle. The $425,000 settlement also comes with an apology letter from Hoyle’s successor that states:
The new administration has been an opportunity for BOLI to look inward at our institutional practices and see that we are not fulfilling our commitment to all Oregonians,” Stephenson wrote. “BOLI’s vision is rooted in the belief that every individual deserves to be treated with fairness, respect and dignity. We understand your experience at BOLI fell short of that vision and for that we are truly sorry and want to make amends to redress the damage done to you personally and to your professional reputation.
The settlement follows a jury award of $1.7 million in damages and $1.1 million in attorney fees and other costs to another employee wronged by racial hostility during Hoyle’s tenure. In case you weren’t counting in your head, that’s $3.225 million paid out to compensate for managerial incompetence.
Politically Vulnerable
Hoyle’s margin of victory in November 2022 wasn’t particularly large. She may face a more creditable Republican challenger who is poised to exploit Hoyle’s ethical and management lapses. According to the Oregon Capital Chronicle on November 17, 2023:
A Republican Air Force veteran and attorney plans to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, counting on voters’ frustrations with crime and homelessness and suspicion of Hoyle’s ties to a troubled marijuana business to overcome a Democratic registration edge in a southern Oregon congressional district.
Monique DeSpain, a 30-year veteran of the Air Force and Oregon Air National Guard who retired as a colonel, launched her campaign for the 4th Congressional District this week. She said her campaign is focused on public safety, creating a prosperous economy and on ensuring government transparency and accountability.
That last point is a dig at Hoyle, a freshman congresswoman and former head of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries who Republicans have sought to paint as ethically compromised. Hoyle, like many Oregon Democratic candidates, received campaign donations from the owners of La Mota, a cannabis company involved in the downfall of former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan because Fagan took a side job for the company’s owners while they were involved in an audit conducted by her office. Hoyle returned most of her La Mota contributions after she decided to run for Congress instead of reelection as labor commissioner.
As labor commissioner, she also pushed for a nonprofit organization founded by La Mota co-owner Rosa Cazares to receive a $554,000 grant, Willamette Week reported. She has declined to turn her personal cell phone over to the labor bureau to extract public records, instead hiring her own attorney to decide which texts count as public records. Under Oregon law, text messages, emails and other communication sent or received on personal devices are considered public records if they involve government business.
DeSpain, who spent much of her time in the military as an attorney with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, said her experience conducting workplace investigations stands in sharp contrast to Hoyle’s stance on public records.
If Democrats don’t field a candidate who is not so unable to see the forest for the logs, so ethically challenged, so managerially incompetent, and so politically vulnerable, they risk losing Oregon 4th to a Republican.
Observations of a Reluctant Partisan
Though I am a reluctant partisan, I can say with confidence that the only politicians more dangerous to our public lands than Democrats are Republicans.
A very occasional current or potential Republican member of Congress cares about and is doing something for nature (such as Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho; see my Public Lands Blog post “The Simpson Salmon Strategy”). Most Republicans, if not openly hostile to nature and the climate, vote for a House Speaker and committee chairs who are openly hostile to nature and the climate. This is why I rag on Republicans.
Nonetheless, I am also down on Democrats who think they are doing enough for nature by not doing worse than Republicans would. Though there are a few exceptions, this is most Democrats. Oregon’s public lands deserve better.
Bottom Line: If you care about nature and the climate, you must not only vote but also give both time and money during the 2024 election, which is already far along.
For More Information
Peel, Sophie. September 27, 2023. Nine Months After She Left State Government, U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle Can’t Shake the Long Shadows of Her Time There. Willamette Week.
Shumway, Julia. November 17, 2023. BOLI settled racial discrimination lawsuit from second ex-employee under Val Hoyle. Oregon Capital Chronicle.
———. November 17, 2023. Air Force Veteran Monique DeSpain Will Challenge Val Hoyle in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District. Oregon Capital Chronicle.