Mark Odom Hatfield, Part 1: Oregon Forest Destroyer

This is the first of two Public Lands Blog posts on the most consequential Oregonian yet to serve in the United States Senate. In Part 1, we look at his role in enabling the destruction of Oregon forests. In Part 2, we will examine his complicated legacy.

 Top Line: While Oregon’s Mark Hatfield was a great US senator, it was not because of his record on the conservation of nature.

Figure 1. Senator Mark Odom Hatfield (R-OR) in 1981. Source: US Senate.

Recently, the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) had one of their launch parties in Pendleton for a new traveling exhibit: “The Call of Public Service: The Life and Legacy of Mark O. Hatfield.” On the wall, in big 3D letters, was a list of things OHS says Hatfield most cared about:

1. Wilderness Protection

2. World Peace

3. Infrastructure

4. Health Care

5. Equal Rights

6. Education

Figure 2. One of several kiosks in the Oregon Historical Society’s traveling exhibit on Senator Mark O. Hatfield. Source: Oregon Historical Society.

When I read this, I was stunned. More than once I had characterized Mark Hatfield as a pacifist timber beast when explaining his ability to survive and prosper politically in Oregon. (Although a Republican, he was downright liberal on issues such as world peace, health care, equal rights, and education, which resulted in a lot of Democrats repeatedly voting for him.)

Peace, Yes. Wilderness Protection, Not So Much.

Looking at that list on the wall told me that a historian, perhaps more than one, believes that the thing Mark Hatfield cared most about was wilderness protection. Or perhaps it’s merely a listing of six causes, with no ranking of importance—but if that were the case, alphabetical order would be the usual way to signal such, or even random ordering. However, this list would be in reverse alphabetical order if wilderness protection and world peace were reversed. No, wilderness protection was clearly meant to be first and most important.

I’m pretty sure Hatfield cared more about world peace than wilderness protection. He talked about and did more about peace. He deeply opposed the Vietnam War at a time when most Oregonians supported it. He proposed a cabinet-level Department of Peace to offset the Department of Defense (which combined the Department of War and the Department of the Navy). For the relative and absolute dearth of presence of the military-industrial complex in Oregon today, we can thank Hatfield. I recall getting a mass mailing from Hatfield way before Gulf War I where he warned of “our sons fighting and dying in the sands of Arabia” for oil.

The OHS exhibit features Hatfield’s efforts to establish wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It’s true that for most of the area protected today in Oregon as wilderness, Hatfield was instrumental. For most of the streams protected today in Oregon as wild and scenic rivers, Hatfield was instrumental. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area would not be, if not for Hatfield.

What OHS says is true—as far as it goes.

However, millions of acres of Oregon’s wild forests could have been protected as wilderness but were not, thanks to Hatfield. (You can read my very opinionated but nonetheless factual history of Oregon’s wilderness wars, in which Hatfield played an outsized role for so long, in a chapter of my book Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness.)

However, several dammed streams in Oregon—the Upper Rogue, dammed by Lost Creek Dam; the Applegate River, dammed by the Applegate Dam; the Elk Creek tributary to the Upper Rogue, dammed at one time by the Elk Creek Dam; the Willow Creek tributary to the Columbia River; and more—were damned by Hatfield. (The Elk Creek Dam no longer damns Elk Creek, which is now a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.)

Figure 3. The first kayaker to pass through the breached Elk Creek Dam in 2009. Hatfield used raw political power to force the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam that even the agency didn’t want to build. Source: WaterWatch (Bill Cross).

However, there is no Cascade Volcanic National Park in the Oregon Cascades, because of Mark Hatfield.

However, no single person did more to enable the liquidation of most of Oregon’s old-growth forests than Senator Mark O. Hatfield. At the logging’s peak, more than three square miles of old-growth forest on Oregon federal public lands were being clear-cut each week. From his perch on, and often as chair of, the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Hatfield made sure the money was there for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to lay out the clear-cuts and build the roads in old-growth forests. Multiple times, including during his last years in office, Hatfield attached riders (a rider is a provision of law attached to must-pass legislation that would not receive a majority vote on its own) that barred the courthouse door to citizens seeking to enforce federal laws to protect ancient forests.

The Definitive Book on Hatfield (So Far)

Figure 4. The definitive book on Hatfield by Richard W. Etulain, a noted western historian who is a self-admitted Hatfield fanboy. Source: University of Oklahoma Press.

As a matter of professional interest (know one’s opponent), I have read all the books written by Hatfield, and when Mark O. Hatfield: Oregon Statesman by noted western author Richard W. Etulain came out last year I was interested to read one about Hatfield. I found it very informative. The meat of Etulain’s book ends in 1967 as Hatfield moves from the job of governor of Oregon to that of US senator from Oregon, as its coverage of Hatfield’s Senate career is superficial. As the author has noted, the Hatfield papers at Willamette University are sealed until July 2022 (Hatfield’s one hundredth birthday), so Etulain concentrated on the gubernatorial years, where the record is more complete. Etulain has said that writing about Hatfield’s Senate years would take at least five years of research and writing, something he says, at eighty-three, he cannot commit to.

Hatfield is the first governor I can remember. When my interactions with the man started in 1979 as I was advocating for wilderness, he had been a senator for more than a decade. As I read the book, I kept feeling that when writing about issues facing Hatfield as governor (1959 to 1967), Etulain was taking digs at the likes of me for existing at all during Hatfield as senator (1967 to 1997). Tellingly, when writing about Hatfield’s gubernatorial years, Etulain keeps referring to “environmentalists,” a term that didn’t come into general use until around the first Earth Day in 1970. Here are a few excerpts that indicate the author’s disdain for anything close to an “environmentalist.”

[Hatfield] viewed Dallas as a wholesome and holistic community, its life orchestrated primarily by the timber industry with tight links to lumbering and the daily routines of the saw mill. . . . This optimistic view of the timber industry and lumbering generally casts light on Hatfield’s later political support for the industry, which his environmentally motivated critics thought far too strong . . .

Logging and lumbering firms wanted to cut more trees to capitalize on Oregon’s timber riches. Hatfield began to work on that production-conservation issue as a middle-of-the-roader, a position that upset born-again environmentalists, especially Democratic environmentalists, in Hatfield’s later senator years . . . 

President Theodore Roosevelt, thoroughly influenced by his forester friend Gifford Pinchot, stood for “wise use” of natural resources. Assertive conservationist John Muir spoke passionately for “wilderness” advocates: the setting aside of forests, lands, deserts, and natural wonders as wilderness areas to be appreciated but not “used.” Hatfield was drawn to the wise-use philosophy, a position later enthusiastic environmentalists greatly disliked. [emphasis added]

Etulain has said that he found Hatfield to be “the ideal politician,” and he couldn’t find any major faults with the senator. I look forward to a more encompassing and less hagiographic biography that also covers the man’s time in the Senate.

The US Postal Service has a policy: no stamps honoring a person until they have been dead at least a quarter century. Hatfield has another fourteen years to go. Let historians take the time to fully examine his life.

The First Time I Met Hatfield

In 1979, James Monteith (then executive director of the Oregon Wilderness Coalition or OWC, later the Oregon Natural Resources Council and now Oregon Wild) and I got a meeting with Hatfield in Washington, DC. At the time I was OWC’s western field representative, and my trip to DC was the first time I had been east of the Mississippi River. A Hatfield aide took us from his office in one of the Senate office buildings to the Capitol. We were ushered into Hatfield’s hideaway in the Capitol building, a small and very ornately decorated private den with only a room number on the door. It was meant to impress, and it did. 

Hatfield was very charismatic and immediately put us at ease. He was so charismatic that after that first meeting, I liked him even when I knew he was screwing me (actually nature). He was extremely smart and listened when we talked. Actually, he was reading Monteith and me like we were books.

We first chatted about politics, and he said he wanted to get a wilderness bill done before the 1980 election. Ronald Reagan hadn’t yet obtained the Republican nomination and was still a long shot. Hatfield said, “Can you imagine if Reagan becomes president?” and every one of the four of us in the room laughed and rolled our eyes. Less than two years later on January 20, Hatfield was in a morning coat welcoming Reagan to the Capitol building in his role as chair of the congressional inaugural committee.

Of course, we got to talking about wilderness, of which Hatfield was not a great fan. Only two years earlier, Hatfield had very reluctantly changed his position to favor returning the French Pete Valley to the Three Sisters Wilderness. French Pete was the first wilderness battle in Oregon that involved significant amounts of virgin older forest.

Monteith was a wildlife biologist at heart and brought up how many medium and large mammals—especially predators—need wilderness to prosper, if not just exist. Hatfield wasn’t buying it. “When I was growing up in Dallas,” Hatfield said, “we had lots of cougars, but we didn’t have any wilderness.” Dallas is a small community in the mid-Willamette Valley that abuts the Oregon Coast Range. In the 1930s, the Oregon Coast Range still had very large amounts of roadless virgin older forest. By 1979, it did not.

Monteith and I realized that to Hatfield, “wilderness” was merely a land designation in law, while we both felt that “wilderness” was also a character of land in fact. All that those Coast Range cougars knew was that their home was wild.

I was mortified when Monteith tried to make our point by noting that “only God and Congress can make Wilderness.” (I capitalize the W here because James always insisted on it when referring to that designation.) Hatfield was quite the intense Christian, while Monteith and I were quite the contrary. However, I was relieved when Hatfield immediately retorted, “And we don’t let Him in on it until we are damn well ready.” The tiny office filled with laughter all around.

Speaking of mammalian predators, Monteith soon brought up a rare forest-dwelling member of the weasel family, the fisher (Pekania pennanti). To our surprise, Hatfield asked his aide, who had been sitting quietly, if she knew what a fisher was. She said no, so Hatfield proceeded to hold forth on the wilderness-loving species. “Did you know that fishers can kill a porcupine without getting quilled?” he asked the young (enough to be his daughter) aide. She did not. “I’ll show you,” said Hatfield. “Get down on the floor on your hands and knees.” While wide-eyed in shock (as were Monteith and I), she complied even though wearing a dress and some very unsensible shoes. Next, Hatfield got on his hands and knees and mimicked (at a relatively respectful distance, I feel bound to note) how a fisher attacks a porcupine in its quill-free face, flips it on its back, and goes for the kill at its quill-free neck. For a moment, I thought Hatfield was going to insist the nubile aide roll over on her back, but Hatfield returned to his chair and continued talking, and soon so did the aide to her chair.

Hatfield had made clear to us that he was well informed and also very powerful. The meeting ended cordially. (Later, that very aide served in high administrative positions that required Senate confirmation.)

Another Fateful Encounter with Hatfield

One sunrise in June 1984, I ran into Hatfield in the United terminal at Chicago O’Hare. We’d both taken the red-eye from PDX on our way to DCA. Hatfield came up to me and said, “Andy, what brings you to DC?” (Of course, I was secretly thrilled that the senator remembered me and called me by my first name.) The (still-to-this-day) record-sized Oregon Wilderness Act had just become law, and I was feeling quite good about that. (Hatfield was not.)

“Well, Senator, I’m going back to lobby for your timber bailout bill,” I said. Northwest Big Timber had way overbid on many old-growth timber sales and needed congressional relief to avoid massive contract defaults. Enviros favored the legislation because it would cancel many damaging sales and we would have another chance to thwart them as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management tried to resell them.

“You mean my Federal Timber Purchaser Contract Payment Modification Act?” said Hatfield, rather icily I thought.

“Sure. A lot of those sales are old growth and in roadless areas, so we’d like another shot at saving them in the next wilderness bill,” says I.

After less than the customary few milliseconds of pause, Hatfield, with chilling deliberateness, says, “Andy. I will never ever do another wilderness bill.”

The conversation ended not because the plane was boarding but because there was nothing else to say.

As I pondered the exchange at 33,000 feet over Ohio, I realized that the godfather of Oregon politics had destroyed our hope of ever saving any more wilderness as Wilderness. Hatfield had enacted wilderness bills into law in 1968, 1972, 1978, and 1984. The first of them had carved the Mount Jefferson Wilderness out of a Forest Service Primitive Area pursuant to the Wilderness Act of 1964. The matter had been thrust upon Hatfield early in his first term. The latter three had been passed during—not uncoincidentally—years in which Hatfield stood for re-election. All are wilderness areas today, but it was enough for the senator to declare “never again.”

·      His 1972 legislation added the lower Minam River Canyon to the Eagle Cap Wilderness (~72,000 acres).

·      The 1978 Endangered American Wilderness Act designated or expanded four Oregon wilderness areas (~275,000 acres). All somewhat had timber as an issue, but especially returning French Pete to the Three Sisters Wilderness. Finally, Hatfield had come around. (It was, after all, an election year.)

·      The 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act (~851,000 acres) was primarily about saving as wilderness roadless areas that included large amounts of virgin older forest: Boulder Creek, Cummins Creek, Rock Creek, Drift Creek, Middle Santiam, North Fork John Day, Eagle Cap Additions, Bull-of-the-Woods, Salmon-Huckleberry, Badger Creek, Grassy Knob, Rogue-Umpqua Divide, Table Rock, Mill Creek, North Fork Umatilla, Monument Rock, Strawberry Mountain Additions.

It was logical that we could expect another wilderness bill in 1990. Plotting the acreage of those previously every-six-years Oregon wilderness bills suggested an exponential curve on which we could expect the next wilderness bill to protect ~2 million acres. But alas, there was no Oregon wilderness bill in 1990, as the year before the northern spotted owl had hit the fan.

I consulted with fellow wilderness warrior James Monteith, and we decided to pivot from occasionally saving old growth via wilderness designations brokered at the state delegation level to saving all old growth any which way we could. We would go around Oregon’s political godfather. We had no other choice. The Pacific Northwest forest wars ensued.

(continued next week)

30x30, Part 3: Forty-Four Tasty Conservation Recipes One Can Make at Home—If One Lives in the White House

This is the third of three Public Lands Blog posts on 30x30, President Biden’s commitment to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030. In Part 1, we examined the pace and scale necessary to attain 30x30. In Part 2, we considered what constitutes protected areas actually being “conserved.” In this Part 3, we offer up specific conservation recommendations that, if implemented, will result in the United States achieving 30 percent by 2030.

Top Line: Enough conservation recipes are offered here to achieve 50x50 (the ultimate necessity) if all are executed, which is what the science says is necessary to conserve our natural security—a vital part of our national security.

Figure 1. The Coglan Buttes lie west of Lake Abert in Lake County, Oregon. According to the Bureau of Land Management, it “is a dream area for lovers of the remote outdoors, offering over 60,000 acres of isolation,” and the land is “easy to access but difficult to traverse.” The agency has acknowledged that the area is special in that it is a “land with wilderness characteristics” (LWCs), but affords the area no special protection. Congress could designate the area as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System (Recipe #24), or the Biden administration could classify it as a wilderness study area and also withdraw it from the threat of mining (Recipe #1). Source: Lisa McNee, Bureau of Land Management (Flickr).

Ecological realities are immutable. While political realities are mutable, the latter don’t change on their own. Fortunately, there are two major paths to change the conservation status of federal public lands: through administrative action and through congressional action. 

Ideally, Congress will enact enough legislation during the remainder of the decade to attain 30x30. An Act of Congress that protects federal public land is as permanent as conservation of land in the United States can get. If properly drafted, an Act of Congress can provide federal land management agencies with a mandate for strong and enduring preservation of biological diversity.

If Congress does not choose to act in this manner, the administration can protect federal public land everywhere but in Alaska. Fortunately, Congress has delegated many powers over the nation’s public lands to either the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture (for the National Forest System), and—in the sole case of proclaiming national monuments—the President.

Potential Administrative Action

Twenty-two recipes are offered in Table 1 for administrative action by the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, or the President. The recipes are not mutually exclusive, especially within an administering agency, but can be overlapping or alternative conservation actions on the same lands. While overlapping conservation designations can be desirable, no double counting should be allowed in determining 30x30. A common ingredient in all is that such areas must be administratively withdrawn from all forms of mineral exploitation for the maximum twenty years allowed by law.

Mining on Federal Public Lands

An important distinction between federal public lands with GAP 1 or GAP 2 status and those with lesser GAP status is based on whether mining is allowed. Federal law on mineral exploitation or protection from mining on federal public lands dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth century with the enactment of the general mining law. Today, the exploitation of federal minerals is either by location, leasing, or sale. The administering agency has the ability to say no to leasing and sale, but not to filing of mining claims by anyone in all locations open to such claiming.

When establishing a conservation area on federal lands, Congress routinely withdraws the lands from location, leasing, or sale. Unfortunately, when administrative action elevates the conservation status of federal public lands (such as Forest Service inventoried roadless areas or IRAs, Bureau of Land Management areas of critical environmental concern or ACECs, and Fish and Wildlife Service national wildlife refuges carved out of other federal land), it doesn’t automatically protect the special area from mining.

Congress has provided that the only way an area can be withdrawn from the application of the federal mining laws is for the Secretary of the Interior (or subcabinet officials also confirmed by Congress for their posts) to withdraw the lands from mining—and then only for a maximum of twenty years (though the withdrawal can be renewed). A major reason that particular USFS IRAs and BLM ACECs do not qualify for GAP 1 or GAP 2 status is that they are open to mining.

More Conservation in Alaska by Administrative Action: Fuggedaboutit!

The Alaska National Interest Lands Act of 1980 contains a provision prohibiting any “future executive branch action” withdrawing more than 5,000 acres “in the aggregate” unless Congress passes a “joint resolution of approval within one year” (16 USC 3213). Note that 5,000 acres is 0.0012 percent of the total area of Alaska. Congress should repeal this prohibition of new national monuments, new national wildlife refuges, or other effective administrative conservation in the nation’s largest state. Until Congress so acts, no administrative action in Alaska can make any material contribution to 30x30.

Potential Congressional Action

Twenty-two recipes are offered in Table 2 for congressional action. The recipes are not mutually exclusive, especially within an administering agency, but can be overlapping or alternative conservation actions on the same lands. However, they should not be double-counted for the purpose of attaining 30x30. A commonality among these congressional actions is that each explicitly or implicitly calls for the preservation of biological diversity and also promulgates a comprehensive mineral withdrawal.

Bottom Line: To increase the pace to achieve the goal, the federal government must add at least three zeros to the size of traditional conservation actions. Rather than individual new wilderness bills averaging 100,000 acres, new wilderness bills should sum hundreds of millions of acres—and promptly be enacted into law. Rather than a relatively few new national monuments mostly proclaimed in election years, many new national monuments must be proclaimed every year. 

For More Information

Kerr, Andy. 2022. Forty-Four Conservation Recipes for 30x30: A Cookbook of 22 Administrative and 22 Legislative Opportunities for Government Action to Protect 30 Percent of US Lands by 2030. The Larch Company, Ashland, OR, and Washington, DC.

Oregon’s New Congressional Districts and Conserving Public Lands

TOP LINE: Oregon’s redrawn congressional districts will affect the prospects for federal public lands conservation.

 Map 1. Oregon’s new congressional districts (click here for your own better-quality PDF). Source: Oregon Legislative Assembly.

The conservation of federal public lands in Oregon is very dependent upon the makeup of the Oregon congressional delegation. The 2020 census determined that Oregon would get another congressional district, for a total of six. The Oregon Legislative Assembly has determined the boundaries of the six congressional districts, and Governor Brown has signed the legislation into law (Map 1).

Litigation of the maps approved by the Oregon Legislative Assembly is highly probable but likely will be unsuccessful. The Republicans say the new districts are weighted toward Democrats. True enough, but not likely illegally so. The Supreme Court has found gerrymandering to be constitutional unless it violates the Voting Rights Act, which Congress enacted to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments (equal protection, right to vote, etc.) of the US Constitution.

Comparing the Old and New Maps

Oregon’s previous congressional districts had been in place since 2012 (shown with relative competitiveness in Map 2). The new map (shown with relative competitiveness in Map 3) is effective for the 2022 election through the 2030 election. For an interactive map, click here, then click on “Content,” then click on “Adopted Maps,” then click on “Congress (SB 881A).”

To see the evolution of Oregon’s congressional districts from 1971 (when there were only four districts) to the recent past, see my April 2018 Public Lands Blog post “A Sixth Congressional District for Oregon?” (If you really want to go deep into the weeds on congressional redistricting, I highly recommend davesredistricting.org.

Map 2. Oregon’s congressional districts 2012 to 2021, showing their relative competitiveness. Source: fivethiryeight.com.

Map 3. Oregon’s congressional districts 2022 to 2031, with relative competitiveness. Source: fivethiryeight.com.

Table 1. Oregon’s six congressional districts by land area and population. Source: Erik Fernandez, Oregon Wild; Oregon Legislative Assembly. 

A Dozen Observations

In no particular order:

1. Douglas County, long entirely in Oregon’s 4th congressional district back to when Oregon got its 4th congressional district, is now split. Roseburg and North County stay in the 4th, but South County (even more conservative) goes into the 2nd district.

2. Losing south Douglas County, the non–Grants Pass portion of Josephine County, and almost all of Linn County (except the portion of Corvallis east of the Willamette River)—while gaining Lincoln County—will give incumbent DeFazio a party registration advantage (Table 2).

3. The new 2nd district is even larger in land area (74 percent of Oregon) than the old one (72 percent). Most of Oregon’s federal public lands are in the Oregon 2nd.

4. The Cascade Crest wall has been breached from the west. It has been the case for almost forever that the eighteen counties east of the Cascade Crest were in their own congressional district with enough people added from the west side to equalize population. The portion of Deschutes County with most of the people (sorry, LaPinians and Brotherites) is now in the new 5th district. I’ve long noted that demographically Bend is the easternmost extension of the Willamette Valley (sorry, Bendians), and the new map is evidence. Demographically closer to Portland than to Vale or Lakeview, Hood River County is now part of an expanded 3rd congressional district centered on eastern Multnomah County.

Table 2. Oregon’s six congressional districts by incumbent and partisan registration advantage. Source: Erik Fernandez, Oregon Wild; fivethirtyeight.com. 

5. The new 6th district’s population is concentrated along Interstate 5 from Tigard to Salem. With no incumbent and a modest Democratic registration advantage, it is wide open.

6. The Democrats maintain a partisan advantage in all districts, save for the 2nd (Table 2). The slight reduction in the 3rd district and the significant increase in the 1st district won’t materially change the chances of Democrats winning those districts. As we go to post, State Representative Andrea Salinas (D-Lake Oswego) has announced her candidacy for the new Oregon 6th. Although Salinas chaired the House Redistricting Committee, she nonetheless lives a mile east of the new Oregon 6th in the revised Oregon 5th. To run for Congress in Oregon, one need only live in Oregon, not necessarily the district. Salinas has an Oregon League of Conservation Voters lifetime rating of 94 percent (100 percent in 2021 and 88 percent in 2019). Also announced for the Democratic primary is Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, who also doesn’t live in the new Oregon 6th. She’s retained a realtor but is awaiting the outcome of any court challenges to the new district lines before moving. Undoubtedly, more candidates will arise for this open seat.

7. Republicans have to be in some congressional district, so the Democrats packed more of them into their sacrificial 2nd district (Table 2), much, as a resident of Ashlandia, to my personal chagrin.

8. Representative Kurt Schrader is one of nineteen House members who have banded together as Blue Dog Democrats. A BDD was originally “a Democrat from a southern state who has a conservative voting record.” The geographic limitation is no longer operable. Although the geographic footprint of the revised 5th district has changed dramatically, Schrader’s formerly slight partisan registration advantage remains slight (Table 2). While his conservative posture has generally helped before general elections, Schrader should be concerned about being “primaried”—especially as Bend increasingly trends blue.

9. The new map was drawn fundamentally to protect incumbents of either party (Table 2). If I were drawing the maps, I would have spread the Democrats around more, making perhaps even the 2nd district competitive. Any advantage greater than D+20 is a total waste.

10. As the system is rigged to favor two major parties, all the focus is on Democrats and Republicans. It’s worth noting that there are more nonaffiliated voters in Oregon than Republicans, and if trends continue, nonaffiliated voters will soon outnumber Democrats (Table 3 and Graph 1).

Table 3. Oregon Registered Voters by Political Party, 2021. Source: Oregon Secretary of State.

Graph 1. All the parties listed in Table 3 are shown on this graph. Democrats (blue), nonaffiliated (gray), and Republicans (red) are along the top. Squeezed at the bottom are all the rest. (Squint and you’ll see different colors.) Source: Oregon Secretary of State.

11. Although most nonaffiliated voters loathe both major political parties, they consistently loathe one more than the other and will consistently vote for the same major party—though holding their nose. RINO is a pejorative label that stands for “Republican In Name Only.” There are also DINOs. However, most nonaffiliated voters in Oregon have proved themselves to be either RIFs or DIFs (Republicans In Fact or Democrats in Fact).

12. In the future, primaries will be the decisive elections. Oregon is dark blue, meaning Democrats, both registered and de facto (nonaffiliated in name but not action), will dominate elections—certainly statewide ones and in most congressional districts. At the state senate and house levels, Democrats have a strong numerical advantage by districts, but Republicans will still win in many. For those statewide or all-but-one congressional elections, the decisive election will increasingly be the primary. One can expect more Democratic incumbents to be challenged in their primaries. On the whole, this is a good thing.

How the Oregon Congressional Delegation Ranks on Conservation Among Its Peers

The lifetime scorecard rating of our delegation by the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is a rough approximation of an elected official’s placement along the dark green–dark brown political continuum.

Oregon’s two US senators, Democrats Ron Wyden (91 percent) and Jeff Merkley (99 percent) are generally quite green (Map 4), but each has his own significant brown spots that the LCV ratings don’t capture.

In the House of Representatives, Oregon currently has five members of Congress (from congressional districts 1 through 5): Suzanne Bonamici (98 percent), Cliff Bentz (first term; no rating yet), Earl Blumenauer (96 percent), Peter DeFazio (92 percent), and Kurt Schrader (86 percent). Again, there are brown spots in their records, except in the case of Bentz, where the green spot is the rarity (Map 5).

Map 4. Perhaps that new nation of “Ecotopia” offered in Ernest Callenbach’s 1975 novel makes some sense. Source: League of Conservation Voters.

Map 5. One Republican member and one middling Democrat notwithstanding, the Oregon delegation to the House of Representatives is dark green among the states. Source: League of Conservation Voters.

What Does the New Map Mean for Federal Public Lands Conservation in Oregon?

Former speaker of the US House of Representatives Tip O’Neill famously (but not originally) said, “All politics is local.” Today, far less so.

It used to be, at least back in the 1960s through the mid-1980s, that it was difficult—if not impossible—to get a wilderness area or wild and scenic river established if the local member of Congress was opposed. Wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers were often established in Oregon’s 2nd district—always the largest in land area—from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. Though opposed, the member of Congress was nonetheless rolled by Oregon’s then senior US senator, Mark Hatfield. Being a powerful member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Hatfield made sure that the member he rolled could otherwise claim credit for having brought home important pork-barrel spending to the Oregon 2nd.

Here’s an example of how congressional district lines have mattered in the past. Construction on the infamous Elk Creek Dam didn’t start until 1982, when the damsite moved from the congressional district of a salmon-loving Democrat to that of a salmon-hating Republican. Actually, the damsite didn’t move, but the congressional district lines did. After a period of stasis when the dam sat half completed (but still killing salmon), the Army Corps of Engineers “notched” (breached) the budget-busting monstrosity. In 2019, at the insistence of Senator Ron Wyden, Congress included Elk Creek in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The Republican member of Congress at the time did not object, because—literally—most supporters of the damn dam had died.

Senator Wyden’s proposed River Democracy Act would establish or expand many wild and scenic rivers in Oregon, many of which are in the current and new 2nd congressional district, represented by Republican Cliff Bentz. A reason to pass RDA into law this Congress is that Bentz is in the minority, and the Democratic House leadership doesn’t particularly care about (or is it “particularly doesn’t care about”) what Bentz wants. If the Republicans regain control of the US House of Representatives, Bentz’s views on public lands conservation will be much more salient.

BOTTOM LINE: Of the two choices, Oregon and national public lands conservation are best served by Democrats holding the majority in the state’s delegation to Congress and in both houses of Congress.