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The news that Joe Gilliam, longtime president of the Northwest Grocery Association, was twice poisoned last year, which WW first reported yesterday, is rippling through Oregon politics, from the dozens of lawmakers and lobbyists who knew Gilliam to the highest levels of power.
Related: Who Poisoned Joe Gilliam...Twice?
Gilliam, 59, is lying in a skilled nursing facility under 24-hour care, unable to move or communicate, after an unknown person or persons twice tried to kill him last year with thallium, a toxic heavy metal that has been called “the poisoner’s poison.”
For three decades, Gilliam was force in Salem, first representing the National Federation of Independent Business and, from 1999 until his poisoning, the region’s largest grocers, including Fred Meyer, Safeway and Costco.
During that tenure, he worked with and sometimes against the elected officials who hold the state’s highest offices on issues that included corporate taxation, the minimum wage, workers’ compensation and the regulation of alcoholic beverages.
Gov. Kate Brown overlapped with Gilliam for most of her long legislative career.
Brown served in the Legislature for 16 years, beginning in the House in 1991 and ending her tenure as Senate majority leader in 2007, when she stepped down to run for secretary of state.
“The governor was shocked to learn about the apparent reason for Joe Gilliam’s illness,” says her spokesman Charles Boyle, “and wishes him the best for a full and speedy recovery.”
Gilliam also overlapped with U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) whose 5th Congressional District includes Gilliam’s Lake Oswego home.
Schrader, a veterinarian from Canby, entered the Oregon House in 1997 and later moved up to the state Senate, where he served as co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee before being elected to Congress in 2008.
Schrader expressed disbelief and concern about Gilliam’s plight.
“I’ve worked with Joe for many years, knowing him as a good guy with a disarming, big smile that gave him an edge in any negotiation,” Schrader said.
“I read about the circumstances surrounding his illness, and I am shocked and saddened by what happened,” he added. “My thoughts are with his loved ones, and I encourage anyone with information about this to contact law enforcement.”