Murmurs: GOP Operative Targets Vote by Mail

GOP OPERATIVE TARGETS VOTE BY MAIL: As Republicans nationally celebrate their return to power in Washington D.C., a coterie of Oregon Republicans, led by former two-time legislative candidate Ben Edtl, are pursuing a strategy to chip away at Democrats’ dominance in the state, where they hold all statewide offices and supermajorities in both legislative chambers. In December, Edtl, who is running for chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, and co-chief petitioners Michaela Hammerson and Stephen Joncus filed Initiative Petition 26-037. The initiative would amend the Oregon Constitution to prohibit voting by mail, except for absentee ballots. Although Republicans nationally have railed against vote by mail, Republicans in Oregon vote at a higher rate than Democrats—there are just far fewer of them. The petitioners need to gather 156,321 valid signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot. Edtl says he distrusts the mechanism and its results. “With vote by mail there’s no way to confirm that a single voter cast a single vote,” he says. “Republicans and moderate Democrats, like [former Portland mayoral candidate] Rene Gonzalez, will never win an election in Oregon as long as we continue with vote by mail.”

MOYER KNOWS CONSTRUCTION: New Multnomah County Commissioner Meghan Moyer brought her construction management chops to work this week, questioning how cost estimates for a desperately needed new animal shelter reached a high of $70 million, or about $1,500 a square foot. Moyer, who owned her own construction company before becoming a disability rights advocate and then commissioner, said the price was two or three times higher than she would expect in this market. Moyer said she understood an animal shelter needs specialized rooms and equipment, but the cost still struck her as high. “As a former general contractor, I am a little sticker-shocked by that amount of money,” Moyer told county staff. “I’m unclear how we got to $1,500 per square foot.” County chief financial officer Eric Arellano said he, too, had some “sticker shock” when he saw the estimates and explained that they included lots of contingencies because the project is in its early planning stages. Commissioners discussed the shelter after a briefing by Multnomah County Animal Services director Erin Grahek, who described abhorrent conditions at the shelter, where animals are sometimes kept in offices and overflow rooms and space for almost all care is limited, failing standards set by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians. She showed a picture of a bearded dragon in an aquarium in a hallway. The county is mulling ways to pay for the new shelter. It has just $3.5 million so far. That money came from the sale of a pig farm at Edgefield. The rest could come from a bond sale that may have to be approved by voters, depending on the type of bond.

OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY SETS TIMELINE FOR CONTROVERSIAL RULE CHANGE: Last month, WW reported that the Oregon Health Authority would issue rulemaking in early 2025 that would bar therapists in training from billing Medicaid if they work independently of a Medicaid-contracted clinic. The proposed change was met with strong pushback from the mental health workforce, which noted that such therapists, called board-registered associates, often have the highest volume of Medicaid patients. Not allowing them to bill Medicaid would leave thousands of low-income patients without a therapist this year, practitioners argued. In a Dec. 5 letter, CareOregon had said it would stop accepting reimbursement requests from associate therapists on July 31, 2025. OHA in its announcement did not originally set a specific date. Now, however, OHA says its rule won’t take effect until June 2026. “The quality assurance is the reason for the change,” wrote OHA leaders to various providers in a Jan. 15 memo about the upcoming rules. “OHA wants to ensure all behavioral health services meet the same standards across the state when public funds are being utilized.” Agency director Dr. Sejal Hathi wrote in a Dec. 10 report that such a rule change would ensure that associates work at nonprofit clinics and public providers, which struggle to retain mental health professionals, rather than enter more lucrative private practice right after completing their schooling. Hathi said the rule change would ensure that “this critical workforce pipeline is directed toward our highest-need and highest-acuity settings in the state.”

TV NEWS TALENTS LEAVE AIRWAVES: Longtime KOIN-TV reporter and anchor Jenny Hansson became the latest high-profile television newsperson this week to move to a government position. Hansson, who spent nearly 20 years at KOIN, joins another new hire, Steve Berman, among the state’s top elections lawyers, on the staff of the new attorney general, Dan Rayfield. As any TV news veteran knows, three makes a trend: Hansson joins longtime KGW-TV reporter and anchor Pat Dooris, who left Channel 8 in December after nearly 35 years to become the spokesman for Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez. In that position, Dooris will overlap with former longtime KGW colleague Mike Benner, who in 2023 became the first civilian spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau. Hansson says she felt her journalism skills would serve her well in a new role. “I was in television news for almost three decades, and I loved that job,” Hansson tells WW. “But I felt like I had done all I wanted to do, and I wanted to make more of an impact with the skills I gained in journalism. I jumped at the chance to apply when I saw this job opening.”