New era of tough politics appears to be emerging in Salem, and it may be fueled by ill will over tax measures.
SALEM — Judy Miller, the executive director of the Oregon Head Start Association, e-mailed some of her members Jan. 21 about a phone call she had just received from House Speaker Dave Hunt.
It was, Miller now says, unlike any conversation with a lawmaker she’d ever had about the pre-kindergarten program for low-income kids. And she’s not the only one who thinks something new might be going on.
Some political observers claim Salem is seeing a level of hardball politics that it hasn’t seen in some time, prompted, they believe, by hard feelings over last month’s hard-fought campaign over two controversial tax increases, Measures 66 and 67.
The phone call to Miller by Hunt, D-Clackamas County — one of the most powerful elected officials in Oregon — followed up on prior exchanges in which he’d advised the group to come out in support of the tax measures — and that it should seek a lobbyist other than Mark Nelson.
Nelson, who managed the campaign against the measures, is a contract lobbyist for many entities, including Deschutes County and Head Start.
Citing its desire to stay out of divisive fights, Head Start declined to support the measures or fire Nelson. That prompted Hunt to warn Miller that the 2011 session would be a rough one.
Hunt “indicated that we had ‘drawn a big bull’s-eye’ around ourselves in the event that (the tax measures) don’t pass,” Miller said in her e-mail.
“He said we have isolated ourselves by not taking a position (on the measures) and that others did step up. He said that 2011 will be a real challenge for us.”
Miller’s e-mail and others shed new light on the allegations of payback and politics coming out of Salem these days. The allegations are being made by some lobbyists — including Nelson, a longtime top Salem lobbyist who has been vilified by liberal groups and politicians because of his role in fighting the tax measures that were approved by voters on Jan. 26.
‘All bark and no bite’
Last week, Hunt dismissed the allegations as “whining.” He denied the claim that Democrats were pushing bills to punish groups that contributed to the anti-tax campaign, and he denied urging Nelson’s clients to fire him.
“These allegations are all bark and no bite,” he said in an interview last week. Hunt also stressed that he only gave Nelson’s clients advice about the lobbyist’s effectiveness when they asked for it.
However, the newly released e-mails, obtained from Nelson, portray a more aggressive role by Hunt. They depict a sustained effort, including several e-mails and conversations, to persuade Head Start to endorse the measures and to fire Nelson.
In September, when a Harney County Head Start official, Donna Schnitker, e-mailed Hunt to thank him for supporting Head Start last year, he responded with a message noting Nelson’s work on the anti-tax campaign. Hunt said if Nelson is successful, “there will be no way that Head Start can continue to be protected” from budget cuts.
On Jan. 9, he sent a Clackamas County Head Start official, Sue Elder, an e-mail saying he was following up on an earlier conversation “about Head Start’s representation in Salem .... Has your association taken any action yet?”
Elder then forwarded the message to other officials noting Hunt’s “concern about Mark Nelson representing us.”
Asked Tuesday about the e-mails, Hunt disputed the characterization that he urged anyone to fire Nelson; rather, he merely advised them that it might be a good idea. “My approach is making sure people have a clear set of information,” he said.
He acknowledged that he called the Head Start group’s executive director, Miller, and predicted a rough 2011 for them. He says he did so at the request of his local Head Start official, Elder, because they both shared concerns about Head Start’s political fortunes if the measures went down and Nelson stayed the group’s lobbyist.
He said he had e-mailed Miller to ask if the group had “taken any action” on Nelson because he was looking at potential budget cuts if the measures went down, and “I wanted to have a clear sense of what the challenges were going to be in terms of protecting money for Head Start.”
One such obstacle, he said, would be having a lobbyist like Nelson, who “is not a credible messenger for (protecting) general funds,” thanks to his anti-tax stance.
“I wanted to make sure ... that they are in the best position to be successful,” he said of Head Start.
Tough politics
Nelson said he is revealing the e-mails because he is concerned about a new level of tough politics that is playing out in Salem. He said he became alarmed in late January when it appeared he would face retribution in the special session.
Earlier this month, he supplied an e-mail that was written about the fate of House Bill 3607, which he had helped with on behalf of social workers who were seeking better reimbursement from insurance companies. Shortly before the session, lobbyist Brian DeLashmutt asked other lobbyists working on the bill what they had heard about its chances. He then reported to a Nelson employee that “the message is that the bill is dead because of Mark’s involvement in 66 and 67.”
Nelson said his opposition is about protecting the democratic process: “If you don’t do something about it now, who’s next?”
Hunt dismissed Nelson’s complaints as an attempt to shift attention from the merits of the bills Hunt is supporting in the current legislative session.
“We’re not going to be distracted from our work creating jobs and helping struggling families just because of the rantings of a lobbyist who’s mad that he lost the campaign,” he said.
But Schnitker, the Harney Head Start official, agreed with Nelson’s view. She called Hunt’s advice “a veiled threat. ... I was totally shocked by the whole thing.” She defended the decision to not break the group’s contract with Nelson, saying “he has done an amazing job for us.”
Miller, the Head Start executive director, said of the call she received from Hunt, “It isn’t something that I would normally expect to hear from a legislator, but also this is a democracy. People can have different opinions on things. ... I found it surprising that he would call and say that.”
“I interpreted (Hunt’s call) that he wasn’t very happy with us and that we might not have the support that we needed from him when our issues came up in front of the Legislature.”
Hunt said that interpretation is wrong — he’s long been a champion of more funding for Head Start. He said that would not change, and said Democrats “are making decisions on the basis of policy.”
Nothing new?
Lobbyists in Salem differ on whether the complaints about Hunt and others represent anything new. Len Bergstein, a longtime lobbyist who leans Democrat, noted that Nelson had long been in favor when the Republicans ran the Legislature. He said that Nelson may just be adjusting to a new reality.
“I think everyone has to take these kinds of claims with a grain of salt,” he said.
Ryan Deckert, a former Democratic state senator who now heads the Oregon Business Association, said the unusual allegation may be the product of holding the session immediately after a highly contentious campaign: “Everyone is stuffed into the Capitol less than a week later,” he said.
He said the tax battle has left people raw. When he visits the Capitol, “I can definitely feel it,” he said.
Deschutes County Commissioner Alan Unger reluctantly supported the tax measures but said he has no desire to change lobbyists. He says he’s happy with Nelson and thinks any payback would be misplaced.
“I’m not worried about it,” he said of the rumblings out of Salem. “I think (Nelson’s firm) has done good work for us in the past. You don’t just get rid of your friends because someone is calling them names.”
A change in culture
Bill Lunch, an Oregon State University political science professor who tracks politics in Salem, said all the talk of payback in Salem may suggest the political culture there is changing — in a way that does not bode well for Oregonians.
Nelson’s allegations wouldn’t even be newsworthy in places like Boston, Texas and Ohio. But in Oregon, a state without a long tradition of hardball politics, it’s “pretty unusual,” Lunch said.
He said the allegations are worrisome. “The difficulty here is once the people who are active and influential in the political system decide to play the payback game, or get into political retribution, it will rapidly spiral downward,” Lunch said. “People can get into that kind of thing in a way that’s very damaging to the capacity for the political system to find compromises.”
Lunch said a good example of this is California, where elected leaders have been paralyzed by a budget crisis and partisanship.
“If the expectation grows that each side will retaliate against each other, they will,” he added. “And that’s a recipe for gridlock at an even higher level than we’ve already seen.”