The Principles I’ll Take With Me to Salem.

I hear and read questions from people across our community in all kinds of places, and some deserve more than a quick response. This series of question and answer posts gives me the opportunity to answer questions thoughtfully and share those responses with others who may be asking the same question. Please read a recent question and my response below:

Question:

What fundamental principles and values would guide your decisions as a state representative? Are there principles or positions on which you would be unwilling to compromise, even when facing pressure from your political party, legislative leadership, special interests or other influential organizations?

This question originally appeared in a Grants Pass Tribune article: Read More

Answer:

My principles are simple: tell the truth and remember who I work for. Everything else follows from that.

Let me be direct about the pressure this question is asking about. I’m a Democrat, and I’ll be walking into a building where my party holds the majority. The pressure to fall in line is real, and it comes from people who can make the job easier or harder. I would never vote for something I believed would harm House District 3 because my party or legislative leadership wanted my vote. If that makes the work harder, then the work will be harder.

I’ve already lived this on the record. This spring, when a petition came forward to let individual property owners withdraw from the Josephine Community Library District, I went to the Board of Commissioners and said publicly that it shouldn’t be granted. Letting people opt out one parcel at a time isn’t really about books. It’s a precedent that could impact our fire and community college districts next.

There is one additional principle I want to be especially clear about. This campaign has carried the same idea from the beginning: for women, by women. I will always stand up for the health, safety, dignity, and freedom of women. That means protecting a woman’s ability to make her own healthcare decisions. It also means the unglamorous things that decide whether women can work and raise families here, like childcare that is high quality and close to home, and real support for the people caring for aging parents, which in this district is very often a daughter.

I won’t agree with every person I represent, and they won’t always agree with me. What I owe them is the truth about where I stand, why I decided what I decided, and who I was thinking about when I did.

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I hear and read questions from people across our community in all kinds of places, and some deserve more than a quick response. This series of question and answer posts gives me the opportunity to answer questions thoughtfully and share those responses with others who may be asking the same question. Please read a recent question and my response below: