William M. Lunch

Years ago, Oregon Governor Tom McCall attended a national conference of governors to make a presentation on the then new state "bottle bill." Soon after, a governor from the East dismissed McCall's idea by saying that it might work among "woodsy weirdoes" in Oregon, but not among his "normal" constituents. This story, which McCall loved to recount, captures an image that the Northwest in general, and Oregon in particular, has in much of the nation. But images are often exaggerated, sometimes even fictional; images aside, what are the major features of state politics in the Northwest?

Washington and Oregon

These are the two largest states in the region, with a combined population of more than eight million, most of which is concentrated west of the Cascades, mainly in the I-5 corridor. Politically, Washington and Oregon are similar, with a dominant city opposed in politics by rural voters, and suburban voters and a moderately populated region politically between the urban and rural areas.

Both Washington and Oregon have a dominant major city-Seattle and Portland-where voters are heavily democratic. Both states have rural areas, mainly east of the mountains, which now contain fewer than one citizen in four, perhaps even fewer. In the 1990s, rural voters increasingly shifted to republicans, so that in the state legislatures in both Olympia and Salem there are pronounced urban-rural partisan divisions; that is, with a few exceptions, republicans in the Washington and Oregon state legislatures now represent rural districts while democrats represent urban districts.

In both states, there are political buffers between the big city and the rural areas. The suburbs just outside of Seattle and Portland are critically important, and in Oregon, the Willamette Valley outside of the Portland area-Salem, Eugene, and Corvallis-can hold the balance of power in state politics, although within the valley there is also an urban-rural split. So the valley is usually divided, but modestly democratic. Similarly, the Puget Sound area outside of Seattle-where Tacoma and Olympia are the biggest cities-is less clearly democratic than is Seattle, but still leans toward the democrats.

Suburban areas, however, are most important in close statewide contests. In Oregon, the key suburbs are in Washington and Clackamas counties, such as Beaverton and Tigard. In Washington, the key suburbs are outside Seattle, such as Redmond (headquarters for Microsoft), Everett and some towns on the San Juan Islands. Suburban voters are often attracted to republicans on economic grounds, but to democrats by social issues and, very importantly for forest managers, their preference for environmental protection.

This mix of democratic cities, republican rural areas, and cross-pressured suburbs and small cities, taken together, gives both Washington and Oregon a democratic coloration statewide. Governors Gary Locke and John Kitzhaber are both democrats who were easily re-elected in 2000 and 1998, respectively, when republicans nominated conservative candidates too far to the right to appeal to most suburban voters. Three of the four U.S. senators from these two states are now democrats, with the mild upset by Democrat Maria Cantwell over former Senator Slade Gorton in Washington last year. Among members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington and Oregon now send 10 democrats and four republicans to Capitol Hill.

But in both Olympia and Salem, the republicans do better in the state legislature. In Oregon, the GOP narrowly controls both chambers. In Washington, the state House is evenly split, 49 to 49, while the state Senate is under democratic control, but only by one vote. Why do republicans do better in legislative contests than in statewide races? The short answer is that the GOP is simply not competitive in most of Seattle and Portland, in no small measure because city voters strongly favor environmental preservation ideas republicans usually oppose. When democrats get, say, 80 percent of the vote in some urban districts, they still control only one seat in the legislature, but those votes contribute to statewide victories in contests for governor or U.S. senator.

Given these patterns, state legislators have largely been stalemated on important environmental and natural resource issues in recent years, leaving the door open to political entrepreneurs who often use the initiative system, such as those who sponsored Measure Seven in Oregon last year (see sidebar).

Idaho and Montana

Both of these states have a turbulent political history, punctuated with intense labor-management conflict, such as violent strikes by miners in both Idaho's northern panhandle and in Montana at many mines, particularly those owned by out-of-state corporations. In the timber industry as well, labor-management conflicts were once routine and intense.

In recent years, however, the rise of urban environmentalism among the democrats has given politics in both Idaho and Montana a sharp push toward the republicans. Miners or timber workers have not so much been persuaded that management is right, as they have been frightened that if environmentalists prevail, their jobs could be threatened. And as in Oregon and Washington, the automation of many jobs among large timber firms has meant that the number of jobs in the woods has been shrinking. In addition to raising anxiety among timber workers, the declining employment base in the timber and mining industries has reduced the political influence of traditional natural resource industries.

Both Idaho and Montana now support Republicans in most political contests. Both states have republican governors; Dirk Kempthorne in Idaho and Judy Martz in Montana, both elected easily. Three of the four U.S. senators from these states are republicans, as are all three of the members of the U.S. House from Idaho and Montana. In both states, republicans control the state legislatures; indeed, Idaho is one of the most republican states in the nation in which natural resource industries have many supporters, though there have been and continue to be conflicts between agriculture, mining, and forestry, so politics is not always friendly for forest managers, even in Boise.

Measure Seven & Initiative Politics

Last November, Oregon voters approved (by a 53 to 47 percent margin) Measure Seven, a property-rights initiative sponsored by an organization called Oregonians in Action. Measure Seven requires state and local governments to reimburse property owners if government action-particularly state or local planning or zoning requirements-reduces the value of their property.

The initiative was 1 of 26 measures on the ballot in 2000 and 1 of 18 initiatives. Oregon voters have confronted dozens of initiatives in recent years, largely because the courts have ruled that sponsors have a constitutional right to use paid signature gatherers. Most of the initiatives that are qualified for the ballot using paid petition gatherers fail, but a minority pass, including Measure Seven.

Measure Seven, sometimes known as a "Takings" initiative (meaning that it opposed government taking of private property) was originally proposed by Bill Sizemore, the director of Oregon Taxpayers United, a group that has put many tax-cutting initiatives on the ballot. But Sizemore had so many initiatives to support in 2000-six others-that he handed Measure Seven over to Oregonians in Action, a group that has opposed state land-use planning for many years.

Measure Seven would require state and local governments in Oregon to compensate landowners for loss of value to their property, if that loss is caused by government action, such as planning or zoning limits on subdivisions. The cost would be very substantial, probably in the billions of dollars if existing laws were maintained, though estimates of how much implementation of the initiative would cost are controversial and vary greatly.

Measure Seven was challenged in court before it could become effective and in February, a judge in Marion County declared it unconstitutional, in part on the grounds that the initiative included more than one subject, which is prohibited by the Oregon state constitution. That ruling is now under appeal, but final resolution of the legal issues is probably months, perhaps years away.

William M. Lunch is professor of Political Science at Oregon State University (OSU) and the political analyst for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), but the views expressed here are his own and do not represent positions by either OSU or OPB.

This article appeared in the Northwest Woodlands Magazine, Spring 2001- Published quarterly by the World Forestry Center as a benefit of membership in the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, Washington Farm Forestry Association, Idaho Forest Owners Association and Montana Forest Owners Association.