Kate Brown

It will reduce global warming pollution across the state in clean energy and protect our communities from the impacts of climate change.

Then in the smaller heading, I'll just read a part of this, says Dear Governor Brown and the Oregon legislators, as Oregon scientists, researchers, and economists, we are deeply concerned that climate change compromises the quality of life of all Oregonians and threatens our state's and planet's future.

We need your leadership now more than ever to reduce the risk of dangerously warming climate.

The nation's record-breaking extreme weather events of the past few years provide a sobering reminder of the possible impacts to Oregon if global warming emissions continue to rise.

They bring that forward, then the chair might make some changes, and then that comes out for the community to respond to, as well as commissioners.

I wanna bring in a successful model I had when I worked for Governor Kate Brown where we had the Racial Justice Council, and it was set up so that we were hearing from community who was most impacted by the services or the programs that are being run, that they are centering, centering their voices, and they tell us what works well, what are actually having good outcomes in their community, not just data on a piece of paper, but what is their experience of our programs, and that we write our budget based on what they're saying are the most impactful things.

Are, are you saying that, um, the health department, for example, would do these surveys and come back to the chair?

Not a survey.

You guys are, you know, it's a powerful place to be.

But, you know, when the elections started getting really bad was when they started putting under Kate Brown, started putting the control back at the state or not back at, but in the state level.

so now most of that is at the state level when we have county clerks and i've met years before who who know the business no understand it make sure things are done fair and you know that seems like i know it's not timber and economy related but i think that's a huge deal that to get that control back to the counties to those elections clerks that that understand their their area

sure and you know you in order to answer your question how do we get the elections back i think the first and foremost thing is that you got to get people show up to vote you know we've been under democrat control in the state of oregon for 40 years and christine drazen ran four years ago and she lost by 67 000 votes we had 127 000 republicans in the state that didn't even show up to vote that time and we can't change the trajectory of oregon No matter who's in charge of the elections, if we don't get people to fill out their ballots and drop them off the ballot box, that's step number one.

I mean, you're stupid because she's ruined your state.

She's ruining your state.

Kate Brown already ruined your state.

Between the two of them, it's a disaster.

I unquestionably think it's harder for Kotech to run this time, just generally because she's an incumbent.

Remember four years ago, she was running and the attack against her was she will be Kate Brown 2.0. She's just going to be more of this same unpopular thing.

And she could credibly say, I've been House Speaker.

I've never been governor.

Here's some important context, though, too.

We have seen this before.

We have seen pretty tight races, like the one between Republican Newt Buehler and Governor Kate Brown in 2018, and then the race breaks for Democrats.

And I think the KOTAC campaign feels like there is a real chance of that happening again this time.

And that brought about Kitzhaber's resignation.

Yeah, and Kate Brown used it to get rid of them.

Yeah,

exactly.

The media was all over it.

If that had happened right before an election, she'd be toast.

And remember how everybody came out and Kate Brown

was like, oh, I'm so sorry.

Jesse Lee Calhoun, a 38-year-old man with a long rap sheet.

He had been released early from prison thanks to a 2021 clemency effort endorsed by Oregon Governor Kate Brown during COVID-related sentence reductions.

And now he was linked to a string of dead women.

Let me break the fourth wall here for a second, as I often do, because when I live here, because I live here and because when the story started, I made episodes about it.

He was sentenced to prison on charges of burglary, assaulting a public safety officer, and interfering with a law enforcement animal.

Now, the former governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, commuted his sentence in 2021.

After, he volunteered to help firefighters battling the wildfires that were burning up the state back in 2020.

So your prisoner, he said, hey, I'll be a good boy.

Give me a rake and a hoe and I'll go out there and put my life on the line.

The governor pardons him.

Well, guess what? I'm not throwing shade on Governor Kate Brown because she didn't know what this dude was really about.

So Calhoun has been in police custody in connection with the deaths of the five women since June of 2024.

And so those sorts of things, I think, are symptoms that chip away at the public trust.

And what is different for me is, one, I understand and know how to write budgets and have done that at the state for Governor Kate Brown.

but also the accountability has to lie with the chair.

There's a lot of deflection to me to either departments or to leaders in other spaces, but really the chair needs to take accountability and say, sometimes we made a mistake there and acknowledge it, admit it, say what you're going to improve and move on.