{"id":1027,"date":"2024-10-30T03:42:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T03:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2024-11-06T00:26:07","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T08:26:07","slug":"no-place-for-republicans-in-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/2024\/10\/30\/no-place-for-republicans-in-oregon\/","title":{"rendered":"Outnumbered"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:400;\" class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-post-author-name has-small-font-size\">Leo Brown<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Steven Schmunk doesn\u2019t like Oregon&#8217;s current direction. The businessman has devoted much of his time since he retired to local politics, trying to give conservatives a voice in a predominantly left-leaning state.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2024, 15 out of 30 seats in the State Senate and all of Oregon&#8217;s House of Representatives are up for election. If Democrats gain one more seat in each chamber, they would control a three-fifths supermajority. This would give Democrats full control over state tax laws and regulations, writes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opb.org\/article\/2024\/10\/22\/oregon-politics-balance-of-power-democrates-republicans-majority-election\/\">Dirk VanderHart <\/a>for Oregon Public Broadcasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re just frustrated with what&#8217;s going on. We feel like we have no power whatsoever,\u201d said Schmunk. \u201cOregon&#8217;s Democrats don&#8217;t allow conservatives to get anything direction-wise of theirs through the legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schmunk, vice-chair of the Lane County Republicans, believes that lowering taxes and deregulating large corporations would boost Oregon&#8217;s economy and address pressing state issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like many Oregon Republicans, Schmunk feels his perspective is being marginalized. \u201cWe only want what&#8217;s best,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just may not agree with the way of getting it done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The blue dominance of the state wasn\u2019t always the case.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schmunk recalled a time when politics felt more balanced. \u201cIn Oregon, when I was younger, there were Republicans in office. The governor was a Republican governor for a while. And so it was more even-handed,\u201d Schmunk said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neither party has all the answers, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI know Republicans aren\u2019t right, and I know Democrats aren&#8217;t right. But Oregon Republicans don&#8217;t even get a chance to present their point of view in a lot of situations.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Schmunk doesn\u2019t like Oregon&#8217;s current direction. The businessman has devoted much of his time since he retired to local politics, trying to give conservatives a voice in a predominantly left-leaning state.\u00a0 In 2024, 15 out of 30 seats in the State Senate and all of Oregon&#8217;s House of Representatives are up for election. If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","pmpro_default_level":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"top_category":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-profiles","pmpro-has-access"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/20241023_Steven_Schmunk_15.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Leo Brown","author_link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/author\/leo-brown\/"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/20241023_Steven_Schmunk_15.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1624,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"top_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/top_category?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}