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A state Supreme Court contest heats up over the issue of (gasp!) sex.
Watching state Supreme Court races tends be about as exciting as reading Black's Law Dictionary, and this year seemed no different--until March 3. That's when Multnomah County officials started distributing licenses for gay marriage.
Two days later, lawyer James Leuenberger, who has worked for anti-gay activist Lon Mabon, filed the paperwork to run for the Oregon Supreme Court. His opponent: Justice Rives Kistler, the high court's only openly gay member.
In terms of qualifications, Kistler is clearly superior: He was a clerk with the U.S. Supreme Court and was a well-regarded state Court of Appeals judge before his high-court appointment last year. Even Leuenberger concedes that his opponent is "a first-class legal scholar."
Leuenberger has experience, too. He has served as an appellate-court clerk and deputy attorney general in Idaho, and he's now a Lake Oswego solo practitioner who specializes in cases referred by the National Rifle Association and similar groups. That explains why Leuenberger, a Mormon, advertises on the website of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership--a group that he says correctly links gun control to genocide.
Ironically, if Leuenberger is elected, one of the court's first rulings could remove him temporarily from sitting on the court. He faces a potential 90-day suspension from practicing law thanks to an Oregon State Bar disciplinary case now pending before the Supremes. The case alleges that Leuenberger abused the courts by filing frivolous legal claims. Leuenberger, however, says he merely engaged in zealous advocacy for his client.
Given Leuenberger's controversial views and run-in with the state bar, the incumbent would seem a shoo-in. But some Kistler backers, such as U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland), are worried. That's because the gay-marriage issue is expected to help turn out conservative Christian voters this May.
Leuenberger says he is not making an issue of Kistler's sexual orientation, but the Christian Coalition has said it will in the voter's guide it sends members.
Leuenberger also says he is not raising money. But Kistler's campaign clearly takes Leuenberger seriously. It hopes to raise $500,000 and air TV ads around the state.
Candidates for the bench are supposed to stay mum on legal issues that could come before them if elected. Kistler, for example, declined to discuss legal issues in any detail during his WW endorsement interview.
In Leuenberger's interview, however, he freely criticized the Supreme Court's stance on free speech, the initiative process, and whether Oregon's judges are taking the correct legal oath. He thinks the courts went too far in curbing cities' rights to regulate pornography. Asked why, he said the ruling caused there to be "a lot of pornography in this state, and pornography is bad."
That's not much of a legal argument, is it?
Leuenberger's reply: "I'm a Christian before I'm a lawyer."
Elephant Stew in Tigard
"Democrats tend to eat their young on an ad hoc basis," a wise wag recently told me. "Republicans do it in an organized fashion."
This impromptu primer on political appetites was prompted by what's going on out in Washington County, where state Rep. Phil Yount is being challenged by a woman whose consultant works for Yount's own party.
The unwritten rule in Oregon is that the parties stay out of primary battles, unless it's to come to the aid of an incumbent. But, apparently, rules are meant to be broken when it suits those who make them.
Three months ago, Washington County commissioners picked Yount to fill the House seat vacated when Republican Max Williams took over as the state's corrections czar. Yount, an amiable retired insurance exec, would like to keep the job, so on Feb. 13 he filed the paperwork for the May primary. Two weeks later, Suzanne Gallagher, a fellow anti-tax, anti-abortion Tigard Republican, joined the race.
Gallagher, the former head of Oregon's Eagle Forum outpost, promptly enlisted the services of Chuck Adams, a savvy political pit bull who normally rips into Democrats. In fact, Adams is so good at his job that the GOP House leadership keeps the Wilsonville consultant on retainer.
Some Republicans are wondering why their party's favorite attack dog is setting his steely gaze on a Republican incumbent. "It's very unusual," says Washington County Chairman Tom Brian, who once held the House seat Yount to which now clings. "I can't recall the party ever getting involved against an incumbent."
Troy Nichols, the Republican staffer coordinating House races, explains that the GOP isn't paying Adams for his work on Gallagher's campaign, though caucus leaders (including, presumably, Speaker Karen Minnis) had to "release" Adams to jump into a race featuring a Republican incumbent.
As Nichols explained, Yount was appointed "so close to the end of [Williams'] term we told him we would treat this as an open seat."
That's news to Yount. "They said I was the incumbent and it would give me a significant advantage," he recalls. "They said they always support the incumbent."
Yount knows he's just collateral damage. The real target of this friendly fire is the third Republican candidate in this race, Brad Fudge, who has the audacity to support abortion rights, a view decidedly at odds with party leaders and their allies.
Fudge's stance is why Oregon Right to Life has made electing Gallagher one of its top priorities in the May 19 primary (Yount passed the group's litmus test on abortion, but not doctor-assisted suicide). In addition to lots of cash, the pro-life group has a consultant on retainer named--you guessed it--Chuck Adams.
Brian, who like Williams and Fudge is pro-choice, thinks that chasing off the social moderate in the race could come back to bite Republicans in this west suburban district, where party registration is nearly even and a quarter of the voters are signed up as independents. Gallagher's Eagle Forum platform (including vouchers for private religious schools) might sell in the primary, Brian predicts, but "she'll have a difficult time in the fall."
Rep. Yount, for his part, finds the whole experience "a bit discomforting."
Then again, cannibalism often is.
Hang on to your ballot! Our endorsement issue hits the streets May 5.
WWeek 2015