Jim Hill, a lawyer, consultant, former state legislator and state treasurer, has held public office for two decades. First elected as an Oregon State Representative in 1982, he served two terms before being elected to the Oregon Senate in 1986. Hill resigned his senate office in 1992 to serve two consecutive terms as state treasurer, a position he held until 2001. He received his law degree from Indiana University College of Law, and now lives in Wilsonville.
Q: What experience do you bring to the table that makes you a unique candidate for governor?
A: My economy development background. I was elected to the Oregon Legislature back in 1982, when the economy was quite a bit worse than the one we’re in now. And that caused me to dedicate most of my political career to economic and political issues. As treasurer, I created the Oregon Growth Account, which is an investment program dedicated to putting venture capital out to small businesses. And so those are the kinds of things that I’ve done, but my concentration has been economic development. Quite simply, this is the lesson that we all learned in the ’80s: The economy underlies all, and when it’s all said and done it’s got to be the economy, a strong economy, that will give people the opportunity to have a decent job or have a business and make a decent living; it’s also the thing that’s going to bring the revenues into our state so we can turn around and invest in education and health care and all those kinds of things. So Republican or Democrat, I have the strongest background there, and I would say that’s what distinguishes me from the others.
Q: Why should students take an interest in this primary election, and how are you campaigning to increase student turnout?
A: As you know, Bev (Stein) and I did show up at the U of O. I’ve actually been down and spoken to President Frohnmayer. One of the reasons that we showed up was to get the interest going. I don’t know if we will be coming back down, you know the primary is very close. But the reason I wanted to get down to the candidate forum was to drum up funds and interest from students.
Q: Would you back initiatives to raise tuition at Oregon universities beyond the 3 percent a year cap?
A: What we’d hope to do is not to have to raise tuition. Let me just say that my goal is to keep the cost of tuition down as much as possible. It continues to rise and rise and rise; of course every time it does, fewer people have the opportunity to go to school.
Q: Do you support higher pay for university faculty?
A: Absolutely. I am keenly aware of the fact that our faculty, for degree and doctoral degree granting institutions, we’re some of the lowest paid in the country.
Q: How do you plan on helping students afford college when scholarship funding in this state is being cut?
A: Again, it really does come back to resources. Everywhere we go, we talk about health care, everybody is going through the same thing and being hurt. It’s my sentiment that we stop the cuts that are occurring in scholarships, but again, we’re paying the price for bad fiscal management. We were not prepared in this recession. (As governor) I’d have the capability to help stimulate the economy and manage things better, and one of those priorities would be to restore those scholarships.
Q: Oregon universities are facing record enrollment rates, and at the same time funding is being cut. How do you propose that Oregon universities keep a high quality of education?
Whenever times get bad in the job market, you have to understand people will use that as an opportunity to go back to school. Unfortunately, we were not as prepared for the recession as we should have been. When those kinds of situations occur you have more students and less money. I would be wanting to certainly get the economy back on track so we can get the revenues again. There is no quick fix for the situation. My sentiment, of course, is we do everything to keep the quality of our universities up in every way. I’d say one of the things that might be appropriate to do is this: For every kind of infrastructure project you have on campus, issue bonds for those projects; then you have cash on hand you can use for other things that might have otherwise been used for the infrastructure projects.
Q: How do you plan on making yourself accessible to students if you’re elected?
A: I would first of all look forward to coming and visiting the universities. At the same time, I’d always be very open as well to having (students) come to Salem if they had any issues they wanted to talk about. I feel it’s very important to stay in contact with students. It’s really important to see that there are some good opportunities for when people graduate. Just know that I enjoy visiting the campuses and will always want to know what the concerns of the students are. I do honestly look at it as, you young people are going to be coming out of school and you’re going to be the people who are going to move this state forward, and that’s why it’s important for them to get a good education.
Q: Oregon’s resource-based economy often comes into direct conflict with environmental issues. How do you plan to balance these needs?
A: As you know, the treasurer is on the state land board. We make decisions about state lands, state forest lands for example, and with the Eliot State Forest, down on the south coast, we actually received an award from the U.S. Department of Interior (under the Clinton Administration) because we did such a good job of balancing the needs for having habitat conservation for the wildlife and at the same time had flexibility as far as harvesting the timber out of the Eliot forest. It was one of those rare times when the environmental community and the timber industry came down and said this is really a fair balance. What you do is you try to engage people before you get to a point where there are lawsuits and all of these kinds of things going on, and what you try to do is try to find the fair balance. I’m always going to come down and make sure there’s not damage done to the environment, but at the same time we need to realize the revenue that comes from the state lands goes to the common school fund which helps out kindergarten through 12th grade. If you can do that, you certainly reduce those conflicts.
Q: In the event of another economic slump, would you be more likely to cut programs or raise taxes to balance the budget?
A: I actually have TV ads running right now that are talking about that. It’s very seldom you’ll see a person running ads talking about raising taxes. But my ads are talking about raising the alcohol and the cigarette tax to protect our schools. What I would do, and what we’ve had to do in the past when we come up with these situations, is you end up doing both. You have to. If you haven’t prepared for a downturn in the economy, you’re going to have a combination of cuts and revenue enhancements. When things are as bad as they are, when you have an 8 percent unemployment rate, you’re going to have to do both. You’re going to have to make cuts and raise taxes. So as in the past, it would be a combination of both.
Q: Do you think Oregon’s public education system is adequately preparing students for college?
A: I believe that it’s doing a decent job. You can certainly always do a better job. With the Certificate of Initial Mastery and the Certificate of Advanced Mastery, the issue there is we’re implementing something and not putting any resources with it. You put a very heavy burden on teachers who are already heavily burdened. I think that’s something you always have to get better at. I would say that I believe it’s doing a decent job, but I believe it could be doing a better job.
Q: What should this state do to keep Oregon’s top students at in-state colleges and universities?
A: One of the obvious issues is cost. If you can help keep the cost of a good education down at universities, our students are likely to stay. But as you k
now, as tuition goes up it gets to a certain point where there’s not much differential between staying in the state and leaving to go to college. A big component comes down to cost, and, of course, the other component of it is the quality of instruction students are going to get. If you’re going to keep your best students here you got to have good programs.
Q: U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft attempted to overturn Oregon’s death with dignity law in federal court. Will you fight to preserve the will of Oregon’s voters or help the federal government overturn what some consider to be illegal legislation?
A: I would certainly fight that all the way up, all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. I was very troubled that they were so willing to interfere with the will of the people on that issue.
E-mail reporter Brook Reinhard at [email protected].