Jack Roberts is serving his second term as state labor commissioner. He received his journalism degree from the University of Oregon in 1975 and a law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1978. Roberts was appointed as a Lane County Commissioner in 1989 to fill a vacancy, then was re-elected in 1990 and 1992. He resigned this position in 1994 to run for state labor commissioner. Roberts became the first Republican to serve as labor commissioner in Oregon in almost 40 years and was re-elected in 1998. Roberts lives in Eugene with his wife, Tamara.
Q: What experience do you bring to the table that makes you a unique candidate for governor?
A: I’ve run a state agency that’s efficient and effective. During a time where everyone else is complaining about budget cuts, we’ve actually made this agency better. I’ve also had experience as a county commissioner in Lane County, which is almost a microcosm of the state. We have one large city, Eugene, we have a county that has agriculture, timber, the ocean, the mountains … Balancing all those interests makes me a unique candidate for governor.
Q: Why should students take an interest in this primary election, and how are you campaigning to increase student turnout?
A: I can’t honestly say that in the primary we’ve been working exceptionally hard to increase student turnout, just because it’s hard to target our efforts. We do have a growing number of college Republicans at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Portland State University. Why should students care what’s at stake? Well, look at your tuition. Look at the courses being offered. Higher education is very much at the forefront of what we need to be doing as a state, giving the best of what we have. There’s a lot of issues concerning higher education in the next several legislative sessions. In addition to that, for those of you who want to stay here and find work and pursue your chosen fields when you’re through, you ought to care about where our economy is going. That’s also going to be important for the next governor to deal with.
Q: Would you back initiatives to raise tuition at Oregon universities beyond the 3 percent a year cap?
A: I do not want to. I do think we have a constant struggle between trying to maintain the excellence we want at our universities, particularly at Oregon and OSU, and make sure we have the access, which has to do with affordability. I’m not one of those who thinks we should simply raise tuition and increase student aid because I don’t have any confidence that student aid will be increased on a permanent basis, but I know that tuition increases will. As the only one of the six major candidates for governor who actually went to the University of Oregon, I feel very strongly we ought to make this affordable. But I can’t make a promise as to what’s going to happen with tuition. I do think the universities need to have some flexibility as to the tuition they charge. But we’re actually not very affordable now. And increasing it further is going to make it harder to compete for kids who want to stay here in state and who have a lot to offer.
Q: Do you support higher pay for university faculty?
A: I do. We have one of the lowest pay rates in the country. In the past we’ve been able to keep people because the quality of life here is good. Unfortunately that works better to keep people than it does to attract them in the first place. A lot of them are retiring and leaving which makes it tough for us, and in some cases it’s difficult to keep good people because it’s so uncompetitive. I’m hoping that the passage of Ballot Measure 10, which will give us the ability to do some more entrepreneurial things with our research, will give us some resources to compete better with that. But we’ve got to make a commitment to pay our faculty better.
Q: How do you plan to help students afford college when scholarship funding in this state is being cut?
A: It’s a two-pronged issue of trying to hold the cost of tuition and student aid. I can’t make any absolute promises we’re going to do that, but those are things that are important to me.
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?
A: It’s going to take money and a commitment to a vision of what we want to do as a state. We really need to have a better view of how we’re going to manage the entire system. I favor the more entrepreneurial course that the system is allowing universities to follow. But at the same time we need to think of what these seven liberal arts schools in the university system have to offer. It’s important that we think of what we can do there. I’m interested in trying to make sure we have the commitment to fund undergraduate programs, which have been underfunded for years and to also make sure we target our investments in higher education in ways that relate to the economy we want to have in the future. As far as to guarantee or promise any level of funding, unfortunately I can’t do that.
Q: How do you plan on making yourself accessible to students if you’re elected?
A: First I’ll start being more accessible than (Gov. John) Kitzhaber’s been. I think his administration has been very inaccessible. I want to be out a lot more. And I hadn’t really thought specifically about students. One of the things I did when I was at Oregon State University was they asked me if I’d be willing to have a debate there in the general election if I were one of the candidates. I said yeah, that’s a great idea. I’d like to have regular, recurring interaction with students. Not only as students, but as representatives of young people that we hope to keep and retain in this state, that we would like to keep here.
Q: Oregon’s resource-based economy often comes into direct conflict with environmental issues. How do you plan to balance these needs?
A: We’ve gone too far in the direction of shutting down environmental resources beyond what’s been requested from an environmental standpoint. I do think we’ve learned a lot over the years and are continuing to learn a lot on how to manage these resources in an environmentally responsible way and still have some economic contribution to local communities. That’s what I’m in favor of. I don’t think we should go back to the days when people didn’t have to regard the long-term effects of their actions, but the bigger thing is I think we’re making some mistakes by stopping environmental management. For example, our public forests, where now we have fewer buildup, that when fires occur as they do every summer it’s such a high heat that it almost sears the land and destroys the wildlife and the habitat and is not economically beneficial and not environmentally responsible. We don’t have the option of going back to the days before we had the decades of fire repression. That happened, and now we need to take responsibility for managing that. And I think that it’s important we do restore some balance. But in my sense today the balance is more on the side of excessive restriction on the natural resource based economy rather than too much exploitation of the environment.
Q: In the event of another economic slump, would you be more likely to cut programs or raise taxes to balance the budget?
A: Well between those two, what I’d like to see is utilize more of the one-time revenues that are available, and I’d like to have a rainy day fund. One of the things that frustrates me is we have more than $700 million in the common school fund, and it currently contributes less than six-tenths of 1 percent to raising school support. It is being underutilized. It would make a perfect rainy day fund. We should convert that to a rainy day fund, in my view. And if we did that, we’d have an alternative to the unpleasant prospect of cutting services during a recession, when they’re often badly needed, and raising taxes, which could often end up po
stponing the recovery. We could be doing more with one time revenue and I support that, but I would not favor raising taxes during a recession.
Q: Do you think Oregon’s education system is adequately preparing students for college?
A: Most kids who go through our schools who are planning on going to college do come out adequately prepared. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be better prepared. But the biggest problem is we’re leaving a lot of kids behind, whether it’s through college or lower education.
Q: What should this state do to keep Oregon’s top students at in-state colleges and universities?
A: We have to be good enough that people want to go here and we have to be affordable so they can go here. Those things are often in conflict and unfortunately the only thing that bridges that gap is the commitment. We have to make that a target focus and make sure we maintain the excellence, particularly in those areas we want for the economy and our society in the future. And we have to make sure we make those areas affordable.
Q: U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft tried 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 government overturn what some consider to be illegal legislation?
A: I’ll fight to preserve the will of Oregon’s voters. I voted against the law. I’m worried about ways it might be abused. In principle, I don’t have a problem with people making their decision about leaving. I’m concerned people are going to feel an economic pressure and other family pressure or just the problem that it can be abused. So I have some concerns about it. But I think we ought to be defending the will of the voters and the courts will decide how that interfaces with federal law.
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