After a harrowing summer of partisan budget battles in the Legislature, the stage is being set for a competitive gubernatorial election this November. On the ticket are Democrat Ted Kulongoski, Republican Kevin Mannix and Libertarian Tom Cox. There are also two independent write-in candidates, Richard Alevizos and Gary Alan Spanovich.
Ted Kulongoski was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1974 and to the Oregon Senate four years later. In 1992, Kulongoski served as Oregon attorney general. Most recently, he served as an Oregon Supreme Court justice.
According to the Kulongoski campaign, he is primarily concerned with education in Oregon. He wants to improve the public school system and has received the Oregon Education Association’s endorsement for his support for education. He is still developing an official position and plan on how to approach the current crisis if he is elected.
Kulongoski is also making social issues a big part of his campaign, especially his position in support of gay rights and upholding Oregon’s Death with Dignity law.
“Ted’s been incredibly supportive of not only a woman’s right to choose, but gay and lesbian rights,” spokesman Scott Ballo said.
Ballo added that Kulongoski has received endorsements from many gay-rights groups in Oregon.
Republican Kevin Mannix, a lawyer of 27 years, served as Oregon assistant attorney general from 1975 to 1977 and five terms as a state representative before term limits forced him out of office in 2001. He has also served as vice chairman of the Oregon Republican Party.
Mannix said his top priority is stimulating the economy to decrease Oregon’s unemployment rate. To accomplish this, he plans to reduce property taxes, as well as use credits to cut income tax. Mannix would also cut capital gains tax by 50 percent.
To further stimulate the economy, Mannix plans to help businesses thrive in Oregon.
“Oregon needs to retain existing businesses within our state, while at the same time attracting new ones,” he said.
Mannix hopes that his tax policies — along his effort to reduce state regulations — would encourage existing businesses to grow and new businesses to move to Oregon.
Mannix also wants to encourage public and private partnerships between business and Oregon colleges. The outcome of this, he hopes, would be support for higher education and a program to train students for careers in “Oregon business.”
Libertarian Tom Cox is a principal consultant with PwC Consulting. Prior to his current consulting job, Cox worked for TrueNorth Consulting and was a manager at the Oracle Corporation. He has also been chairman of the Libertarian Party, at both the county and state levels.
Cox has based his platform on three issues: K-12 and higher education reform, Oregon Department of Transportation reform and the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System reform.
If elected, Cox said he would privatize all colleges and universities and give state funds to students so they can fund their education at any university or college in the nation.
Along the same lines, Cox plans to implement his “fund kids first” program, which would provide a $2,000 voucher and a $2,000 tax credit to parents with K-12 children. The tax credit could be used for any source of education, such as home schooling or a private school, while the voucher would have to be used at an accredited school.
Second, Cox said he wants to dramatically decrease the amount of employees working at ODOT
— which he said is too large for the amount of work that gets done
— and reorganize the agency to make it more efficient.
“It is my contention that ODOT has increased — and not decreased — congestion,” Cox said. “My goal is to change that.”
Cox also said the state currently can’t fund the amount it is promising retired workers under PERS. He said he believes PERS forces workers to stay at jobs they don’t like because they will lose their fund if they quit.
To fix state retirement accounts, Cox plans to end PERS, distribute the current assets and create a new system in which all public workers would have a personal account — much like a 401K plan– that couldn’t be touched until retirement. A certain percent of a worker’s paycheck would be added to the private account at every pay cycle.
According to Cox, this system would allow workers to change jobs without losing their retirement funds while adequately providing for public employee retirement.
Independent write-in candidate Richard Alevizos has served on two committees of the Lane County Human Services Commission and is studying French and linguistics at the University.
Alevizos is forming his platform around the idea that an independent candidate should be elected to replace the possibility of a major-party governor. Alevizos said people are being wrongly convinced that voting for a third-party candidate is hazardous because it throws the election to a major party, and he hopes to fight this idea.
If elected, Alevizos said he plans on protecting the environment, lowering taxes and increasing worker wages, all which would be supported with the legalization of hemp.
Alevizos said hemp legalization would provide state revenue through taxation, as well as jobs for farmers and mills to grow and cultivate the product.
Independent write-in candidate Gary Alan Spanovich has been an urban planner for 30 years and was formerly the Regional Transportation Planner for Portland Metro. Spanovich is currently developing land work for a Tibetan peace society.
In Spanovich’s “plan for compassion,” which serves as his platform, he lists his top campaign priority as “(creating) the best school system in the country in Oregon.” To accomplish this, Spanovich would “weed out” bad teachers, reduce class sizes and create a permanent funding source for schools.
“I would change the school curriculum of K-12 so that equal emphasis is placed on educating the heart along with the traditional way we educate our children, which is to educate their minds,” Spanovich said.
Spanovich would also implement a plan to make “every adult Oregonian economically self-sufficient within four years.” The plan calls for the Oregon Economic & Community Development Department to place greater emphasis on many small aspects, including small business loans, educational grants and opportunities, loans and tax incentives.