Correction appended
Crossing the busy street across from the Oregon capital building Tuesday afternoon, State Sen. Vicki Walker waved her hands violently toward a driver who zoomed past without any regard for pedestrians.
“Hey, pay attention,” she said in an annoyed tone. “Isn’t that terrible? I gave remonstrance about this on the floor the other day and I got the legislature to agree to get some flags to make the crosswalk more noticeable.”
Walker (D-Eugene) has been identifying problems and attempting to fix community issues since she was elected to the Oregon legislature nine years ago.
“That is the one thing that sets her apart from most of us,” Walker’s legislative assistant and daughter Sara Walker said. “She is going to do something about a problem she encounters. It doesn’t matter whose toes she steps on.”
Vicki Walker graduated from University of Oregon in 1978, and after years of involvement in other people’s political campaigns, Sara Walker encouraged her to take the chance herself.
“I said, ‘Mom, when are you going to run?’” Sara Walker remembered. “I don’t think it was ever a question. We knew she was going to run. It was just she needed her family’s blessing.”
Shuffling through the entrance of her office at 9 a.m., Vicki Walker, clad in a black suit and hot pink turtleneck, welcomed Oregon Department of Agriculture representatives. Listening to the serene sound of her water fountain and meditative melodies that played softly in the background, the senator seemed undaunted, knowing she had already been in meetings for two hours and had more than eight more hours of meetings to go before she could return to her temporary residence in Salem.
Walker spent only a few minutes with agriculture representatives, and then without a minute to catch a breath, opened her door to advocates from the Oregon School for the Blind.
In the midst of a state budget crisis, Rep. Sara Gelser (D-Corvallis) drafted a bill which would close the school for good. HB 2834 would transfer $3.1 million of the cost to run the school to public schools’ visual impairment programs. Walker, who is not in favor of full closure of the school but was not discreet about the school’s lack of budget stability, listened patiently to the School for the Blind’s request to have more time to implement their own expansion and development program.
“I kind of like to play my cards on the table,” she told them. “I think you are going to have to act quickly and talk to members of the Ways and Means committee to save the school. However, I don’t think there is a lot of support for full closure at this point.”
Walker’s political style is normally up-front. Shortly after her meeting with the Oregon School for the Blind, she slid over to her desk and dialed the number of Sal Peralta. Peralta was hoping to add amendments onto HB 2414, which would not allow ballots to list the names of more than two political parties that nominate candidates for election.
“So I heard you wanna stuff your stuff in my bill,” she said. “Let me ask you something Peralta, if your bill isn’t moving now, why would I want to add any of it to my bill, which is doing well?”
Midway through the morning and shortly before Walker went onto the Senate floor, she received disappointing news that her colleague Frank Morse (R-Albany) voted against one of her bills.
“You don’t do that to a colleague. I can’t believe that he turned. I am going to call him on it. He is going to owe me and you don’t want to owe me,” she said.
Morse voted against SB 796, which would require death care consultants to become licensed. Death care consultants are people who provide families with coping techniques, as well as physical alternatives to traditional burial.
Once she was on the Senate floor, Walker kept true to her word. Within 20 minutes, she made her way over to Morse’s desk and convinced him to vote with her the next time around.
“She is never beholden to anybody. You have to negotiate sometimes to get what you need to get done,” Sara Walker said. “The goal is to get something done, even if it is just a small step in a much bigger process.”
Although many topics in the legislature require senators to work diligently to move bills forward, Walker and her colleagues spend many afternoons and evenings at community events. Walker cut into her lunch hour Tuesday to meet Sen. Jackie Dingfelder (D-Portland) and attend a Workers Memorial Day service that dedicated a new Fallen Worker Memorial in the state capital mall.
Throughout the session, Walker has attended many events to show her support for local causes, but in legislature only few of those causes translate into laws.
“At the end of the day, you’re not going to get everything passed,” Sara Walker said. “What is important is that she keeps her constituents in mind, and she fights. It takes balls to do what she does, to have the patience she does, and she has them.”
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Because of a reporter’s error, the title of Sal Peralta was misstated. It was reported that Sal Peralta was a state
representative, but he is not. The Emerald regrets the error.