Lincoln County resident asks Senator Anderson to help end GOP walkout

To the editor:

This is an open letter to Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City.

Thank you for your prompt reply to my email about your attendance at work during the walkout by your colleagues. I am glad you have had only one unexcused absence this session.

Yet your constituents need you to do more. Merely deciding not to walk out with the other senators does not make you the influencer the coast needs this legislative session. Unfortunately, your inaction continues to enable and empower your Republican colleagues.

The House has 123 bills waiting for consideration in the Senate. What will you do, as a leader of the Republican caucus and a Coastal Legislative Caucus member, to return your colleagues to work?

Bills of particular importance to Coast constituents include:

1. Lincoln County: Funding for replacing the two seismically unstable Newport dams that threaten the lives and safety of 10,000 residents and as many as 50,000 tourists.
2. Clatsop County: Funding to repair its deteriorating docks that provide $100 million for Clatsop County from seafood processing operations.
3. Coos County: Funding the Port to improve the channel to create an intermodal shipping facility (HB 3382).
4. Entire coast: Protecting the community and ecological benefits of the marine reserves (HB 2903).
5. Rural counties: Funding $10.2 billion to stabilize K-12 funding targeting rural school districts and $140 million for early literacy.
6. Rural counties: Protecting drinking water, securing drought relief (federal match is 4:1) (SB 2218)
7. Statewide: Improving our climate resilience capacity by adopting natural climate solutions, a bill championed by your Lincoln County constituents and co-sponsored by Rep. David Gomberg (SB 530).

You recently wrote me that you “support your fellow Senators who have chosen a specific path of protest.” Does this mean you support 11 truant protestors over the best interests of the 232,237 constituents in Lincoln, Lane, Douglas, Benton, and Coos counties, who voted 70 percent in favor of Measure 113 to limit legislative walkouts?

Depending on the context, silence is not always consent. I hope your silence is not from resignation, fear, or defiance. Your constituents need you to become the engaged and fearless influencer you promised.

— Monica Kirk, Depoe Bay