Newswise — From Jim Moore, director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University (Ore.). Dr. Moore is available to speak by phone and can be available for on-camera interviews as well.
"In a time when bipartisanship is vanishingly rare on Capitol Hill, and where the only agreement lately has been on Russia sanctions, it is fascinating that both Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed that leaving President Trump to his own devices on recess appointments was a risk neither party wanted to take."
Context: August of an off-election year. Usually a time for congress to take a nice recess. This time there is a bit of tension in the air. The Senate has continued its practice begun when Obama was president of not really adjourning. Every three days a senator will gavel the body back into session, then immediately adjourn for the day. This is to keep the president (now Trump) from making a recess appointment to anything. A recess appointment lasts until the end of the two-year congressional session. This was last used last year to prevent Obama from appointing a member of the Supreme Court.
"The fear now is that Jeff Sessions, the AG will be fired or resign, and Trump will appoint somebody to the spot. It also prevents Trump from appointing a successor to John Kelly at Homeland Security. Kelly is the new chief of staff. Fascinating that there was unanimous consent among all Rs and Ds to put this system into place."
Oregon is seeing candidates begin to come forth for the 2018 gubernatorial race: "To nobody’s surprise, Knute Buehler entered the race last week. The Bend Republican has had a high profile opposing some Trump policies. But since the latest Republican to win statewide office was a strong conservative, it is unclear how Buehler will do with the electorate. And nobody knows who he is. His timing is right in line with others who have run in the past. But they have done it with a lot of PR, a statewide blitz to announce in several cities, or something like driving around the state in a motorhome. Buehler just talked to the Bend Bulletin editorial board and then started running ads on Facebook. Not much there."
Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) has indicated she is thinking about entering the race: "She is mayor of Happy Valley and lost a race for the Oregon House in 2016. She is really unknown."
Dennis Richardson, current secretary of state who lost to Kitzhaber in the 2014 gubernatorial race, might run again: "All we know is Kate Brown has been raising money for her run to keep her office. She is well prepared for whichever Republican ends up winning the nomination."
Journalists are welcome to contact Jim Moore at 503-352-2288 or [email protected].
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