John Kitzhaber’s Feb. 13 resignation as Oregon governor generated expressions of sympathy from top labor leaders, who have looked on him as an ally.
The resignation followed a decision by the state attorney general to open a criminal investigation into whether paid advocacy work by Kitzhaber’s fiancée Cylvia Hayes crossed legal lines.
“I am confident that I have not broken any laws nor taken any actions that were dishonest or dishonorable in their intent or outcome,” Kitzhaber said at the press conference announcing his resignation. But Kitzhaber said he was troubled that a person can be “charged, tried, convicted and sentenced by the media with no due process and no independent verification of the allegations involved.” An “escalating media frenzy” had “reached the point of no return,” Kitzhaber said, and he became a liability to the cause. [Read his full statement here.]
[pullquote]When the Republican far right took over the Legislature, he was ‘Dr. No.’ He stopped this state from being Wisconsin-lite.” — Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO[/pullquote]Kitzhaber included efforts to defend workers’ union rights among his proudest achievements: “We have stood by our working men and women steadfastly supporting collective bargaining and the right to form a union,” he said.
“If you look at what he’s accomplished in the last 12 years, it’s pretty phenomenal,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain (referring to the three full terms Kitzhaber served as governor). “When the Republican far right took over the Legislature, he was ‘Dr. No.’ He stopped this state from being Wisconsin-lite. He took a hostile Senate and House and did everything he could to push a progressive agenda. The bottom line is: More people have health care, and better health care, because of John Kitzhaber.”
Kitzhaber was an emergency room doctor when he entered the Oregon House in 1978. He served a two-year term in the House and three four-year terms in the Oregon Senate. As Senate president, he led passage of the legislation that created the Oregon Health Plan — which stretches federal Medicaid dollars to cover more low-income Oregonians than the minimum required by federal guidelines.
Then, as Oregon governor from 1995 to 2003, Kitzhaber set a state record for vetoes. With Republicans in control of both legislative chambers in 1995, 1997, and 1999, Kitzhaber vetoed bills that would have: established a sub-minimum wage for tipped employees; rolled back the state’s family leave law; cut capital gains taxes for wealthy individuals; barred Oregon’s farm workers’ union from using boycotts; limited non-economic damages for workers killed on the job; and lowered penalties on employers who don’t pay employees their final wages. He also used veto threats to dodge attacks on the prevailing wage law and proposals to privatize prisons and mass transit.
Kitzhaber did sign a few bills that ended up giving unionists heartburn, including a 1995 change to the public employee collective bargaining law, a 2003 law pre-empting local minimum wage ordinances, and a 1999 bill that would have moved the state’s electric power industry toward deregulation (luckily for Oregonians, the Legislature was able to reverse it after Enron price manipulation caused an electricity price crisis in California’s deregulated electricity market the following year).
Kitzhaber also sometimes crossed labor, though he made no secret of it when he did. In particular, he antagonized public sector unions with cuts to public employee pensions. In 2013, he won a law capping retirees’ cost-of-living increases, and then convened a special legislative session to make further cost-of-living cuts, while giving away over $500 million in new tax breaks to owners of certain kinds of businesses.
He alienated teachers unions at times, signing a charter school bill in 2009, and in 2013 a set of education reforms opposed by the Oregon Education Association (OEA). Kitzhaber’s support for teacher pay-for-performance proposals were one reason OEA, the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, and Oregon School Employees Association endorsed his opponent in the 2010 Democratic primary.
Kitzhaber intervened to bring about labor peace from time to time. He arranged a 2002 meeting that led the farmworkers union to cease its boycott of NORPAC, brokered an end to the 2002 nurses strike at Oregon Health & Science University, and got the University of Oregon administration to drop legal objections to a faculty union in 2012.
[pullquote]This is an incredibly sad way for him to leave public life after a career where I think he did a lot of good.” John Mohlis, Oregon Building Trades[/pullquote]In 2014, he got sponsors to withdraw an anti-union right-to-work initiative in exchange for withdrawal by the union-backed group Our Oregon of a set of initiatives to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
Kitzhaber campaigned hard for the ill-fated Columbia River Crossing, even calling a special legislative session in an unsuccessful attempt to get Oregon-only funding of the I-5 replacement bridge after the Washington Legislature failed to pony up matching funds. He also was involved in numerous successful efforts to win infrastructure funding that put Oregonians to work, particularly in the building trades.
John Mohlis, executive secretary-treasurer of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, called Kitzhaber a longtime friend and advocate for building trades unions, and a collaborator and bridge-builder in efforts to get funding for infrastructure jobs.
“This is an incredibly sad way for him to leave public life after a career where I think he did a lot of good,” Mohlis said.
“John Kitzhaber will ultimately enjoy an excellent historical legacy,” predicted Oregon AFSCME in a Feb. 13 statement. “Oregon AFSCME applauds his career, and we applaud him for making this difficult — but correct — decision for Oregon right now.”
“Despite recent news and developments out of the governor’s office, Kitzhaber’s historic terms of service and legacy of healthcare reform and workers’ rights advocacy have helped thousands across the state,” said leaders of Service Employees Locals 49 and 503 in a joint statement.
State Sen. Michael Dembrow, a longtime leader in AFT-Oregon, said in an email to constituents that Kitzhaber made the right decision.
“His decision to step down really does help us to move on … my preference would have been to allow the Ethics Commission investigation to play itself out in a thorough, objective manner between now and its March 13 deadline. But events clearly raced ahead of us and compelled quicker action. By the time the governor announced his final decision on Friday morning, it came as a relief — sad, but a relief nonetheless.”
Kitz was a far better choice than the mediocrities the GOP ran against him, but he had become less and less of a friend to working people, especially with his PERS mutilations and his give away to Nike and big business…for which working people will be paying for a long, long time.
Perhaps it’s the problem of being in office too long, when the people one sees all the time and listens to are the political donor class…which includes unions, but is by far comprised of the corporate class.