PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The race to become Oregon’s secretary of state is among the most contentious in the local 2020 elections. When Dennis Richardson died in 2019, Gov. Kate Brown named Bev Clarno to replace him — with the stipulation that she wouldn’t run in 2020.
That made the race to become secretary of state an open race. On the Republican side, Kim Thatcher easily dispatched her primary rival to become the nominee. Shemia Fagan earned the Democratic nomination with a razor-thin win that needed extra time to count all the ballots.
Both are state senators. Fagan represents Portland in District 24, Thatcher represents Keizer in District 13.
Regardless of how they got there, Thatcher, 55, hopes to extend the GOP’s hold on this statewide office while Fagan, 39, seeks to return it to the Democrats.
Watch: Oregon Secretary of State Debate,
Tuesday, October 6 at 7 p.m. on KOIN 6 and KOIN.com
KOIN 6 News interview transcript:
Shemia Fagan
KOIN 6 News interview transcript:
Kim Thatcher
KOIN 6 News anchor Dan Tilkin spoke with both candidates about their experience, why they’re qualified to be secretary of state, election integrity and security, campaign finance reform and what the secretary of state does.
Editor’s note: Both candidates were asked about the expensive nature of this campaign. Later research showed it is not the most expensive race in Oregon history — that designation belongs to the 2016 race between Dennis Richardson and Brad Avakian (Richardson won.)
Here are their answers to some of those questions in this question-and-answer format, with responses listed alphabetically — Fagan, then Thatcher.
Shemia Fagan — Shemia For Oregon
Kim Thatcher — Kim Thatcher for Secretary of State
Why are you the qualified candidate for the job?
Shemia Fagan: Well, I’ve spent the last almost decade in my entire service in the legislature working to make it easier for folks to participate in our democracy from automatic voter registration, to prepaid postage and doing the work that directly relates to the secretary of state’s office. In fact, what folks may not know or might not know is that my very first bill that I was the chief co-sponsor of freshmen legislator helped create the office of Small Business Assistance in the secretary of state’s office. So I have been working on these issues, how to make us a state that’s open for everybody that if folks want to participate in starting a business or running a small business or participating in our democracy or running for office, I have been working to, as Senator Ron Wyden says, you know, throw open the doors of government for everybody who wants to be a part of it. And I would love to continue that work as secretary of state.
Kim Thatcher: I have spent the last 16 years in my legislative career dealing with good government issues, accountability and government transparency, all kinds of things, dealing with the secretary of state’s office directly. And not only that, I am a business owner. I’ve been a business owner for 28 years. I would know how to manage a large organization, such as the secretary of state’s office. Plus I know what small businesses go through. That’s what propelled me to pass a bill in 2011 that led to the creation of the Small Business Advocate in the secretary of state’s office in 2013. So I have the business background plus legislative experience and dedication to the job and just a really strong desire to carry on in the same vein that the former Secretary of State Dennis Richardson did.
Let’s talk about election security. Are elections in Oregon safe and secure?
Fagan: From automatic voter registration to prepaid postage things, that strengthen our democracy, sadly, she (Thatcher) has voted against those. And while I have certainly been willing to stand up to anybody spreading misinformation about our vote-by-mail system, including the president of the United States, sadly, my colleague senator has simply parroted those talking points. As recently as some debates and forums we’ve done during this campaign, repeating his lies about folks voting twice. When former Secretary of State Richardson, the first thing he did as secretary of state in Oregon is stand up to Donald Trump’s lies about people voting twice. And yet four years later, we have somebody running for office as a Republican secretary of state candidate, who is simply repeating Donald Trump’s lies about vote-by-mail and Oregon. We know that vote-by-mail is safe and secure. It has worked for decades here in Oregon. Under my leadership as secretary of state, it’s not going anywhere.
Thatcher: We have a lot of safeguards in place other states may not have. So when you hear about problems, it’s probably because they don’t have a safeguard in place that we have. I do think it would be worthwhile to do a top-to-bottom look at every step of the elections process, just to make sure that we do maintain and keep the best process and keep the best procedures in place. So we’re not leaving ourselves open to any problems, but I also think it’d be good to do, you know, little random spot checks, just to keep things, you know, make sure that we’re not developing any sort of problems that need to be nipped in the bud right away.
–– But you do believe things are secure.
I do. I do. I do believe that, but I think that they’re looking, they’ve looked at one part of the, the voting process. And I would like to look at all of it just to make sure that’s it.
The secretary of state is next in line to become governor of Oregon if anything should happen — which is how Kate Brown initially became governor. Do you want to be governor?
Fagan: No. I’m excited to run for secretary of state. As I mentioned, these are the issues I’ve been working on since I started in the legislature. The very first time I had met Kate Brown was in, she was secretary of state and I sat in her office with some voting rights advocates, as we mapped out our path to being the first state in the nation to pass automatic voter registration. So I’m very excited. I have some very big ideas for particularly redistricting here in Oregon using an independent nonpartisan commission now, but that’s based in equity to make sure that we fulfill our representation responsibilities to all Oregonians. And so I’m very excited to serve in this role as Oregon secretary of state.
Thatcher: If I get elected secretary of state this November, you will not see my name on the ballot
for governor in 2022. I want to finish my term as secretary of state and, you know, barring any weird
things happening, which only happened 3 times in our history where the secretary of state had to
leave their office to go serve as governor barring, anything like that — which would be very unusual — I plan to serve as secretary of state for my full term. And we’ll go from there.
