KOIN 6 News contacted candidates who are planning to run for Oregon governor in 2022, asking them to respond to these three questions:

  • Why are you running for governor? 
  • In your opinion, what are the top three issues Oregon is facing right now? 
  • What is something you believe is going right in Oregon and how would you like to continue to build on it?

Brandon Merritt is running as a Republican. Here are his responses:

Why are you running for governor?

I believe that Oregon is at a crossroads. We can continue to be distracted by fear and rage, OR we can choose a new path: one that leads to hope and unity. The fact is the challenges which Oregon faces are solvable. Sometimes, problems only seem impossible because of our perspective; if we change the way we look at the problem, a solution becomes clearer.

My experience as a corporate recruiter and an HR consultant taught me how to guide people to achieve not only their economic goals, but also their desire for deeper connections to their communities and families. 

When I came to Oregon, I brought my solution driven attitude to solve issues that many Oregon nonprofits faced, and I helped several of them thrive during the pandemic. I will bring that same level of commitment and problem-solving mentality to get Oregon on the right path-forward. 

In your opinion, what are the top three issues Oregon is facing right now?

Governor Brown has been acting like a dictator for the last year and a half. The emergency powers law never envisioned an “emergency” with no end. Working with the Legislature to reduce the duration that future emergencies can last should be a top priority for everyone running for governor. 

Our public schools are a national joke. Not only does Oregon place near last in terms of graduation rates, but after shutting our schools down for an entire year, Democratic leadership wrote and passed a bill making basic literacy no longer a requirement for high school graduation. 

I will reallocate state resources away from administrative overhead and towards actually teaching children; and I strongly support school choice. I believe that parents’ first duty is to their children, especially their education, and I believe that the proper role of government is to empower parents to fulfill that duty, not usurp their role. Letting parents choose the best school for their children, without worrying about the cost of tuition, will result in the most children receiving the best education possible.

Oregon has continued every year to pile on more regulations, compliance, and reporting obligations onto small businesses, saddling them with extra costs unrelated to actually providing goods and services to customers. We need to make Oregon an attractive place to start a business, especially after the devastating losses caused by the Democratic leadership and their unwise lockdown orders last year. 

For many years, the social contract was that Oregon had very progressive income taxes, but no sales tax. Out of pure greed, the Democratic leadership has broken that contract, with regressive sales taxes in disguise, the CAT tax. Most economists agree that gross receipts taxes are the worst way to implement such a tax, which is why most governments, both in the US and abroad, replaced them with sales taxes and value-added tax (VAT) decades ago. I will strongly advocate for its repeal, and I will seek to reduce or eliminate other taxes, like personal property and capital gains taxes. 

What is something you believe is going right in Oregon and how would you like to continue to build on it?

As I have traveled our state, I have met a large number of Oregonians who have become politically aware and active for the first time in their lives. Having a less apathetic, more engaged electorate is a good thing for our republic. I hope that I can help elevate the political discourse and introduce new ideas into Oregon’s highest office with my solution-based campaign.  

Editor’s Note: Brandon Merritt’s campaign told KOIN 6 News that his source for Oregon’s graduation rates was the National Center for Education’s Statistics report on 2017-2018 graduation rates across the U.S. The report says 70% to less than 80% of Oregon students graduated in Oregon that year. For his comment stating that Oregon has piled more regulations onto small businesses every year and saddled them with extra costs, his campaign said the regulations came as statutes passed by the legislature known as the ORS, and their accompanying administrative rules published by the executive agencies, the OARs. These updated regulations are published each month in the Oregon Bulletin. Many of the regulation changes say there is no cost associated with them, but Merritt argues that the changes could come with expenses related to monitoring the changes and ensuring compliance. He gave examples of licensing fee changes that were issued for respiratory therapists and cosmetologists in October. 

Merritt’s campaign team said he called the CAT tax a sales tax in disguise because he considers it a regressive tax that’s passed along to the consumer. He said he believes  “Every major purchase in Oregon now has a ‘CAT Tax Surcharge’ tacked on to the bottom, just the same as sales taxes are in other states.” He cites the Tax Foundation as his source of economists who say gross receipt taxes are passed along to the consumer. 

KOIN 6 News made minor adjustments to spelling, capitalization and punctuation in the responses the gubernatorial candidates submitted.