Brown is best candidate for secretary of state
The veteran senator can offer bipartisan leadership
Statesman Journal
October 8, 2008

Oregonians are blessed to have three distinct choices for secretary of state: a veteran legislator, a
former journalist and a third-party candidate.

There's another blessing as well: The three get along when they appear together in candidate forums.
They have abstained from the demeaning, below-the-belt attacks that have marked some campaigns.

So give Kate Brown, Rick Dancer and Seth Woolley credit for how they're running their campaigns even
if you don't agree with them on the issues.

Dancer and Woolley are first-time candidates. Brown, a veteran state senator for Portland, is the
best-prepared candidate.

She has been shaped by dealing with some of the most contentious, difficult issues in state government,
including children's welfare, campaign-finance reform and performance-based budgeting.

Although she was the longtime Senate Democratic leader, she is not a flame-throwing partisan. One of
the brightest members of the Legislature, she has an unassuming, friendly manner. It's easy to see her
interacting with people from all corners of Oregon, heeding rural as well as urban concerns.

The ability to rise above partisanship is critical to the secretary of state, whose responsibilities include
overseeing elections and state audits.

The Secretary of State's Office has suffered a severe case of partisanship under Democrat Bill
Bradbury. Any of the three candidates would be an improvement from that perspective.

Dancer goes so far as to call for making the position nonpartisan. He also is a supporter of the proposal
for open primaries, Measure 65.

An advocate for smaller government, Dancer is a Eugene Republican and a former TV newsman. He is
an engaging, thoughtful person, but we see his lack of public-office experience as a detriment.

Woolley is the Pacific Green candidate. He came to Oregon to attend Willamette University in Salem
and now is a software engineer in Portland.

He is committed to open, multipartisan government. He has intriguing ideas for using computers to draw
unbiased boundaries for legislative districts after the 2010 Census.

All three candidates talk of improving the performance-audit role of the secretary of state. That role
gives the secretary of state profound influence to make government run more efficiently and effectively.
It's essential that agencies operate on performance-based budgeting measures that reflect Oregon's
benchmarks, which have been established through the Oregon Progress Board.

The secretary of state also has another role: Under the Oregon Constitution, that person is next in line if
anything happens to the governor.

Kate Brown is best-prepared to run the Secretary of State's Office, to work effectively with legislators
and other state officials, and to provide the leadership that Oregon deserves.

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