Knute Buehler's bid to be Oregon governor is decades in the making

For Knute Buehler, life has been a steady, if dogged, climb to the top. The Bend Republican's bid to be Oregon's next governor is part of an ambitious trajectory he set for himself 30 years ago.

He parlayed a working-class upbringing in Southern Oregon into academic excellence. He powered through Oregon State and into one of the best medical schools in the country, as well as Oxford. He's found success as a surgeon and an entrepreneur.

He set out to combine the hands-on work of medicine with the reach of political office, and he has.

Buehler first entered Oregon politics as an outsider, helping with Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign and pushing for campaign contribution limits. Now he's the consummate insider, meeting with lobbyists at Portland's exclusive Arlington Club and landing a record $1.5 million in campaign contributions from Oregon's richest man, Nike co-founder Phil Knight.

"I'm a fiercely independent person, regardless of approaching politics from the inside or the outside," Buehler, 54, told The Oregonian/OregonLive when asked about the political path he's charted. "My actions in both of those different realms show that I'm more than willing to try to change things as an outsider ... As an insider, I certainly break frequently from my party."

He's counting on that message – that he's moderate and independent – to win over crucial swing voters in Oregon's urban population centers. Buehler points to his support for abortion rights, but he's also sided with conservatives and anti-immigration activists in supporting Measure 105. It would scrap Oregon's 30-year-old sanctuary state law that restricts local law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials in certain situations.

Though the label resonated in his decidedly blue district in Bend, that was before Donald Trump moved into the White House. Buehler has attempted the careful balancing act of criticizing the president for actions considered divisive by Democrats and some non-affiliated voters, without alienating the voters who lifted Trump to victory in 28 of Oregon's 36 counties in 2016.

Buehler's proposal to cut public employee retirement costs in order to boost education spending has opened him up to criticism from his Democratic rival. Gov. Kate Brown says that he does not understand the plight of those employees.

"I think it's easy for a millionaire to say he's going to cut the retirements of hard-working Oregonians," Brown said during a debate last week. "I'm not willing to do that."

Buehler and his wife's reported income put them in the top 1 percent of Oregon earners in 2015, 2016 and likely in 2017. In 2016, their adjusted gross income exceeded $1 million, according to partial tax returns reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Bill Smith, the Bend developer who turned old timber mills on the Deschutes River into a mixed-use development that includes Les Schwab Amphitheater, said he's been impressed both by Buehler's medical skills and ability to get things done in Salem.

"He replaced both of my wife's hips, and he's got a good reputation," said Smith, a Republican and well-known presence in Bend politics. Buehler has "an easygoing way about him" and "he's doing things that fly in the face of Republican issues," Smith said.

ROSEBURG TO RHODES SCHOLAR

Buehler grew up in Roseburg, the youngest of three brothers. His father was a butcher and his mother a homemaker. Neither graduated from high school, and his father "felt like there was just too many opportunities that he wasn't able to take advantage of," Buehler said during an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting over the summer.

"From as early as I can remember, the expectation was clearly set that we were going to college ... I took that to heart and went to the best university in the entire country, Oregon State."

A skilled baseball player in high school, Buehler made the OSU team but was not a star. It was during his college years that Buehler learned that his maternal grandparents were Native American, and that his grandfather spoke Choctaw and had lived on a reservation in Oklahoma.

"During my mom's generation that ... was not something that they really wanted to share," Buehler told OPB. "And then I came home one spring vacation from Oregon State and was looking through old photos and saw a picture of my grandma. And she very much looked Native American, so I started asking more questions about it."

All three Buehler boys graduated from college. The eldest, Werner, had a long career in the electrical utility industry and lives in Sequim, Washington. Mark, the middle brother, is an orthopedic surgeon in Portland who specializes in hand surgeries.

In 1987, Buehler was selected for the highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. Already enrolled at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, he split his time between the U.S. and British schools to finish both degrees.

It was at Johns Hopkins where he met his wife, Patty; they shared a cadaver in anatomy class. Today she's an ophthalmologist, and the couple have two young adult children, Hannah and Owen.

Buehler has said his time in Baltimore – witnessing gun violence, the effects of the cocaine epidemic and early AIDs onslaught – sparked his interest in politics. At the time, he considered himself an "independent with a libertarian flair," Buehler told OPB. Darold Wax, the head of OSU's history department in 1987, predicted to The Oregonian that Buehler might someday become the next Bill Bradbury, Oregon's one-time senate majority leader. It was an understatement of Buehler's political aims.

When he was named a Rhodes scholar, Buehler told The Oregonian that he wanted a career that would meld politics and health care. "I'm expected to contribute more now," Buehler said. "Surgery is very important, but after getting this scholarship, more is expected out of me.''

EARLY POLITICKING

Buehler was in his late 20s when he dove into politics by way of Perot's independent presidential run in 1992.

Among the quirky Texan's complaints were the government's lack of fiscal responsibility, NAFTA and the influence of deep-pocketed lobbyists. A new party formed to get Perot on the ballot in Oregon – the American Party – and it got involved in the Legislature's discussion of campaign finance reform.

"We were pretty naive to begin with," Buehler told The Oregonian in 1993, when he was the American Party's vice chairman. "But we quickly saw you don't get very far trying to deal with the system."

So, the American Party tried appealing directly to voters.

"The increasingly predominant role of money in Oregon politics has distorted the political process ... The net result is a Legislature which is paralyzed by its commitment to special interest groups," Buehler said.

Voters endorsed the strict campaign finance limits Buehler and others – including Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and then-Secretary of State Phil Keisling – championed in 1994. Ballot Measure 9 barred individuals and political action committees from giving more than $100 to a legislative candidate and $500 to someone running for statewide office, such as governor. It banned contributions from unions and corporations.

But the Oregon Supreme Court struck down the law in 1997, finding that it violated free speech protections in the state constitution.

Buehler targeted big political donors again in 2012, when he challenged the incumbent, Kate Brown, in the secretary of state race. Both candidates said the state needed to place limits on political spending, and Brown offered to voluntarily limit her fundraising to $1 million – a challenge Buehler, unknown to many voters, declined. Buehler lost the race, 43 percent to Brown's 51 percent.

MEDICAL BUSINESSES

If he wins, Buehler would not be the first physician to serve as Oregon governor. However, his extensive business holdings set him apart from Gov. John Kitzhaber, a former ER doctor whose main business in the past decade is the nonprofit Estes Park Institute, which holds conferences for medical executives.

In the decades since Buehler finished his education and returned to Oregon, he's operated or taken stakes in 10 businesses, including a medical practice in Bend, according to state financial disclosures. Patty Buehler also owns or is a partner in four businesses, and is on the board of Summit Bank in Eugene.

Buehler said the partners in his medical practice have already bought him out, since he's spending little time at the business. However, he remains an emeritus partner so he can practice medicine a couple days a month. He's also been "unwinding" his medical device and consulting company, Buehler Research and Design, and has nearly completed all the projects he'd taken on. "I would not continue doing that work as governor," Buehler said.

Since the Buehlers released only a portion of their tax returns, it's impossible to know how state tax policy and other legislation or policies could affect their finances. The couple earned $415,532 last year from entities listed under the broad category of "rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc." And although the names of the businesses they're involved with are publicly available, the corporate structures of those entities are not.

Buehler told The Oregonian/OregonLive earlier this year that he hasn't made legislative decisions based on his personal financial interest.

"I have 15 different corporations, so to tell you which one is taking advantage of a specific tax bill" would be difficult, he said. "I don't vote according to things like that."

Buehler said Brown's campaign ad attacking him based on the cost of a knee replacement at a Bend hospital, the highest in the state according to an economist's presentation to the Legislature in March, are unfair because he does not control what the hospital charges. "I get paid roughly $2,000 for a knee replacement versus what the hospital charges, which is about $50,000," he said. Buehler is on the hospital's board, though he is on a leave of absence through December.

BUEHLER IN THE LEGISLATURE

After losing his 2012 secretary of state bid, Buehler buckled down and won election to Oregon House District 54, where Democrats outnumber Republicans. One of his first moves upon taking office in 2015 was to push legislation to allow women to obtain on-demand prescriptions for birth control pills. Democrats were wary and initially proposed taking a year to study the idea and let health care interests weigh in.

But Buehler prevailed and got the bill passed with help across the aisle, creating buzz around the existence of a socially moderate Republican championing one of the most liberal birth control laws in the nation. He continued to build on his moderate label, voting in 2016 for legislation written by utilities and environmentalists that doubled Oregon's renewable energy mandate.

One Democrat Buehler has worked with on multiple bills is Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, also a doctor, whose district encompasses parts of Portland and Beaverton. Steiner Hayward, who is quick to point out she has a record of working with any Republican who has a good idea, said Buehler sought her support on a couple of ideas: expanding the types of birth control pharmacists can prescribe and creating a voluntary program for gun dealers to provide suicide prevention information. For his part, Buehler supported Steiner Hayward's bill requiring employers and the state to notify workers they might be eligible for the earned income tax credit, a benefit available to low to moderate income parents and other people.

"I'm not going to make decisions based on whether someone is running for something," Steiner Hayward said. At the same time, she said, Buehler's suicide prevention program should have been mandatory rather than voluntary. She also said it was unfortunate Buehler claimed that expanded birth control access dramatically reduced unintended pregnancies when that isn't "verifiable or proven to be true yet."

Buehler's voting record reflects his fiscal conservatism. He voted with his party in 2017 against a bill that would have excluded doctors and lawyers from a 2013 tax break that was meant to boost manufacturing and export businesses. But the measure has been used increasingly by people in the medical and legal industries. The bill died in the Democratically controlled Senate.

Earlier this year, Buehler stuck with House Republicans in a party line vote against legislation that prevented Oregon from creating a new state business tax break replicating part of Trump's federal tax law. The tax issue was so contentious that Brown publicly debated whether to sign the bill into law. After doing so, she called lawmakers back to Salem in May for a special session to expand a related state business tax break.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, a Portland Democrat and chair of the House Health Care Committee on which Buehler serves, said he had a hard time understanding Buehler, because the legislative newcomer appeared to have higher political aims from the get-go. For example, Greenlick said Buehler spoke at length about the importance of the Medicaid insurance plan for the poor but voted against Democrats' tax plan to fund it.

"I suspect his work on the committee would have been different – at least his public performance on the committee – would have been different if he wasn't' running for governor this whole time," Greenlick said.

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud