McLeod-Skinner, Chavez-DeRemer battle over issues in KATU debate

PORTLAND, Ore. — The candidates vying to win the seat in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District tangled over a wide range of issues Tuesday night, including inflation, gas prices, guns and public safety, abortion, climate change, homelessness, and education.

Some of the highest tensions between Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a former mayor of Happy Valley, and Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a small business owner and regional emergency coordinator, was when they debated gun control, police funding, and abortion.

Gun violence hit home in the newly redrawn congressional district in August, when a 20-year-old man opened fire at a Bend Safeway, killing an 84-year-old customer and a 66-year-old employee.

Watch the Debate:

In Tuesday’s debate moderated by KATU’s Deb Knapp, Chavez-DeRemer focused on mental health as the solution to gun violence in America.

“We have to make sure that we have wraparound services for these young men and women, people who are distressed and to make sure that we are addressing that at all costs,” she said.

McLeod-Skinner said she wanted to focus on what she called “basic things.”

“Making sure that there’s safe storage, making sure we’re closing loopholes on background checks, making sure we’re banning ghost guns, and addressing weapons of war. There’s multiple steps we can take in addressing assault weapons,” she said.

The candidates also argued over funding police departments.

McLeod-Skinner said she was opposed to defunding the police.

“It’s a ridiculous claim that has been made. I mean, this is more D.C. talking points that my opponent’s using,” she said. “Again, I’m the only one here who has a consistent, long track record as a councilmember, as a city manager of increasing funding of police, of providing increased funding for training, for accountability, because that’s also important, and for officer wellness.”

She claimed that as mayor, Chavez-DeRemer, would have defunded police in Happy Valley.

Chavez-DeRemer fired back, saying funding the police was one of her top priorities as mayor and pointed to the city of Portland where she said properly funding the police had not happened.

“We have to give the resources here, not only in our sister city of Portland, because, again, you cannot ask us not to believe our own eyes,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “The funding of police has not happened, under Ted Wheeler [mayor of Portland], Gov. Kate Brown, or Biden, Pelosi, and it certainly won’t happen under Jaime McLeod-Skinner.”

On the topic of abortion, Chavez-DeRemer said she was aligned with the mainstream on the issue while McLeod-Skinner held views on the extreme.

“We know that a majority of Oregonians, and the majority of Americans want access to reasonable commonsense approach. My opponent, she will tell you that she is for up-to-the last-minute abortion on demand, and fully taxpayer funded,” she said.

McLeod-Skinner countered that Chavez-DeRemer would ban abortion even before a woman knew she was pregnant.

“She’s trying to take away our reproductive rights, I would protect them,” she said. “She celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I would codify Roe. I fundamentally believe that government has no right telling us what to do with our bodies. ”

The economy, inflation, and gasoline prices were also the focus for the candidates, especially the cost of fuel, as it immediately impacts voters at large.

Fuel prices had been decreasing in Oregon, but they have recently begun to go up again.

McLeod-Skinner said tapping oil reserves in the short term would help but said the country needs to start investing in a clean and renewable energy future.

“We need to do that without leaving working families behind, we need to provide the resources that we have a stable grid that is a clean energy grid with redundant systems to make sure we can utilize some of the things like electric vehicles,” she said.

Chavez-DeRemer said prices at the pump are still going up even after the country tapped into its reserves.

“We’re going to have to drill here in America. We need to make sure those leases and permitting is quicker turnaround time,” she said. “We can address different types of energy sectors, and we have to make sure that we’re energy independent in this country.”

Pacific University political science professor Jim Moore said the candidates were “remarkably accurate” on the facts and there weren’t really any surprises.

“They kind of obfuscated when they needed to, because Lori Chavez-DeRemer doesn’t want to say she’s really, really tough on abortion, so she said, I’m with the mainstream, a lot. She wouldn’t tell us what the mainstream was,” he said. “And Jaime McLeod-Skinner was pushed on the police stuff. I think she responded to that pretty well, but she also then didn’t go into a lot of detail about what her progressive policies would be.”

Progressive McLeod-Skinner defeated longtime incumbent Kurt Schrader, a moderate Democrat, in May’s primary. Chavez-DeRemer emerged as the winner in the Republican primary, beating out four other candidates.

The 5th Congressional District was significantly redrawn during redistricting last year, notably expanding over the Cascades to include Bend. The change put Schrader at a disadvantage, where McLeod-Skinner was already known to voters.

Polling indicates it’s a tight race. At the beginning of September, FiveThirtyEight found Chavez-DeRemer was “slightly favored” to win. As of Tuesday, it said the race was a “toss-up.”

Democrats represent a greater share of registered voters than Republicans in the district, 32% to 28%, but nonaffiliated voters make up about 33% of voters.

“If all the Republicans and Democrats hold together, then it’s going to be up to the unaffiliated voters,” Moore said. “It’s a new district, so we don’t know how exactly they’re going to vote.”

During the debate, Knapp asked the candidates where they placed themselves on the political spectrum, which may indicate how they want to be viewed by unaffiliated voters.

McLeod-Skinner said she was an Oregonian.

“She wouldn’t say she was a progressive,” Moore said. “That’s probably going to play better to the unaffiliated voters. Lori Chavez-DeRemer came in and said, I’m a proud conservative. To me, that was very interesting, because there are fewer Republicans than there are Democrats [in the district], so she’s not going to break out of there. And then the unaffiliated voters are probably going to be more towards the Democrats as well, so I’m not sure how that’s going to play for her. It’s something that I would have not advised her to do.”