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Q & A with Julie Parrish, State Rep., R-West Linn
You and Rep. Cedric Hayden turned in 84,000 signatures in early October to place Referendum 301 on the ballot in January 2018. Your referendum (recently certified by the Secretary of State as Measure 101) would repeal parts of the Health care Provider Tax that the 2017 legislature placed on hospitals and health insurance premiums. The Health Care Provider Tax was passed by the legislature to fill the budget gap that occurred because of Oregon's most-aggressive-in-the-nation Medicaid expansion plan. Over a million Oregonians today are now on Medicaid -- including many (as high as 45 percent according to The Oregonian) who no longer actually qualify.
According to Willamette Week, a fiscal impact estimate from the Secretary of State's office estimates the passage of the referendum would be a loss of $840 million to $1.3 billion to the state, a combination of tax revenue and lost federal matching funds. In other words, it will blow up the state's budget. Opponents insist it will also jeopardize coverage for 375,000 Oregonians on Medicaid.
What was your motivation behind doing this measure? What about those 375,000 Oregonians? Will it pass?
Before I respond with the reason for the referendum, let's address the misinformation in your question. Referring $330 million in taxes, some of which we dispute could even be matched for Medicaid, will not "blow up the state's budget." The Medicaid budget was created using faulty data. We learned after passage of HB 2391 about the 55,000 people who were ineligible to be receiving benefits who had been -- hundreds of millions in overpayments all for the state's incompetency. That's roughly $567 million dollars in state and federal resources we didn't need to raise in the tax package. The state does not factor into its forecasting how things like increased minimum wage will reduce eligibility as fewer people are eligible now that the wage increased on July 1.
Think too for a moment, we started with a $1.5B budget hole, and yet somehow, managed to find money to give SEIU a $100M raise, and spend $65M in new health care spending for universal abortion coverage and health care to children who were brought to the US illegally. A legal opinion shows these taxes are fungible to the general fund. Basically, the taxes in the Medicaid budget became the slush fund for non-Medicaid obligations supported by Democratic lawmakers and Kate Brown.
So, why would we refer this? Dr. Hayden, who practices dentistry for low-income patients, and I both believe that health care is a basic human need. Taxing basic human needs like health care, food, and housing is not the way to make those needs more affordable. The sales tax on health insurance, while large corporations, unions and insurers are themselves exempt, is regressive. We felt strongly this fundamental shift in health care taxation should be approved by voters.
Budgets are about choices. The opponents' belief that 375,000 people would lose health care is negated by the fact that the agency has a year's worth of funding on its books, that shared upon premises in HB 2391 were left untouched, and that we could do other things like reform public employee health care costs and free up a billion dollars in savings to be used to pay for Medicaid, PERS, and voter-approved measures like career-tech ed or veterans.
Ultimately, I think voters are smart enough to know pro-tax lawmakers have sold them up a river for special interests, and I think they'll side with us.
In criticism of your efforts to bring Referendum 301 to the voters, State Sen. Betsy Johnson said this in our July newsletter:
When elected legislators engage in the referendum process because they don't like a bill their colleagues passed, what's the point in having legislative sessions? What is the point in having legislators?
I don't think Oregonians, whatever their political persuasion, benefit when all of our energies are devoted to politicking. Eventually, you have to settle on a course of action and go from there.
Are you surprised that Sen. Johnson would say that your efforts are just about politicking? Is she being fair, or is she just protecting the institutional status quo?
I have a lot of regard for Sen. Johnson, but on this one, she's just wrong.
Our status as legislators doesn't preclude us from accessing our constitutional right of referendum as citizens. Reps. Hayden, Esquivel and I didn't lose our ability as citizens to challenge a legislative decision via a referendum just because we were elected. And our status as legislators doesn't mean we always make the right decisions for citizens. Clearly on health care taxes, 84,367 Oregonians agreed with us. Take one look at PERS and our poor-performing schools and you know the legislature is out of step with what Oregonians think we should be doing.
The Ways and Means Committee chose to ignore serious, fundamental flaws with House Bill 2391. In fact, when I pointed out to Sen. Johnson that the bill would suck $25 million from our K-12 budget, she was dismissive about the matter. The cost shift from K-12 to Medicaid represents nearly one-third of what the insurance premium tax is projected to bring into the general fund. We're raising that money on the backs of teachers and school children! Sen. Johnson's party controls the process. The special interests associated with these new taxes disproportionately give campaign cash to her party. Most people, on both sides of the aisle, like the status quo when they're in charge. But it's everyday Oregonians who get stuck footing the bill.
If Measure 101 does pass, won't the result be a short legislative session in February next year to just pass new tax increases based on solid Democratic majorities in both houses. Doesn't passage also raise the possibility of the "Son of Measure 97" being revisited -- a state gross receipts sales tax?
If voters say no to a health care sales tax after having just said no to Measure 97, I hope it sends a strong message to pro-tax Republicans that Oregonians want cost reforms -- in the areas of PERS, health care, and all the non-essential spending. Democratic lawmakers are addicted to new tax raising measures. This won't change that with this referendum. Measure 66 & 67 were one of the main reasons I ran for office in the first place. We get taxed and fee'ed left and right, but voters aren't seeing any new value for their money. Pay more for a fishing license, but you don't get to catch an extra fish. Pay a toll to drive on a road you already paid to build. Pay a tax for the insurance you are already forced to buy under federal law. Voters in all parties are waking up to the fact that their government sees them as nothing more than an ATM machine and they've had it with the lack of accountability for how their tax dollars are spent.
Rep. Knute Buehler recently told the Lund Report in support of your measure, "Gov. Brown and a few powerful politicians have made a choice -- partisanship instead of a lasting durable solution. We offered an alternative plan that would've covered everyone as opposed to a new sales tax on health care." How helpful has Buehler been to your efforts? Were you surprised that he came out so forcefully for your measure because of his moderate reputation? Are you supporting his campaign for governor? Is he vulnerable in a Republican primary against a more base-friendly candidate?
Rep. Buehler is correct in that there were alternatives, three to be precise, one of which he was signed onto as a sponsor. He voted against the tax on the floor, and his wife made an early contribution to the campaign. I'd call that supportive. I'd reserve a term like "forceful" for Rep. Hayden, who believed so strongly that we're about to break health care by allowing cost-shifting from Medicaid to other parts of the budget that he put in $60K of his own personal cash into the effort.
I also would not categorize Knute's support about being a moderate or conservative. Thousands of Democrats signed the petition. Voters in the Working Families and Progressive Parties did as well. It's a checkbook issue, and a fairness issue. You can't take health care money from one group, who is struggling with year-over-year double digit rate increases, for the purpose of redistributing it to others and call that a fair or stable way to fund health care. It's totally unsustainable what we're doing in health care. The announced hospital layoffs are a crack in the veneer, and that crack is about to split wide open.
Could Knute be vulnerable to a Primary election? Yes. We all could be. Primary elections are about giving people choices, so I don't fear that -- neither should any candidate. We have to remember, these offices don't belong to us, they belong to the people, and everyone has a right to run.
Ultimately, my criteria for supporting a 2018 candidate is -- can you beat Kate Brown? Show me how you're going to do that.
The Oregon liberal political establishment, this time in the form of the Coalition for a Healthy Oregon, is about to turn up the rhetoric against Measure 101. Phil Greenhill, the coalition's president, said if the measure passes "We are going to see untold harm. This will be devastating to the system." The Lund Report notes that Greenhill's group expects to spend a $1 million dollars against your measure. Rachel Prusak, an advocate for the Oregon Nurses Association, has called your measure "strikingly Trump-like."
How can you compete with their rhetoric and their war chest in a special January election? Won't a low turnout January election ensure that mostly special interest groups vote?
No doubt about it -- Medicaid profiteers will spend millions of our own Medicaid tax dollars against voters on a campaign to defend their slush funds and profits. There's a reason Rep. Greenlick's bill to ban campaign contributions from those who have Medicaid contracts went nowhere.they're a powerful special interest lobby group and they, along with the public unions that support any new tax increase, rule the Capitol. We'll be outspent, but I've been outspent in every race I've been involved in, so that doesn't scare me. In this case, we're starting with a base of thousands of Oregonians, many of whom are not Republicans, who are saying "enough is enough" and so we'll see how it turns out. Our objective has always been -- let voters vote. If they decide to keep the taxes, then that's their choice and we'll respect that.
But, we'll be back with Medicaid reforms and if we have to start them at the ballot, so be it. There's a cancerous rot in our health care system, and it needs to either be cut out or cured.
On election night 2016, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson credited your support as instrumental in helping him to become the first Republican to win statewide office in Oregon in more than a decade. Your company PIP Communications has been on the payroll of Richardson's PAC for a couple of years. Do you think it is appropriate that you are being paid by the Secretary of State at the same time he heads the agency that oversees the state's initiative and election processes?
I'm not currently doing any campaign work for Citizens to Elect Dennis Richardson. As to the work my company has done for the campaign, it has all been transparent and disclosed in Orestar, Oregon's campaign finance database, where anyone can see it.
As a candidate, Dennis had his choice of high-priced consultants -- some who charge 10K or more a month for their services. It's too bad many Oregon candidates, donors, and even the media have come to expect that price tag equals quality or efficacy. For $2,500 a month, I offered something different -- a low budget, high voter-contact race that shattered a decades-long drought for Republicans seeking statewide office. There's a reason my license plates spell out "Coupon Queen." I don't think campaigns should cost as much as they do, and I think donors, whether they donate $10 or $10,000, should feel like the candidate they support is making the best use possible of the resources they have to run. I also don't think money should be a barrier to entry into politics -- so if I can help a candidate do more with less, know that I'm proud of that work.
Lastly, I appreciate, particularly as a woman in a field dominated by men, Dennis thought I was the best person to run his campaign.
During your four terms in the Oregon legislature you served briefly in Republican leadership, but lost reelection in 2014 as deputy leader when the caucus chose Rep. John Davis. About your loss, house minority leader Mike McLane commented to our newsletter in 2015:
Rep. Parrish wanted to take an active role in campaigns both for and against some GOP candidates, so her role as deputy leader was confining. The media assumed Rep. Parrish was removed from leadership because of social issues like gay marriage. That is completely false and reveals the preconceptions of media toward our caucus. The House Republicans had pro-gay marriage members in our leadership team before and after Rep. Parrish's participation. Rather the deeper cause was Rep. Parrish's effort in her campaigns against GOP primary candidates.
In retrospect do you think your flirtation with the Independent Party of Oregon while serving as Republican deputy leader of the Oregon House was a mistake? Do you still believe our political system could use a third party?
The only race at that time I was involved in was one supporting Republican candidate Barbara Jenson in a primary against Bill Post. Since then, caucus leadership has taken an active role in choosing one Republican over another in a primary. I'd disagree about the marriage issue -- there was no member of our leadership team who was still actively running for office who ever came forward for that issue in my entire time in office.
But it's all neither here nor there. What is caucus leadership in the minority? You're the leader of not a whole lot. The D's control the entire process; we don't have much of a say. But I've learned there are other ways to lead that are much more satisfying and yield better results for the long haul to help restore balance in Oregon, and so I spend my efforts on those ideas. If others want to come along with me on that journey, I don't have to be an elected caucus leader to lead others.
I do think the Independent Party of Oregon has a role to play in Oregon politics. More and more, people are not choosing to be affiliated with any political party. Unless there are political figures in parties that inspire, as Oregon Motor Voter registers more people non-affiliated, people just will stay non-affiliated. The Independent Party is trying to fill a gap where I sense many people live politically. They're fiscally more conservative, but socially more liberal. For those aspiring to politics in the current two-party structure, it's tough to find a place where you can have a foot in each of those values. The primary election in Rod Monroe's senate district will be telling. A slightly more moderate Democrat, the fringe left in his party is ready to cull him from the herd for crossing party lines on some issues. Maybe if there was an apparatus of campaign infrastructure, campaign finance, etc, Rod Monroe might be a better as an Independent candidate.
Frankly, I believe citizens would be better served if the legislature went non-partisan, and we reinvested the $4.4 million we spend on partisan caucus offices into non-partisan policy research staff. Then people could caucus by issue without fear of retribution by their party. It won't happen legislatively, rather, I think it will take a vote of the people via an initiative to change the structure to something that better benefits people, not party.
You are building/developing a profile as a political maverick in a state that has a long history of supporting and admiring political mavericks. What motivates you so often to challenge the conventional political wisdom/establishment? Are you planning to test that maverick status in a statewide campaign in 2020?
Have you ever seen a movie where someone asks the wise person in film the secret of life or secret of happiness? And the wise person responds that the secret is -- you have to figure it out for yourself? Yeah, basically that's where I'm at with this question.
What motivates me is actually quite simple. But most people have chosen to make assumptions about me based on things they read, or snippets of gossip they hear. I can count on maybe two hands the number of people in Oregon politics who've really taken the time to figure me out and once they have, they've become my staunchest supporters. And therein lies the challenge -- most people don't want to actually put in that time to build those really deep, lasting relationships. We hear it all the time -- politics is transactional.
And so if the conventional wisdom and the Establishment were right, would Oregon be where we are right now? The changes in Oregon's political and economic landscape just in my lifetime have made my home state nearly unrecognizable. People know we're on a wrong track -- they respond as such in every poll I read. For those who consider themselves part of the conventional wisdom or establishment crowd, look in the mirror and ask yourself: Is your own decision-making about business and politics mired by the myopic view of "this is how we've always done it"? Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And cycle after cycle, people wake up on the Wednesday after an election and wonder what the heck happened.
The path of light that shines through a prism will reflect differently depending on your view. If everyone is looking at the prism from the same vantage point, they'll see the same thing. But when you turn it, you'll see an entirely different path of light coming out of the exact same prism. All I've done is turned the prism and followed a different path of light. If that makes me a maverick, so be it. And where that path takes me -- in 2020 or beyond -- is yet to be determined. I'll let you know when I get where I'm going.
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