Democrat Westlund

Senator Ben Westlund’s office in Salem is on the east end of the third floor of the Capitol Building. To get there from the northeast, jaywalk across Court Street from Cliff’s Automotive Repair.

Salem Police hopefully have better things to do.

The Capitol Building is formidable with it’s marble façade, revolving brass doors, words of democracy chiseled in stone. The polished floor of the lobby reflects grand murals and the gravity of government.

A path through the Senate Gallery leads to offices much less elegant. Low, 8-foot ceilings with fluorescent lights, piles of notebooks on the floor, typewriters on tables, trash cans of various sizes, small desks occupied by young and eager staffers.

And everybody wants to say “Hi” to Ben Westlund, the newest Democrat in the Senate. His 1 p.m. meeting was cancelled. He has time for lunch.

Westlund changed his registration last year from Republican to Independent to make a run for governor. Last month he changed from Independent to Democrat.

On the way to the cafeteria in the basement he jokes several times with different well-wishers that his next affiliation will be with the Pacific Green Party.

“I left the Republican Party because I grew weary of the intolerance of many ... certainly not all... Republicans to our fellow human beings,” Westlund says. “A lot of people call that ‘values.’ But there are lots of people (in the state) who have lots of different ‘values.’ ”

Intolerance grew and the Republican party of Mark Hatfield, Tom McCall and other moderate Oregon republicans was captured by extremists.

A reporter from KGW stops him, wants an interview. Westlund offers to meet the reporter later downstairs, or the reporter can hang around outside his office, if he has the time.

“It became, ‘You have to have MY values, you have to worship from the same pew.’ That was inconsistent for me, for a party that was founded on individual rights and liberties,” Westlund says.

A detour into Hearing Room 50, his favorite. There is a large tattered flag on the wall that was flying when the capitol burned in April, 1935. This is the room where the house met when the chamber was damaged in the Scotts Mill Earthquake in March of 1993.

Westlund loves the history of the room. He loves the history of the whole place.

“It was inconsistent to me that they opposed an individual’s right to make choices. If you support gun rights and property rights, you have to support other individual rights as well. If you support some, you must support them all,” he said.

“If I am gay, or I want to take my own life when I am in great pain and have no hope and am draining my children’s bank account at $10,000 per day, I should have that right.”

As a moderate Republican in the Oregon House of Representatives, Westlund had already lost some influence within the Republican party. When he became a Senator, he was still held outside the fold.

“For some time I had been called a ‘RINO,’ a Republican In Name Only. And in some regards that was true,” he acknowledged.

On the way to the cafeteria, others stop him in the halls. He has their respect. You can tell by the way legislators approach, make jokes with him, ask him to meet colleagues seated with them at lunch.

When he ran for governor, he did so from the “middle.”

“I became an independent. It was legitimate. I was and still am concerned with extreme partisan politics where the rules of engagement are to ONLY make yourself look good or your opponent look bad.”

Later Westlund likened the process to selling Fords or Chevrolets. “You have Ford and Chevy preaching to the same audience at the same time. But it has become not ‘Our product is better,’ it has turned into ‘Their product is lousy.’ ”

To reduce the extremism of politics, Westlund is still supportive of open primaries and repealing the “undemocratic laws” passed limiting primaries to party members.

On the way back from lunch, Westlund puts into effect a New Year’s resolution: He takes the stairs from the basement back to his third-floor office. He is breathing hard. It reminds you that he doesn’t have all of his left lung. At the same time, he climbed the stairs fast enough that a healthy reporter is also breathing hard, and without an excuse.

Westlund is now a Democrat. As he fought for campaign reform and health care reform around the state, he found himself sharing podiums with Democrats at Kiwanis meetings in Astoria or Rotary meetings in Medford.

He realized that to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish in Salem, health care reform or election reform, he needed to join up.

“Like it or not, this state has a two-party system. History is littered with examples of independent campaigns that flared and died. To be effective, and best represent the district, (I had to affiliate with a major party.)

A short detour through the senate chamber. Westlund is upset that his desk blotter from the last session, signed by his wife Libby and children, has been replaced. He barks that he wants it back.

The choice to switch to the Democratic party was finally made when he was looking at what each party stood for.

“I was sitting in my living room with Libby reading the platforms of the Republicans and Democrats, and I came across one sentence. ‘The Democratic Party of Oregon believes access to effective, affordable health care is a fundamental human right,” Westlund recites from memory.

That was his belief as well. “I closed the book right there.”

As senator, healthcare reform is Westlund’s priority for the new six-month legislative session that begins on January 8. Universal healthcare. He thinks it is good for the people, and good for business.

“This is not just for those who don’t have it,” he said. “This is about lowering costs for those who do.” He has support from a variety of business interests which seek to contain the cost of insurance.

Not yet back to his office he asks fellow Senator Avel Gordly if she will be at a tax reform meeting on Friday in Portland. No, she tells him, she will be at the mayor’s conference on mental health and public safety.

Westlund says he would like to be there too, and she says they need his perspective on the issues.

Whether the switch from Republican to Independent to Democrat will hurt his chances for reelection in Republican Deschutes County remains to be seen.

“That’s not the question,” he fires back. “The question is, what is the best thing I can do to represent my district and follow my heart. I can’t worry about winning the next election. My job is to represent my district and do the best job I can.”

At 1:40 he is ten minutes late for another meeting. He greets the appointment in the hall way outside his office. They are glad for a chance to get his attention.