Candidates running in the Republican primary for Oregon state Senate District 29 include (left to right) Dave Drotzmann, Todd Nash and Jim Doherty.
Photos courtesy of the campaigns
State Sen. Bill Hansell spent his entire legislative career in the political wilderness.
Elected to Oregon Senate District 29 in 2012, the Athena Republican and the rest of his caucus never enjoyed a day in the majority during a decade-plus in Salem.
Hansell, who is set to retire this year, said he was still able to be an effective minority party legislator by following “the golden rule” he learned in Sunday school.
“Treat others as you would want to be treated,” he said. “It’s pretty basic. And I have found that that still works.”
Senate District 29 is the second largest legislative district in the state, spanning from the Wallowa Mountains near the northeast corner of the state all the way to the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon, touching on slivers of Clackamas and Marion counties.
Four candidates are running in the Republican primary to replace Hansell.
While the region has lurched rightward in recent decades, Eastern Oregon has continued to produce candidates that, if not exactly moderate, are amenable to working across the aisle. Hansell said that avoiding insults and retribution were key to building coalitions toward successful legislation.
“There’s a lot of work that takes place in the hallways, over lunch, over a cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s (about) building relationships, building friendships, working with respect, treating others with dignity.”
The top candidates in the field — Hermiston Mayor Dave Drotzmann, Wallowa County Commissioner Todd Nash and former Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty — have spent more than $200,000 combined for a seat that they admit will likely stay in the minority to start. Nor will anyone get the benefit of Hansell’s endorsement, with the outgoing senator saying he won’t endorse a candidate until after the primary.
All say they can walk the tightrope of pragmatism and representing the staunch conservatism of the Senate district.
Candidate backgrounds
Nash was born in Sacramento, California, but has spent most of his life in Wallowa County.
He built up a ranching business and raised a family in Enterprise. He also got involved in politics, winning a seat on the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners in 2016 and ascending to the presidency of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, the top ranching advocacy group in the state.
It’s the latter role that helped build Nash a reputation around Oregon. He lobbied state lawmakers to soften protections for wolves as they were reintroduced to northeast Oregon, arguing that wolf depredations threatened ranchers’ livelihoods.
Nash said both his jobs helped build a track record of success in Salem. He said he leveraged his relationships to lobby for legislation, including a bill that allows farmers to donate meat to food banks and another that set up a mental health hotline for agricultural workers.
“I was really proud of that bill,” Nash said. “Sen. Hansell afterwards said it was possibly the most meaningful bill that he ever got to carry.”
Doherty is also a cattle rancher by trade, having grown up on a sheep and cattle farm west of the small town of Pilot Rock in Umatilla County. He eventually set up a ranch of his own in Boardman and jumped into local politics when he beat an incumbent to join the Morrow County Board of Commissioners in 2016.
As a Senate candidate, Doherty said he’ll stand up for “conservative principles” while also running on policies unique to his candidacy. He said he is looking to pass a state-subsidized child care program and wants to reinstate the state Office of Rural Policy, a Gov. Ted Kulongoski-era agency that collected information on and crafted policy centered around rural Oregon.
Doherty said the office could help balance the playing field between western and eastern Oregon, and help disaffected Oregonians sympathetic to the Greater Idaho movement.
“I would rather try and get the Office of Rural Policy reinstated and give these folks out here another advocacy group that will go to bat with me,” he said.
Doherty also made a name for himself responding to the nitrate pollution crisis in the Lower Umatilla Basin, which includes Morrow County.
Drotzmann, meanwhile, was born in Yankton, South Dakota, and moved to Yakima, Washington, to live with his father after his parents separated. He was recruited to Hermiston 25 years ago to help take over an optometry practice and soon got involved in local politics. After 10 years on the Hermiston School Board, Drotzmann was elected the town’s mayor in 2012.
Drotzmann said he wants to avoid political divisiveness and said he could bring together all the sides to find a solution to a “70-year” problem. However, he cautioned against regulating farmers for nitrate pollution, saying that it could drive them out of business.
“I think we have some of the best stewards of the land right here,” he said.
As president of the League of Oregon Cities, Drotzmann said he worked on a task force with law enforcement to roll back Measure 110, Oregon’s drug decriminalization law. The Legislature would go on to pass nearly all of his group’s recommendations, Drotzmann said.
While each candidate touted their experience, long careers in local politics don’t come without some scars.
Wallowa County Commissioner Todd Nash walks through a field near Enterprise, Ore.
Courtesy photo / Todd Nash campaign
A ‘black eye for Oregon’
Nash’s statement in the voters pamphlet describes him as a leader with “conservative values” who opposes “Salem’s tax-and-spend policies.”
But in an interview, Nash used less combative terminology to describe himself as a potential legislator.
“Whether it’s natural resources or whether it’s something as specific as (a) particular tax, we have to be able to tell our story and then be able to listen to their side of it too,” he said. “And hopefully, we can meet somewhere in the middle that is a better solution for all of Oregon.”
Nash said these kinds of rhetoric aren’t in conflict with one another, but instead representative of the balance he’ll strike as a senator. When the Legislature considered delisting wolves from the endangered species list, Nash said he was able to convince enough Democrats to support it by bringing them to Eastern Oregon. He said he’s already in talks with Senate President Rob Wagner to host him in Wallowa County for a discussion of rural issues.
“There’s no need for us to water down what’s actually taking place out here on this landscape and rural part of Oregon,” he said. “I think I do that very well.”
Nash hasn’t always talked like a statesman when taking on the wolf issue. In 2010, he compared the difficulty of getting the state to confirm a wolf kill of cattle to trying to convict O.J. Simpson. And when environmental groups helped sink the nomination of Nash’s son to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission, they pointed to the connection to his father.
Nash called the rejection of his son a “black eye for Oregon” and blamed Oregon Wild.
Oregon Wild conservation director Steve Pedery said the group was concerned with Nash’s son sitting on the commission while his father lobbied on behalf of the cattlemen’s association.
Hermiston Mayor Dave Drotzmann stands in downtown Hermiston, Ore.
Courtesy photo / Drotzmann campaign
Bringing money back to the district
Drotzmann said he could work across the aisle to make sure state money for infrastructure and other public projects flow to eastern Oregon.
It’s an approach Drotzmann is modeling off of state Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, one of his primary backers. Drotzmann said his relationship with Smith “blossomed into a friendship” after he became mayor of Hermiston. Drotzmann and Smith have often campaigned together as Smith seeks his 12th term in the House.
As dean of the Legislature, Smith is not only unafraid to work with the majority, but often praises prominent Democrats like Gov. Tina Kotek and former House Speaker Dan Rayfield. Smith’s seniority and connections helped land him a co-vice chairmanship on the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, where he has directed money to his district.
“He’s been able to develop those relationships and bring value back to his community,” Drotzmann said. “He’s been very productive as a legislator for our region and brought lots of our hard earned tax dollars that are going to Salem right now back home. That’s going to be my role and responsibility as well.”
That connection to Smith may not be a selling point for all Republican primary voters. Media reports have spotlighted the murky ethics behind Smith’s legislative practices. The Malheur Enterprise reported that Smith’s economic development consulting business took on projects that were funded by public money he helped secure as a legislator. Smith told the Willamette Week that he’s always followed the state’s ethics laws and disclosed any potential conflicts of interest.
When it came to Smith’s legislative and business dealings, Drotzmann deferred to Smith’s judgment.
“What he does in his personal business time is different from what I do in my business,” he said. “That’s up to him. I’m sure he’s had everything ethically looked at.”
Former Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty at his ranch near Boardman, Ore.
Courtesy Photo / Jim Doherty campaign
Running after a recall
Like Nash, Doherty also touted his ability to bring in Democratic officials from outside the district.
He highlighted his work on the Lower Umatilla Basin’s ongoing nitrate crisis and his ability to help bring in prominent officials like Kotek and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Casey Sixkiller.
Doherty said his work on nitrates is also one of the reasons he’s no longer in office. Morrow County voters recalled Doherty and another commissioner in late 2022 with recall supporters citing Doherty’s handling of the nitrate emergency as among the reasons he should be ousted.
He blamed the recall’s success on a low turnout special election and predicted he would win Morrow County in a “landslide” during the primary. But, he said, he had no regrets about the recall, comparing himself to the Republican senators who walked out in 2022 and are now ineligible to run for reelection.
“I think you have to have folks that are willing to take that stand,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re just a career politician being a career politician. I don’t want to say that I’m happy that that happened to me, but I think it paints a picture of somebody that’s willing to sacrifice himself for the folks.”
Hansell might not be supporting anyone in the primary, but he is providing his eventual successor with some parting gifts. He said he’s using his last months in the Senate to write legislation that any of the candidates can inherit when they take office in 2025. With only a short period of time between swearing-in and the next legislative session, Hansell said his bills will give the eventual winner a head start.