Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello Oregonians and welcome to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If you've ever wanted to get to know your politicians personally or understand what it is they are actually doing, then you're in the right place. I'm your podcast host, Jessica Campbell.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm your state representative for House District 24, Lucetta Elmer.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: This podcast is a place for you to get to know Representative Elmer both personally and professionally.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: We want Oregonians to feel connected with and educated politics. So we're so glad you've joined us on a fresh new podcast adventure as we cover all things about life and legislation.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Hi Oregonians and welcome back to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We hope that you learn something new and get to know your state representative a bit better for this episode. As we are closing out 2025 and starting 2026, we thought it would be fun to do bit different for this episode and we are going to actually get to use a little bit of my background because as those of you who have been following for a while, you know, politics is not my background. And that's kind of the point. We want to have this podcast reach people who don't speak political ease and are trying to understand what's going on in the state and just wish somebody would explain it to them in layman's terms in a friendly way. My background is actually teaching, which is something that Representative Elmer and I share. And so we are going to take you through through a little bit of a math lesson and a report card. So this is going to be fun. I'm really excited. Thanks for doing this with me.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I think it will be fun as well. Yeah. Teaching is in my background, so this will feel like home.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: This is great. And a quick reminder for anybody who hasn't been following along, what is your teaching connection and background?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: So my degree is actually in education.
Started out teaching and coaching for several years and then pivoted, decided to join the family in business.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And you even had your own like little daycare preschool for a while.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah. With kindergarten as well. And then. And we had ages up through 12 for the after school portion.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: And there's a Linfield connection.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Yes. So really I have taught pre K all the way through college, covered it up, all the people and then and actually parenting classes. So all ages. I do love teaching. I do. And I find that I still feel like a teacher with our businesses, especially, you know, like Union Block Coffee where a lot of those employees, it's their first job. And so I do feel like I get to be the teacher that teaches work ethic and, oh, this is what a job is like. And these are the expectations.
So it's just a fun thing that is just sort of in me that I like to do. So I'm excited for this episode. I did prep my report card, so I have my notes perfect.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: And we are going to jump to that pretty quickly. I wanted to just start with something that was kind of fun. And this was actually a project I did as a math lesson with sixth graders, like 20 years ago.
And some people listening may be familiar with this. I guess it's called a thought experiment of if the world was a village of 100 people, what would that look like?
And it really breaks it down. Of course, I was using it in a whole lesson about percentages and breaking down these huge numbers. Right. Because you have to sort of look at raw numbers, but also percentages to get a bigger picture. Sometimes, especially in politics, you'll hear this massive number, something in the millions or billions, and then realize, oh, but that's only 1% of whatever. Or the opposite. Oh my gosh, that's 90% of whatever we're talking about.
And it helps to look at it both ways. And so, you know, just for fun, because ChatGPT is getting so fun and exciting now. There's so many things you can do with it. I went in and said, well, what if Oregon was a village of 100 people? And what would that, what would that look like? What would the makeup be? And I thought it was, it was kind of interesting. So I was just going to share some of these numbers and then we'll get. We'll get Oregon's report card.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: From you.
So it said that if Oregon was a village of 100 people, there would be 60 adults, there would be 21 children, and 19 seniors.
It said that 19 would be on Medicare, 33 would be on free or low cost health care, like the Medicaid or the OHP.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: And the total number of adults was 60.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: So over half.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And then nine would be working in local government, like schools, police, fire, four would be working in the state government, and one to two, depending on kind of how you look at the percentages, would be working in the federal government.
And then it just continues to break down. 75 people would be white, 13 would be Latino, 6 would be Asian, 2 would be African American, 1 would be Native American, and 3 would be a mixed race or other. So it just kind of is breaking down, you know, and I'm sure there's room for error. I don't know if this was. These are perfect statistics from ChatGPT, but it was going off of pretty recent data, like in the last year or two, according to the reports it was giving me.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: I'm surprised about the native only having one. Where we have nine tribes here in Oregon.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So again, kind of looking at all of that and, you know, I'm sure somebody could do a much deeper dive to hone in on these numbers and break it down even more. One thing that was interesting, Sad was that 12 people in a village of 100 would fall below the federal poverty line.
And just how many people are not making what they need to have a comfortable lifestyle economically.
And so you can do this, you know, with so many things. But I think it is interesting, you know, for people who are curious, you can plug in so many other numbers, ask so many other questions, and just get a picture of our state.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: And so now moving into our conference time.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: And I know you have done this. I know I spent years doing this where the parents come in and you pull out that report card and get to go through, okay, here are the expectations. Here's what we're working on. You know, these are all the points. And it would be both academic and social, behavioral.
And then you would explain the things that are going well and go through where the goals are. And then, okay, are we struggling here? Are we even failing here? But I would hope that any good teacher wouldn't just say, well, this is a problem. Good luck. But they would say, this is not where we want to be. But here are some strategies. Here's what I'm going to do.
Here's some things you can do. And let's be a team to help this student get from a 2 to a 4, whatever the grading system might be, whether it's a C to an A or something like that. So I wanted to do that with you and let you cover some topics.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And so just so we're all clear, the student is not necessarily the people of Oregon, but the government.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Really? I mean, yeah, you could kind of think of it that way. Like, how is the government doing? Here's the state.
And the state of Oregon is going to get some grades. And this is just, you know, this is coming from you. And this is not to say that the entire legislative team met together and created these grades.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: This is your opinion. And with fact, you know, based on evidence and some facts. Because you are the House Minority Leader.
And in that leadership role, part of the things you have to do would be to look at the state of Oregon, the state of the state, really, and see, where are we doing? Well, where do we need help? And again, not just to say, where do we need help, but how, like, practically, how do we fix some of the things that need to be fixed?
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: So let's start. Let's actually start with education.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Since we're already talking about us being educators and all of that, so what grade would you give Oregon for education and what needs to be improved and how can we improve?
[00:08:31] Speaker B: You know, education is always near and dear to my heart and to me. It's a tricky topic, looking at it through the political lens, because I think sometimes when we throw out some statistics that show that Oregon is ranking near the bottom, that that can land on teachers as if they're failing.
And I never want that. You know, I mean, as a former teacher, I know the time and energy that goes into managing a classroom and training up the next generation. And also the heart of someone who chooses to go into that field is such a nurturing heart. And it's someone who, in my experience, that I've seen with fellow teachers, they put their whole self into it.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: You know, they're working spring break, they're working summer break. They're working way past the hours that people think, think teachers have.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: So looking at facts around Oregon, I think it would be easy to give education a pretty low grade if not failing. But I gave it a C because I think that we have extremely dedicated and talented teachers, and that is half the battle. With that being said, my heart goes out to them because I think that as legislators, we're not giving them the proper tools they need or setting them up for success when we look at the statistics that we have around our education results.
So right now, we do tend to trend towards the bottom when we look at specifics like how Oregon is doing in reading, how Oregon is doing in absenteeism rates. It's all bad.
There's nothing positive. We don't have standards anymore in Oregon, graduation standards. So that's challenging for students to get what they need and us to know that they have what they need and then move forward. It's also challenging when our students are applying for colleges.
Time and time again, I hear from constituents that they weren't prepared. You know, they weren't prepared for going to the university or whatever their next chapter is after 12th grade.
So I really think that Oregon needs an overhaul when it comes to the types of policy that we as state legislators are putting out there and be able to come alongside our teachers and make sure that our schools and our teachers have the tools they need so that they're not facing burnout, they're not facing the challenges with behavior.
They feel like they have a team around them to help them navigate that path. And ultimately, our students are leaving their educational journey in K12, and they feel prepared emotionally, mentally, physically, and ready to go on.
Unfortunately, through the lens that I see, what I see is not that it's always.
The decisions being made at the state level are not always based on what is the best outcome for the child, unfortunately.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Well, we have a C for education.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: That was my optimistic self giving that. I love it.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Well, we want optimism, right?
[00:11:49] Speaker B: We do.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, yes. They work so hard, and I mean, we talked about how many hours they put in, but they also put in a ton of their own money.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: We see that all the time, and it just never seems to be enough to meet the needs of the kids. And in today's world, teachers are not just there to teach the academics. They end up being the mentor, the coach. A lot of times they end up being the parent. They end up being a counselor. They end up. They just.
The good teachers are doing everything they are. And a huge shout out to all of our fellow educators.
We both personally know what it's like, and we see you.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: So let's now talk about maybe some. The housing. Housing and homelessness.
How is Oregon doing?
What needs to be changed and what would you do?
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I had those in two different categories. So I had homelessness and addiction, and then I had workforce and housing. Both of those got Ds. So we could talk about that. I guess for, you know, our homelessness, we've made some efforts in the. In the recent past to do some things, but.
But we're not seeing those results. We're not seeing the desired outcome that we had hoped. We're still seeing people on our streets and needing help. And whether that is from some mental addictions or whether that is because of the cost of housing or another category, it's all leading to the same thing. That we're just seeing homelessness. It is expensive. And so we are seeing housing continue to just go up and up and up. And that does obviously create a barrier for people getting into homes. And then back to the mental addiction part.
Having resources for our homeless population, if they are struggling with mental issues as well, to get into those facilities, to get Help. We don't have an enough beds for treatment.
So there's a lot in that, you know, circle that we're talking about. But overall, as a state, we're at a D. We are not where we should be to make sure that we are doing enough to see quicker results and results that are trending up.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: And what, what solution would you put forward if you're, you know, sitting here at the conference table, right, and you're telling the state of Oregon, you're telling the government, hey, this is our grade.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: How are we going to get from a D to a C and then a B and then maybe even an A?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: How do we do that?
[00:14:24] Speaker B: I think the simplest thing that I can say and what I have said and what I keep saying is let's pivot from the government lens that we continue to look through all of this through, and let's look at it through a business lens.
You know, if the goal is to build 36,000 homes a year, which is what the governor had said three years ago, and we're at like 11, 10,000, if that's our goal, then we cannot tax our way to get affordable housing. We cannot continue to put all these regulations on builders that makes it harder and more expensive for them to build. So if you're looking at that through a business lens, what can you do to streamline it, make it cost effective, efficient, from a business point of view, profitable, and then you just, you make those cuts and you start doing it. But in the lens that I keep seeing Oregon look through, it's no, let's pass another bill and make sure that we're going to take care of this little niche issue or this little niche issue. And all the time those bills just add regulation that makes everything more expensive.
So we have to. We have to deregulate.
And that could be true with our mental health as well, because people that are trying to come in and build facilities that have more space for behavioral health, addiction services, they're saying no to Oregon because it's too hard. It's too hard to build. We have too many regulations. And then even if you do get the actual infrastructure and the building built, the business side of it, they say no. They don't want to do business in Oregon. Way too hard, way too expensive. We are not business friendly. And we've talked about that here before.
So in my opinion, the government needs to get out of the way and we need to make it easier to have all of these things. Builders will come back, construction companies will come back to Oregon, if they know they can make a profit.
And that could be scary if someone's like, oh, well, if they make a profit, does that mean it's expensive homes?
Okay, if you have a coffee shop like I do on downtown and three more coffee shops come in, am I going to just raise all my prices?
As a business owner, I know what I have to do. I have to be competitive. I have to give a good product for a fair price.
Contractors are the same.
If they come back to Oregon and they build homes that are too expensive, no one's going to buy them. They don't make money.
So I think it would be helpful if we could look at it through a business lens.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: So interesting to think of all the different lenses you can use to make decisions and see that. And now, would some of those regulations be related to the environment? Because I know that's something I've heard before. And that might lead us into our next topic on the report card, which is the environment.
And so I was just curious if that's one of the big connections.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yes, that is. I mean, the aggressive environmental protection plans and regulations have definitely made it more expensive for all of the things that we've just talked about.
So that does play into it. And, you know, a lot of times there are, you know, administrative goals. So right now, a Democrat governor, a Democrat majority in the legislature, the priorities that. That Democrats have obviously are different than the priorities that Republicans have. But those priorities sort of push the direction in where a lot of our dollars are spent.
And it's not. Personally, I don't think it's bad to have priorities, or actually not priorities, but have goals. Right. But again, for me, more a conservative fiscal legislator, I would say, if I were in charge, I would want to make sure that we have good roads, that we have strong law enforcement so that we're safe, that we have good schools, we have clean drinking water, the core of government. And I would want to make sure those are all funded very well before I say, oh, and I have these other goals I'd like to do. Okay, now let's look at those.
Right now. I feel like those have been sort of mixed up.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and back to this analogy of having a conference and a report card. If you do have a student that has a lot of low marks, it's hard to focus on all of them at once.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: That's really overwhelming for a child. Hey, we have 17 different things and we got to get all of them from a D to an A in two months.
You almost have to Focus on certain things, like you said, kind of prioritize, which are the five, maybe five main goals and then secondary goals and kind of go from there.
But a lot of them are interconnected. They are, you know, they do overlap to some degree. You start raising a grade in one area that might help one another. Sure.
And so, you know, with the environment, what grade would Oregon get?
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Environment, rule, stewardship. If we're going to look at it through that lens, you could almost say that we have a B minus.
See, I don't know. Well, you know, because I guess when I hear that, I think, okay, we have put forth a lot of priorities around climate protection and our environment and making sure that we're doing all these things, giving it a lot of attention.
But it has come at such an expense to rule Oregon. And so because our state is very diverse, when one part of it maybe succeeds, there are a lot of other parts that are paying the price for that. So it is hard to sort of look at that as a whole. As a whole, while our environment is getting some attention and we're actually at a national level, we score high on many things for the things that we do to conserve energy and to, you know, make sure that we're being environmentally sensitive.
We also struggle a lot with wildfire. And, you know, there's different thoughts as to why, but my father was a logger, and I grew up with understanding what it meant to work in the woods. And, you know, he gets so frustrated current day when he hears about all these wildfires because, you know, he says, as.
As a logger, when you're out in the woods, you see a lot of fires start, and you always have your tools to put them out. And, you know, and he said, you. You do that. And then people didn't even know about them because they never went anywhere. And you make sure that you always have good fire trails. And we haven't done that. We have not prioritized that for years, for decades in Oregon. And so we have a hard time getting to where the fires are, and that makes it very challenging. We have a lot of undergrowth, underbrush out in our forests, which is like kindling, you know, in the summertime, so dry. And it has all those lovely pieces that just want to burn real fast. And we are not taking care of that. So in that regards, I don't think we're doing a good job at all.
And then, like you had mentioned, how everything sort of relates. So while we might be saying, gosh, we've reduced, you know, energy here, and we're doing these things over here for climate protection, but at the same time, our energy prices are going up, which affects our cost of living. So that's very hard and challenging for everyone.
So, again, lots of things play into each specific area.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: And I've heard you say many times on here that one of your goals and wishes for Oregon would be that there's more balance.
So that you have both lenses coming together to say, well, how do we do both? How do we protect our environment and take care of this, you know, the beautiful state, and at the same time take care of people and bring down cost of living and, you know, how do you build more while still protecting the forest?
And there's got to be middle ground somewhere. I think we live in a world where everyone says, well, you're either a one or a ten.
Like, what about the fives? What about the fives? Are there fives or even an eight or two? Like, is there anything that's somewhere in the middle to make a solution and go Forward?
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. 100% agree. You know, sometimes, back to the political jargon, people say we have four parties in Oregon. You know, you have the extreme Republican, you have the moderate Republican, you have the extreme Democrat or progressive, and then you have the. The moderate Democrat or, you know, right leaning, left leaning. And I think whenever you have super majorities or you have all three branches of government that are represented by the same party, you have this control that so quickly can get out of balance and lead more to that one or ten type of thing. So you're right. I talk a lot about, I wish we had more balance, because pulling us back to the middle, when you have to have these tough conversations and you know that you don't just get to do whatever it is you want to do, you actually have to listen to your colleague across the aisle. And even if you don't like the first two sentences, listen, lean in and be like, oh, okay, all right, I can meet you there on sentence five. I kind of agree. Let's talk about that.
We just don't get to have those conversations.
So, you know, you think of energy, and in Oregon, you know, there's talk of a lot of people that want to shut down the Bonneville Dam and go to all solar and all wind. And you see those windmills in eastern Oregon that are put up that a lot of our rural farmers don't want them. And now we're seeing issues, unintended consequences that they are having.
But again, we're not able to have the conversation at the beginning. And so we're sort of stuck with that very one sided approach to how we're handling so many of our conversations in Oregon. Right.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Well, of all the conversations you're having, I know there are some other things on the report card.
What is next on your report card? What's the next topic?
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Let's see. Okay, public safety.
Public safety.
I, I gave a D plus, C minus.
And I thought about this because again, the optimist in me and the blessed person that I am living here in McMinnville, smaller town, you know, I feel like I have a pretty safe community and I know all of my law enforcement officers. I mean, I just, you know, I feel like, okay, I'm doing okay here.
But overall, as a state, again, we haven't seen enough progress in this area. And oftentimes when I'm talking to people that are considering where they're going to live or where they're going to raise a family, this topic comes up a lot. And they're like, I don't know, I don't know about Oregon. Portland's in the news a lot for never a lot of positive, right? We hear about the homeless issue, we hear about the crimes that are happening.
And so people are like, oh gosh, I'm not going to Oregon. And then because of our sanctuary state and because of what that means to law enforcement and where our hands are tied a lot, they don't have as many tools. Now, we did pass something last year in 24 to give a few tools back to law enforcement officers to help and that was a positive. So bump the grade up a little bit. They need more. They need to feel like the teacher. Like I want our teachers to feel. Our law enforcement officers need to feel like we all so appreciate them and we support them and we come alongside to make sure they have the tools they need. I mean, just like I said as a teacher, someone who chooses to go into that profession, they're usually a nurturer, they have a love for kids. You know, a law enforcement officer think about someone who says, oh, I want to go into this branch of work, okay, they're going to be maybe a fighter, maybe a defender, you know, but they have a different gifts and talents to have that sort of, I don't know, it brings up a lot of pictures in my minds of people I know. And to think of them going out, getting their job, being out on the street as this defense, right? And then being told, stand down.
I know you see that happening over there, that crime, stand down.
It's just so hard for them. And that is a conversation I've had with so many law enforcement officers where they're just like, it's not what I thought. And I just don't think I can do it. You know, we see them leaving that profession or burning out or struggling.
So for all of those reasons, D plus, C minus.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: And the solution would be, one of the things you mentioned was to give.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Them more tools, allow them to do their job, you know, allow them to. If there is a crime, you may pick that person up, you may prosecute. There may be severe consequence so that we have law and order.
I just personally think that we're too far on the lawless side and we need to come back to the lawful side where, you know, our children, they know there are rules of the classroom. Right. And if you break the rules, then there's a consequence.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Consequence.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Correct. And so I think we just need to sort of go back to the basics of that and make sure that our law enforcement officers can deal out those consequences. Yeah.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Now, one of the things I heard you mention earlier was like having safe roads. So that maybe brings us to the topic of transportation.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: As one of the. Did that, did that one get a grade or was that connected with a.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Well, I don't give Fs, but I mean, transportation is in a real mess. So we've talked about that. I think one of the solutions that I would say is we do need to make sure that odot, Oregon Department of Transportation has the funding it needs.
We just can't tax our way there.
So looking at budgeting and priorities.
But we do need to make sure, I mean, to me that is a core infrastructure, a core responsibility of governance to make sure that we have functioning roads. Portland is a city of bridges.
We want to make sure those bridges are in tip top shape and there's no issues there. So that is high on the list of things that needs to be prioritized to find solutions for. Right. Yeah.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: And as if I'm hearing it all correctly, so much of so many of the things need more tools, need more resources, which presumably comes with more money. Right. But generally speaking, the Republican Party as a whole does not look to taxes as those solutions.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: And so how do you find other ways to fund things? Is it, you know, and that would just be essentially moving money around, like instead of having a ball here it goes here.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: I don't believe we need so much money in dei.
Now if you say, well, it's because we're not equitable and Fair to all people, then we need to have that conversation. I 100% believe that we should be equitable and fair to all people. The color of your skin does not matter. Where you came from does not matter. But we have put so much money and went over the top, in my opinion, to how we're handling that conversation, that we just need to take a step back and say, I think we could line up on the same goal, making sure that everyone has equal access. But how we go about it and how efficient we are with those dollars, I think needs some tweaks. Climate protection plan is another one. Millions, if not billions goes into this. It's great to have these goals, but we can't move so fast when we don't have a sustainable answer on how we truly could get enough energy through wind or solar to give energy to our whole state. Like we're not there. We're not there. So have the goal and let's make some steps for it. But dumping all this money into it, that's not the solution. And then third one would be trying to deregulate. We need to deregulate because we add more and more regulations and people want to leave the state. And it makes it harder for people because the cost is passed down. Every time we add another, a new regulation on building or business, the cost is passed down to the consumer. That's us.
So those types of things I think we could give some reprieve to and that would allow our state to breathe and maybe bring in some friends that want to start businesses here or that want to start their family here and get jobs. And those are new taxes, not because we've increased taxes, but because we have more people that are paying into the tax base.
So those would be positives.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: And if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like some of these priorities that are often really, really strong on, as you say, the other side of the aisle. It's not that you disagree with them or that you say that they're bad goals or that they're not needed, but you're looking more at this pie chart of here's all of our money and evening things out a little bit. Where instead of part of the pie having so much and this other piece only having a little bit, maybe this piece has to come down a little bit in its money so that this other piece has a little bit more money instead of adding new money in terms of taxes.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Right? Yep.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: So what about health care?
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a big one. That's a big one.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: And that was an interesting, you know, if the world. Or excuse me, if Oregon was a village of 100 people, how many are on the Medicaid or the OHP?
And we've kind of had this conversation before where, again, we live in a world where everyone forces you into. Where they assume that you're a one or a 10.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: And it's hard for people to see that there could maybe be somewhere in the middle of saying, those in need, we want them to have what they need.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: And we just. Or, you know, and I don't want to speak for you, but from kind of what I've heard from previous conversations would be that you just don't want somebody who. Who doesn't actually need something to pull resources from, somebody who really does need something.
Is that kind of a fair generalization?
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
And our healthcare system's a mess.
Yeah. That's probably gonna also get a D.
It's a big topic in the legislature and one of. Again, back to regulation. We added so many regulations to, like, nursing staffing ratios that now this short session probably will see some bills around trying to undo that. We just created a mess with too much regulation.
And, you know, the thought was probably a good thought, making sure that nurses get the breaks they need. But when you have nurses coming to the legislators saying, this is horrible, can you fix it?
Then, you know, okay, something. Something got missed there.
So that has caused a huge problem. Obviously, the cost and the amount of people that are on the Oregon health plan, you know, again, wanting the people that need it to get what they need. But when things aren't needed and those resources are pulled anyways, then you feel the effect on the other end. Who gets to choose what defines need? That's tricky.
But there's a lot to talk about and a lot to unravel and solve in healthcare in Oregon.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Now, a group, people largely connected with this conversation of health care are our veterans and our seniors. And I believe that's the last report on your report card.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Yes.
So I had the honor and privilege to serve on the Early Childhood and Human Services Committee for three years. And so both veterans and seniors come through that committee. Bills that have to do with our veterans or our seniors. And I will say the committees, like we've talked about, they're less than 10 people usually, so it's not a lot of legislators.
But whenever something came through for veterans, it was always supported. And when it would go to the House floor, supported. And when it would go to the Senate, supported. So I think the respect that we have for our veterans is strong and I love that. So I gave this one a B.
Same with our seniors. I know there's more that we can do, but in talking with Oregonians at large, both in my line of work and not, the respect that we have for those groups is there. And so that bumped the grade up. Can we always do more? Sure. But I think we're on the right path there.
If there were more tools or suggestions, it would just be probably for me, there still are some that are falling through the cracks and maybe not getting the services they need. And it's probably different for veterans versus seniors in some regards, but the opportunities are there if they want to get them. For veterans for seniors, I think that we have a big population, a big number that are seniors. And so like here in McMinnville, we see a lot of senior homes. And that's something that we talk about is how to make sure that they are affordable and that we have enough space for our seniors and that seniors can live their lives with dignity and choice in the way that they want to live their lives. Yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: So many things on the state report card.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: And any one of those could be an entire episode.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Sure. Yes.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: And maybe in the future we'll do that. But is there anything else that we haven't covered sort of in this report card overview in this conference about the government and the state of Oregon?
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Well, as a teacher, I would just end the report card with saying, Oregon, you have so much potential and I want to help you and I want to make sure that you have the tools you need to go forth and process, prosper.
Thank you.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Appreciate it. It'll be fun to continue doing some episodes and hear what's coming up with the short session, what bills there might be. And again, kind of looking at the specifics, the nitty gritty, because as we go through all of these topics, there's the bills are related to these things, so we'll get to understand what those mean, put them in layman's terms. And as always, Oregonians, we welcome your questions, we welcome your thoughts. If there are things that you're curious about, if there's something you don't understand or want some clarity on or just want to hear from representatives, what she thinks about it and what her goals are related around a certain topic, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach out to us. All of those details will be in the episode notes. Thank you so much for joining us on this special conference Report card episode of Life and Legislation with Lucetta and we wish you a very happy new year and hope you come back and join us next time for our next episode, Sam.
