District 11: Barnhart - Legislature needs education advocate

A Register-Guard Editorial
Secretary of State Bill Bradbury didn't do Rep. Phil Barnhart any favors when he redrew Oregon's legislative districts. Bradbury divided south Eugene - the heart of Barnhart's old House of Representatives district - between two new districts, and assigned Barnhart to a district in central Oregon. But Barnhart easily won the Democratic nomination in one of the new districts last May, defeating the more conservative Rep. Al King. The political lesson is that education is the No. 1 issue for Oregon voters today, and no one is a more passionate advocate of education than Barnhart.

Barnhart is running in District 11, an oddly shaped piece of political geography that covers southeast Eugene, Creswell and Pleasant Hill, curves east of Springfield to take in Walterville, then broadens northward to include Coburg and southern Linn County. It's a microcosm of Oregon, with urban, rural and suburban territory. Barnhart is by far the better qualified of two candidates seeking to represent this diverse district.

Barnhart, 56, is a lawyer who made a mid-career switch to work as a psychologist. A concern for the quality of education drew him into politics - first on the Eugene School Board, where he served for six years, and then in the Oregon House, to which he was elected in 2000, replacing Rep. Floyd Prozanski, who was forced into retirement by term limits.

Barnhart's Republican opponent is Robert Bolanos, 30, a sales and marketing manager for Arlie & Co., a real estate development firm. Bolanos has no experience in elective or appointive office, and is running a shoestring campaign as a no-new-taxes conservative. Bolanos deserves credit for offering District 11 voters a choice, and with a longer political resume might one day be able to make a productive contribution to the Legislature, but he places a distant second to Barnhart in every important respect.

Barnhart had a good first term, serving as interim minority whip, and shows potential for future leadership. He's an evangelist about the importance of education and of efforts to promote children's well-being in infancy and pre-school years. He supported placing an income tax surcharge on the Jan. 28 ballot, though he would have preferred that the Legislature enact it outright. Barnhart will support the proposal, Bolanos will not.

Bolanos characterizes the race as being between an urban liberal and a rural conservative. But it's not quite that simple. Aside from their mismatched qualifications, Barnhart and Bolanos have different visions of Oregon's future. Wanting the best for Oregon's children transcends ideology and geography - but only one candidate is willing to say that if Oregonians want improved services, they'll have to agree to pay for them. Barnhart's combination of realism and optimism should appeal to voters throughout District 11.