Primary Election 2022: Democrats running 'in solidarity' for House District 11
With the newly drawn district lines, House District 11 includes much of Linn County and its smaller cities. Lebanon and Sweet Home are the larger cities in the district, while Brownsville, Halsey and Shedd are among the smaller communities included. District 11 also includes the community of Jefferson in Marion County.
Three are up for the job in this Democratic House district primary election: Mary Cooke, Nina Brenner and Renee Windsor-White. The candidates are all running “in solidarity” with each other and share the same campaign priorities.
Mary K. Cooke
Cooke is originally from Portland. She received her bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University and has been in sales for 30 years. She moved to Lebanon recently, has become involved with politics and is a neighborhood leader through the Linn County Democrats.
“I'm busy getting people out to vote and feel it's very important,” Cooke said.
She also joined the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce and hopes to see a “more vibrant downtown area.”
A major concern for her is climate change.
“I see a 20-year drought, wildfires, heatwaves last year,” Cooke said. “I mean, my God, to me, it's just so blatantly obvious that we should be concerned about climate change.”
She said that fossil fuels are the main culprit but there are other ways to fight climate change, such as promoting regenerative agriculture locally.
Another big issue for Cooke is affordable housing. Cooke is also concerned about corporate giant Foster Farms moving into the area bringing “millions of chickens and tons of manure” with them.
Cooke said that she and her fellow Democratic candidates are running “in solidarity” with each other.
“We just want someone who shares democratic, progressive values,” Cooks said. “So, we're in support of each other."
Nina Brenner
Brenner has worked as a systems and database analyst, a software engineer, and K-12 teacher, according to her election filing. She’s now retired. She received her associate’s degree from Linn Benton Community College, her bachelor’s degree from Western Oregon University and her master’s from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
She was not available for an interview but directed Register-Guard readers to a website, kodiwolf1.wixsite.com/democrats-for-or-11, that outlines all three Democratic candidates’ priorities, which are the same.
The priorities for “people of every income level” is listed as follows:
Affordable, secure, adequate and safe housing
Convenient, accessible, affordable transportation
Excellent public schools for everyone, free K-12 and affordable through graduate school
First-rate training and apprenticeship programs for the trades and technology
Top-flight medical and mental health care for everyone, without government inserting itself into decisions between patients and doctors
Quality child care for working parents
Support for small farmers practicing regenerative agriculture
Major infrastructure investments, including broadband to rural communities
Environment and climate concerns
Supporting economic development and creating better jobs
Renee Windsor-White
Windsor-White currently works as the interim administrative assistant at Christian Church in Oregon and Southwest Idaho, assists Silverton First Christian Church as a pulpit supply preacher and is the co-director of Asian Dogs Rescue Allies, according to her election filling. She received her bachelor's degree at Eureka College and her master’s at Yale University Divinity College.
She did not respond to a request for an interview. However, her name is also listed on the website Brenner directed voters to. The website promotes all three running Democrats and lists the priorities included above.
Contact reporter Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick at Tatiana@registerguard.com or 541-521-7512. Follow her on Twitter @TatianaSophiaPT.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Primary 2022: Meet Dems running 'in solidarity' for House District 11
