Sweet Home City Council member Angelita Sanchez announced last week that she will run for the House District 11 seat after current Rep. Jami Cate announced a run for the Oregon Senate.
Sanchez pledged “to bring common sense, courage, and rural representation back to Salem.”
“Our part of Oregon is full of hard-working families who feel forgotten,” she said in a statement. “I am running to make sure their voices are heard loud and clear in the Capitol. We need another representative who understands our way of life — and is willing to fight for it.”
A seventh-generation Oregonian, Sanchez said she has deep roots in Sweet Home and the surrounding communities. Her distant grandfather Frank Kropf is the “Father of the Ryegrass Industry.” Her grandfather Ralph Myers worked in the mills and gave her the love of forestry, she said. Sanchez said she saw what it did to Myers when the mills closed.
Sanchez said her campaign will focus on: “protecting rural jobs and natural resource industries; defending parental rights and educational choice; securing our communities and standing with law enforcement; rejecting unfunded mandates and urban overreach from Salem; and putting working Oregonians – not bureaucrats – first.”
Sanchez has worked in the legislature the last two years as an aide to Sen. Cedric Hayden (R-Fall Creek), who occupies the District 6 seat for which Cate is running.
“Angelita has earned my endorsement for the Oregon House of Representatives because she’s proven herself to be a true grassroots advocate for the people of her community,” Hayden said in the statement issued by Sanchez.
“Not only has she been a strong voice serving as a City Councilor in Sweet Home, she’s served in our Senate office as my legislative aide, engaging in complicated topics like health care, transportation taxes, and civil rights for families and people with disabilities. Her constituent service work is excellent. She has earned her place to serve as a state representative through her actions and her heart for the people of this state.”