Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home City Councilor Susan Coleman filed Nov. 24 in what is shaping up to be a crowded Republican Party primary election for state House District 17.
Coleman joins a group of candidates that includes Jami Cate of Lebanon, Bruce Cuff of Mehama, Scott Sword of Sublimity and Timothy L. Kirsch of Mill City – all Republicans. No Democrats have filed at this point. The filing deadline for the May 19 primary election is March 10.
Major-party candidates may file online at the secretary of state’s website, sos.oregon.gov.
House District 17 primarily covers east Linn County, including Sweet Home, Lebanon and Stayton, as well as communities to the east along Highways 20 and 22. Rep. Sherrie Sprenger will serve in the position through the end of 2020.
Sprenger has announced her candidacy for the Linn County Board of Commissioners. Incumbent Commissioner Will Tucker has announced his intent to retire at the completion of his current term at the end of 2020.
Coleman is Sprenger’s legislative assistant and will continue working for Sprenger through the short session after the first of the year.
Coleman said the seed of the idea was planted awhile ago.
“I have to say, the first day I was in the Capitol, they asked me,” she said. She went to work for Sprenger in 2018.
“I needed a job and she needed an assistant. After the onslaught of bad legislation that came (last year), I became concerned about rural Oregon.”
She said she heard comments among urban legislators that rural residents should just move into the bigger cities and get green jobs.
“That concerns me because Sweet Home is my home,” said Coleman, noting that her ancestors came to the state on the Oregon Trail in 1847. “I want to be an experienced voice for rural Oregon, their economy, jobs, schools and health.
“Rural Oregon is close to my heart. I am very protective of people that I care about. I’m concerned about the jobs and managing our natural resources better.”
Coleman said she is secretary treasurer with the Oregon Sportsmen’s Caucus, which strives to keep fishing and hunting legal in Oregon and to make sure laws are in place that do that. She also is concerned about managing forests “to keep jobs and help the environment too.”
Among numerous bills that concerned her last year was the cap and trade bill that failed after Republican senators left the state and refused to allow the Senate to reach a quorum and vote on the bill. She also worries about the corporate activity tax, which did pass, imposing a gross revenues tax that, despite a bottom limit of $1 million in revenues, will impact small businesses and farmers.
State officials projected $2 billion in revenues from the tax, which is supposed to boost education funding.
“I’m not against education,” Coleman said. “I would really like to see education improved. I’m not sure harming small businesses is really the way to do it.”
As a gross revenues tax, farmers must pay even if they lose money, Coleman said, and farmers have large expenses that easily push even small farms into taxable levels.
With the current makeup of the state legislature, a Democratic supermajority, fighting those kinds of bills is tough.
“If it’s a superminority again, playing nicely with others is key,” Coleman said, and working in the Capitol, she has already gotten to know people in the legislature. She’s learned how bills move through the legislature and how committees, which review and modify proposed laws, work.
“I’m not behind the eight ball when I come into that building.”
She has spent a lot of time getting to know how it all works, she said. It takes a lot of time. During the session last year, she would leave for work at 6 a.m., at the latest, and return home at 7:30 p.m. every day for six months. Some days, she would leave for work at 4:45 a.m. and return at 9:30 p.m.
Coleman has served as a city councilor since Feb. 28, 2017.
She is married to Matt Coleman, who is pastor at Hillside Fellowship. They have four children, Madelyn, 9; Nathaniel, 16; Anna, 19; and Emily Moser, 22.
Anna Coleman is currently in Iceland working with Youth with a Mission. Moser is expecting Coleman’s first grandchild in February.
Coleman said she is planning to host an official campaign kickoff in January.