Former Oregon speaker of the House seeks return political arena

Candidate forum - Mark Simmons

Mark Simmons speaks at the candidate forum at the Catherine Creek Community Center in Union on March 21, 2024. Simmons is one of nine candidates running for Union County Commissioner in the upcoming primary election.

ELGIN — Ask Mark Simmons why he is running for Position 3 on the Union County Board of Commissioners and he provides an answer that is as concise as it is heartfelt.

“Our grandchildren,” the Elgin man said. “I want to help make this world a better place for our grandchildren to live.’’

Simmons and his wife, Joni, have 11 grandchildren, all of them born after he first entered the political arena in 1996 and was elected to represent District 58 in the Oregon House of Representatives. Simmons took office in 1997 and served through early January of 2003.

Along the way he made history when he was elected speaker of the House in 2001, becoming the first and only person from Union County to serve in that position, which he held for two years.

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Three years after leaving the Legislature, Simmons returned to public service when he was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the director of Oregon’s USDA Rural Development program. Simmons helped rural Oregon communities get funding for infrastructure projects, including the building of water and sewer systems during his four-year tenure in the position.

While with the USDA and the Oregon Legislature, Simmons said he has always strived to help veterans, something he would continue to do as county commissioner.

“They have invested in our country,” he said. “They have put their lives on the line for us.”

County issues

Simmons said if elected commissioner, he would work to boost the county’s economic climate to make it possible for families to thrive here.

“Good families make for strong communities and strong communities make for good towns and good towns make for good counties,” Simmons said, adding that boosting the local economy would also strengthen families by making it possible for more young people who grow up in Union County to stay, or later return if they do move away.

Simmons said Union County’s economy would benefit significantly from the addition of more midsize production companies like Barreto Manufacturing, which employs about 130 people and has plants at La Grande Industrial Park and just east of Hot Lake.

“A couple of more plants like Barreto’s would be fantastic,” Simmons said of the firm that has been in Union County since 1986 and produces tillers, trenchers, log splitters and trailers.

Simmons is also concerned about drug problems in Union County.

“It is awful,” he said.

Simmons attributes much of it to Measure 110, which Oregon voters approved in 2020. Measure 110 decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs and enacted a system of $100 citations that a person could avoid if they obtained a health assessment.

Simmons said a step taken by the Legislature recently to repeal portions of Measure 110 by adding teeth to it to make it easier for police to enforce drug laws will be helpful, but he believes it did not go far enough.

“It was a half step,” he said. “I want hard drug use to be fully re-criminalized.”

Greater Idaho

The candidate is a supporter of the Greater Idaho movement that calls for a portion of Idaho’s western border to be pushed west into Eastern Oregon.

Simmons said the movement reflects how upset many people are with the west side of the state dictating how things are run in Eastern Oregon. He said the movement is a result of a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reduced the representation of lightly populated areas in their state legislatures. This is largely responsible, Simmons said, for the gulf between the east and west sides of the state that, he said, exists today.

“Our culture and thought (are) not being represented,” he said.

Simmons said he began supporting the Greater Idaho movement after Union County voters passed Ballot Measure 31-101 in 2020. The measure requires the Union County Board of Commissioners to meet three times a year to discuss the Greater Idaho movement and take public input on it.

He said that after the passage of Measure 31-101 he began looking at those involved in the Greater Idaho movement and found that many were people he knew and respected.

Simmons is one of nine candidates for Position 3 on the Union County Board of Commissioners. The candidates are seeking to succeed Donna Beverage who is completing her eighth year as commissioner and cannot run for reelection because of term limits Union County voters approved several years ago.