The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

I have noticed the letter campaign in The Nugget unfairly attacking Greg Walden. As a concerned voter I feel compelled to correct the record.

Greg Walden's opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, is trying to re-market herself as a "moderate" Democrat. But her driving around the district for a few months cannot disguise the fact that she has spent her career as a California/Portland/Ashland liberal. She touts her endorsements from hard-left groups such as the Unete Center (its logo is a clenched red fist) and Working Families Party, who want to abolish any enforcement of our borders and fire the brave federal law enforcement officers who apprehend unlawful aliens who commit crimes in our country.

She claims that her "wife's family have been ranching in Eastern Oregon for generations," but that family has stated, "It's time to clear up this nonsense about Jamie McLeod-Skinner being part of our ranch family. She's a California liberal who came out to the ranch a few months back and got a selfie under our sign. Her wife may share our last name, but they're a distant branch of the family. We're asking her to stop using our ranch sign in her campaign and stop misleading voters. It's not how we do things out here."

Indeed, the family has endorsed Greg Walden.

McLeod-Skinner now says she "supports" the Second Amendment, but during her eight years as a councilwoman in the radical San Francisco Bay Area there is no record that she ever opposed their draconian gun ban laws.

If she supported the Second Amendment she would have taken action then, rather than pretend to support it now when politically expedient here.

She would ban the semiautomatic rifles safely used in Oregon for hunting, personal protection, and target shooting for generations.

Her Democrat Party seeks to overturn the Supreme Court's Heller decision, which held that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right belonging to the people, not to the government.

If her party gets its way, you will have no Constitutional right at all.

The idea that if elected she would buck her own party to protect our Second Amendment rights is not credible.

In recent weeks we have seen left-wing mobs take over the streets of Portland and assault motorists and federal law enforcement officers while the Democrat mayor and governor let the police look the other way. McLeod-Skinner should have called for the resignation of Portland's mayor, but she will not stand up to her fellow Democrats.

Some writers have falsely accused Greg Walden of plotting to take healthcare away from children. Even The Washington Post called that a lie. Rep. Walden, as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has made sure the Children's Health Insurance Program ("CHIP") has a full 10 years of funding for the first time. Several letters have also incorrectly claimed that Greg Walden will remove coverage for pre-existing conditions.

McLeod-Skinner wants voters to believe that any change to the dysfunctional ObamaCare means cancelling insurance for pre-existing conditions. Not true. The result of ObamaCare has been a dwindling number of insurance companies who will even offer insurance in many states. Greg Walden has pledged to retain coverage for pre-existing conditions and was a lead sponsor of legislation to protect such coverage. McLeod-Skinner and her Democrat Party seek to replace our healthcare choices with a "Universal Single-Payer" (read "taxpayer") system of government-controlled and rationed medicine.

Greg Walden has been a careful, moderate and effective bi-partisan voice for this district. He is the only committee chair Oregon has in Congress. He has spent his life in this district, and he knows and will protect our forests. I encourage voters to turn out for Greg Walden.