Issues:

Creating new jobs for Oregonians.

The role of state government is to provide an environment in which businesses can thrive and grow. Instead of being punished for successes, businesses should be rewarded for creating jobs and employing Oregonians.

Legislative incentives for startup, growth and expansion opportunities can help businesses to survive and then flourish as they hire more people and increase production.

We need to make it easier for small businesses to work with state agencies by simplifying the bureaucracy for contracting and permitting. Suffocating taxes, fees and regulations prevent businesses from creating jobs and need to be reviewed regularly to determine if they are doing what they were intended to do or if they are simply standing in the way of success for Oregon's small businesses.

Education first, not last.

Public schools are being held hostage in Oregon. The largest budget item and supposedly the most important, education most often is the last item to be funded by our State Legislature. Patrick voted to fund education first in 2011, protecting K 12 from shortfalls in projections, and keeping education funding from being used as a political football.

If we are serious about education being important to Oregon's future and the future of its children, we need to continue to fund education before anything else in the state budget.

Our priorities in education should be providing funding for classrooms, supporting school choice and local control, and rewarding excellent teachers and student populations. Education needs to move to the front of the classroom and be recognized for its importance to our economy and our future.

Keeping Oregonians safe.

Measure 11's mandatory minimum sentences help prosecutors keep violent criminals off the street. We need to protect Measure 11 as it falls under attack from the Governor and the Legislature to keep violent offenders behind bars and away from your family.

Once criminals are behind bars, they need to serve their time. Too often, thanks to soft politicians, criminals are being released after serving less than half their sentences. This is unacceptable. Prisoners need to do their time with reasonable incentives for good behavior and rehabilitation - not automatic sentence reductions. Releasing prisoners early and without merit mocks the suffering of victims and put your family in harm's way.

Rural Issues & Property Rights

I support protecting family farms by reforming the death tax. I oppose unnecessary intrusion like the “tree cutting permit” being discussed by Clackamas County. I believe we need to give property owners more control over zoning and land use regulations.

Re-thinking health care.

A government solution for health care is the wrong direction. Instead, a culture shift is needed in those who provide and receive care. Some of the factors contributing to the current crisis are:

• Over consumption of diagnostic medicine - Doctors are sued or disciplined for missing obscure and unlikely diagnoses, and often prescribe unnecessary tests to avoid the trouble or to appease a patient's requests. Additionally, hospital imaging policies at the patients' end-of-life provides little diagnostic benefit for the terminally ill, and serve only to protect the legal interests of the hospital. This is nothing the government can or should be involved with regulating, but we as Oregonians need to come together to shift the culture to something more sustainable.
• Out-of-control lawsuits - Our current system actually encourages lawsuits against medical professionals when juries award outrageous sums to patients and their families. Everyone deserves protection for malpractice and adequate health care but our current system rewards trial lawyers – not patients.
• "All-access" Insurance - Instead of being used as it was originally intended, as a protection against an unlikely eventuality, health insurance is now thought of as taking care of everything. We don't use car insurance to pay for new tires or windshield wipers but we want health insurance to pay for every doctor visit and bottle of aspirin.

My stance on health care revolves around shifting the culture of over-consumption of diagnostic medicine, stopping out-of-control lawsuits, and accepting some level of financial responsibility for our own health. Taking responsibility for our own health includes lots of things – eating healthy, exercising, and visiting the doctor if we get sick. If we don't have insurance, then we should pay for a doctor visit before the problem gets worse (and more expensive) at one of the dozens of clinics that offer affordable walk-in care for published prices. We owe it to each other to take some level of responsibility for our own health care, so we're not clogging expensive emergency rooms with uninsured individuals who could have caught their health problems early.

As a state government, we need to rethink "Cadillac" health insurance benefits for public employees, and offer choice and portability in plans offered.

A voice for citizens.

Wading through the bureaucracy of state government to accomplish anything can be intimidating, frustrating and confusing. As government agencies grow, it becomes easier for Oregonians to become caught in the system's inefficiencies and confusing regulations and requirements.

As a representative of the people of my district, I encourage constituents to contact my office when they feel stuck or become intimidated in dealing with a state agency.

I use my oversight to try and correct the immediate problem for my constituents and address the bigger picture through legislative oversight. We need state agencies to be efficient and effective with our tax dollars and remember they are providing a service to Oregonians.

Other issues

The issues above are my priorities, but that doesn't mean that other issues are unimportant. If you have a question or would like clarification on an issue, please contact me at patrick@patricksheehan.org and I will do my best to answer your question as soon as possible.