Last week, Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal arguing that Oregon Republican gubernatorial candidate, Christine Drazan, could fix all of Oregon’s crime problems by fully funding the Oregon State Police.

Unfortunately, Hogan is badly informed about both the true solutions to restoring public safety in Oregon and the true law enforcement candidate. He’s an East Coast politician relying on talking points instead of actual solutions. With a combined 70 plus years’ experience in local law enforcement we know the candidate and the solutions that will help save Oregon.

Betsy Johnson, a longtime state senator who’s running for governor as an independent, was just endorsed by over 90 current and former law enforcement professionals and crime victims’ advocates in Oregon. Unlike Drazan, Betsy has consistently and staunchly opposed destructive soft-on-crime policies and has stated clearly that she will work to overturn them all.

Both before and after the 2020 Portland riots, state lawmakers pushed through anti-police and anti-victim legislation that both Kotek and Drazan supported but Betsy opposed (House Bills 2928 & 3273). Johnson is also the only candidate for governor to vote against Senate Bill 1008 (2019) that cut prison time for juvenile murderers and sex offenders. Last month, Drazan inexplicably stated that if she were elected, she wouldn’t even try to overturn that law.

From our decades of experience, we know OSP funding is a small slice of what needs to be done to restore safety and order.

Betsy’s agenda was developed by actual law enforcement professionals doing the work on the ground to stop crime and restore order in Oregon.

The irony in Hogan and Drazan’s myopic focus on only the OSP budget is that, as Oregon’s chief budget writer in the Capitol, Betsy fought for funding OSP and has a plan to use them to vigorously enforce criminal laws in the Portland area immediately upon taking office.

Because Hogan and Drazan, to our knowledge, didn’t consult to any significant extent with Oregon law enforcement leaders on what is needed, it appears they aren’t even firm in what to do with a fully funded OSP, in addition to not being aware of the other steps that need to be taken. They’re just taking a guess.

Fewer than 10 years ago, there were 14 homicides in Portland. Last year, there were 93. Portland is on a pace to match or exceed that number this year. Gov. Brown and candidate Kotek’s policies cut loose nearly 3,000 inmates from the state prison system, almost overnight. Today, in Multnomah County alone, there are almost 300 fully funded beds that should be full of criminals, but sit empty because of soft-on-crime policies Kotek and Brown support.

Betsy Johnson is endorsed by an unprecedented four former superintendents of state police, 24 current district attorneys, 17 current and former sheriffs, three former Oregon State Police Officers Association presidents, the Oregon Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, Crime Victims United, ORCOPS, the Eugene Police Officers’ Association, the Sheriffs of Oregon and the Oregon Chiefs of Police Association. Betsy is the choice and voice of law enforcement because she’s had our back and we have hers.

Although Drazan has on occasion supported law enforcement and did help stop a further erosion of the sentencing laws in a recent session, her role has been minor and episodic compared to Betsy’s.

We know some Oregon schools don’t assign homework for some grades anymore, but that doesn’t mean Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan shouldn’t do his.

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