WASHINGTON — Oregon’s two Republican members of Congress are navigating their party’s response to hot-button issues, while the 2024 campaign for their seats is already well under way.

U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Happy Valley, issued a statement Wednesday, April 19, that she is reviewing proposed legislation by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., that ties approval of an increase in the federal debt ceiling to cuts in programs backed by President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats who control the Senate.

“The congresswoman has made it clear several times, including right after President Biden’s State of the Union address in early February, that she does not support cuts to Social Security or Medicare,” said Aaron Britt, Chavez-DeRemer’s communications director, based in Washington, D.C.

Britt said their office had received a copy of the 320-page bill proposed by McCarthy at 3 p.m. Eastern time on April 19. Staff will meet with Chavez-DeRemer in coming days to analyze the impact of the bill in preparation for a possible vote next week.

Oregon’s other Republican member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, declined comment on the proposal. Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes all or part of 20 counties across Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Oregon.

Bentz aide Knox McCutcheon said the congressman required up to 72 hours to respond to any questions involving substantial issues so that he could comment directly instead of through staff. 

The positions underscored the different electoral realities facing Bentz and Chavez-DeRemer, who are part of Republicans’ razor thin 222-213 majority in the U.S. House.

McCarthy on Wednesday called on Democrats to negotiate spending cuts in order to raise the federal debt ceiling.

“They have no more excuse to refuse to negotiate,” McCarthy said. “President Biden has a choice: come to the table and stop playing partisan political games, or cover his ears, refuse to negotiate, and risk bumbling his way into the first default in our nation’s history.”

CNN reported McCarthy’s bill would pair raising the debt limit with spending cuts to programs backed by Biden and Senate Democrats. The news network said the proposal includes a mandatory 10-year cap on federal spending, a ban on student loan forgiveness proposals, pulling back COVID-19 pandemic funds, and a guarantee to pass a Republican energy bill that would reverse environmental standards.

Biden fired back at Republicans, saying McCarthy was pushing a narrow partisan agenda at the cost of damaging the nation’s economy and traditional standing as a guarantee to pay its bills, even if it increased the national debt.

“America is not a deadbeat nation, we meet our obligations,” Biden said in a speech on April 19. “No one should do anything to jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States of America. They say we’re going to default unless I agree to all these wacko notions of theirs.”

Senate Democrats also turned up the heat on the debate. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, issued a statement.

“No House Republican economic plan is complete without an attack on health care in America,” Wyden said. “Speaker McCarthy’s ransom now includes health care for millions of working people, and even their food.”

Wyden didn’t comment on either Chavez-DeRemer or Bentz directly, but laid out the repercussions of following McCarthy’s initiatives.

“Republicans manufactured this crisis, and Speaker McCarthy’s proposal to get out of it would destroy jobs, worsen health care, increase hunger, hurt the climate and make millions of American families poorer,” he said. “This hostage taking cannot continue.”

Chavez-DeRemer is among Republicans who flipped Democrat-held seats to give Republicans control of the House for the first time since 2018. In late March, Chavez-DeRemer was named by the online magazine Politico to the “Power List” of 40 people who were “movers and shakers on politics, culture and identity in 2022.”

“The Latino population in Oregon, while small, is growing rapidly,” Politico wrote of Chavez-DeRemer. “She will be essential to the Republican Party’s strategy to win over Latino voters, harnessing a slow-but-steady shift to conservatism among this demographic.”

Democrats are already targeting the 5th Congressional District seat she holds as a top priority for the 2024 election. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on April 3 included Chavez-DeRemer as one of 31 “vulnerable Republicans” who would be the focus of extra attention and fundraising for 2024.

The House Majority PAC is already running online ads suggesting Chavez-DeRemer could vote to cut Medicare and Social Security. The ads display her Washington office phone number, telling Oregon residents to call and register their demand that she support the widely popular social programs. 

Republicans are also gearing up to spend big to retain the seat. Chavez-DeRemer has already filed federal paperwork to run for re-election, a requirement to continue fundraising. The Federal Elections Commission reported Chavez-DeRemer raised $635,599 in the first three months of 2023, more than twice as much as the just over $310,000 raised by second-leading Oregon U.S. House member, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake Oswego. Chavez-DeRemer and Salinas are incumbents in the two most competitive congressional districts in Oregon. 

Bentz is among the vast majority of Republicans who are in districts with lopsided Republican voter registration edges, one of the reasons his approximately $100,000 in fundraising in the first quarter of 2023 is on pace for the level of financing to win the district.

Unlike Republican-dominated states such as Texas, Tennessee and Wisconsin, where Democrats claim GOP gerrymandering has created safe districts, the 2nd Congressional District seat held by Bentz was drawn by majority Democrats in the Oregon Legislature who put Republican strongholds in Eastern, Central and Southwestern Oregon into the one district so that the other five had Democratic voting tilts ranging from overwhelming to moderate.

The upcoming debt vote and its impact on the Oregon political scene are a result of an unexpected fallout from a Democratic-drawn map of new districts that was meant to result in Democrats sweeping all but one of the state’s six congressional seats.

Prior to 2022, Democrats held four of five congressional districts, with the 2nd Congressional District seat held by Bentz as an overwhelmingly Republican seat. By ceding the 2nd district, Democrats kept an edge in the other four seats.

Oregon was awarded a sixth congressional seat beginning in 2022 because of population growth over the past two decades.

Redistricting approved by the Legislature and then-Gov. Kate Brown for the 2022 election created new district boundaries that included a new 6th district centered around Salem and a controversial 5th District that was shifted east and ran from the southern edge of Portland, over the Santiam Pass, to take in increasingly Democratic areas around Bend and northern Deschutes County.

The 4th Congressional District centered around Eugene and Roseburg had seen a trend toward more conservative voting patterns that gave U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio the closest race of his long career in 2020, when he won 51.5% of the vote to defeat Republican Alek Skarlatos, who received 46.2% of the vote. 

The Legislature shifted some of the more heavily Republican areas into Bentz’s 2nd district, increasing the Democratic tilt in the 4th District. DeFazio opted to retire and endorsed Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who dropped her re-election bid to run for Congress. Skarlatos was the Republican candidate again and received major campaign donations in an attempt by Republicans to win what had become an open seat.

Hoyle won 51% of the vote, a smaller percentage than DeFazio in 2020. But Skarlatos’ percentage dropped even further, with just 43%. Three minor party candidates split 6% of the vote, padding Hoyle’s margin of victory.

Republicans also made a big push for the 6th Congressional District, where Salinas, one of the key architects in the Legislature of the redistricting maps, won 36% of the vote in a nine-way Democratic primary marked by heavy spending by cryptocurrency entrepreneurs backing newcomer Carrick Flynn, who finished a distant second.

Mike Erickson won 35% of the vote in a seven-candidate Republican race, with Rep. Ron Noble, R-McMinnville, finishing second.

Republicans spent heavily on the 6th District race, but Democratic leadership groups also contributed large sums to Salinas. In a close race, Salinas won a fraction above 50% of the vote in November.

But Erickson received 47.5%, with Larry McFarland of the conservative Constitution Party tallying 2.3%, which padded Salinas’ victory margin.

The upset came in the 5th district. Chavez-DeRemer won a closed Republican primary. On the Democratic side, incumbent U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby ran in a district that was significantly different following the approval of new maps. It ran from the southern end of Portland, over the Santiam Pass and into northern Deschutes County, including Bend.

While Schrader was a centrist in Congress, key votes and controversial statements criticizing efforts to impeach President Donald Trump placed him on the right of the Democratic caucus’ political spectrum. Terrebonne attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner challenged Schrader in the May primary and won the party’s nomination.

Top House Democrats snubbed McLeod-Skinner when it came to contributions from the biggest leadership political action committee. Chavez-DeRemer won by just under 7,200 votes out of 316,361 cast.