Fact-check on Betsy Johnson’s “Law and Order” Event

Photo credit: Kaylee Domzalski, OPB

Betsy didn’t forget to bring props to her “Law and Order” event last week, but she did forget to mention a few crucial bills that are a part of her decades long voting record that tell a different story than the one she’s choosing to share.
 
Here are a few updates to some of Betsy’s claims:

“Under ballot Measure 110, it’s legal to have this many fentanyl laced pills that could kill an entire community and it’s not a crime. You get a bigger fine for parking in a handicap spot than possessing this much fentanyl, and that is simply wrong.”

• Betsy, like her Democrat colleague Tina Kotek voted for Senate Bill 755, a bill that amended and provided for the implementation of Measure 110 that decriminalized drugs and exacerbated the drug abuse and overdose crisis in the state.

“I’ll file legislation to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for violent criminals like murders, rapists, and child molesters of any age.”

• Betsy joined Tina in voting for House Bill 3508 that increased earned-time sentence reductions for “non-violent offenders” by an additional 10%. Meaning offenders who were already eligible for a 20% sentence reduction became eligible for a 30% reduction.
• And when prosecutors spoke out against the bill, the then Democrat legislators Tina Kotek and Betsy Johnson signed a budget that cut their pay.
  • Of which amounted to a pay cut of about $5,000 for prosecutors.

“[Tina] and Kate Brown want to stop arresting, prosecuting, and holding criminals accountable as part of their effort to make the world where there are no criminals because no one can get arrested, and no one stays in jail.”

• In June 2021, Tina and Betsy voted in favor of Senate Bill 48, a Governor Kate Brown priority passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature that allows for the release of perpetrators of violent hate crimes without bail by means of eliminating “certain mandatory minimum bail amounts currently in statute.”

“Tina and Betsy have been voting together for 15 years; that’s quite the history, filled with so many memories! We will be here, happy to help the longtime Democrat legislators remember those cherished years together,” said RGA Spokeswoman Kaitlin Price. “From their votes to eliminate minimum bail requirements for violent criminals, to their agreement to pump taxpayer money into the failed Measure 110, Portlanders fleeing due to rising crime and Oregonians fed up with this persistent crisis won’t be signing on to four more years of Democrat control under Tina Kotek nor Betsy Johnson that brought on this sad reality.”