State Rep. Cyrus Javadi, shown in this undated, provided image, announced this week that he changed his party affiliation. The Tillamook lawmaker is now a member of the Democratic Party.
Courtesy of Rep. Javadi's office
To some of his colleagues and constituents, Oregon state Rep. Cyrus Javadi has been voting like a Democrat for months.
Now the former Tillamook Republican has made it official.
Javadi announced Friday that he switched his registration to the majority party this week, ahead of a Sept. 4 deadline to do so in order to run as a Democrat in next year’s election.
“Being an elected leader has never been about party loyalty to me,” Javadi said in a statement. “It’s been about how I can best fight for our community and our state.”
The switch is partly a reflection of political reality. Javadi, a two-term lawmaker and dentist by trade, voted with Democrats on hot-button issues repeatedly during this year’s five-month legislative session.
He backed a bill that makes it more difficult to ban controversial books in schools, penning a lengthy reflection about his views on the issue on his Substack account. He also supported a resolution honoring Black drag performers when some in his party refused even to attend the vote.
And he was one of the only Republicans to support renewing a largely noncontroversial tax on health care providers that helps the state bring in federal Medicaid funding.
Those votes have already prompted a recall campaign against Javadi, but it was a vote he took earlier this week that more fully severed him from the GOP.
Javadi was the only Republican to cross the aisle on Monday to vote in favor of Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek’s package of tax and fee hikes to fund road maintenance and avoid layoffs. The vote was decisive: Without Javadi’s yes, the bill would have died in the House.
The tax vote was all but certain to make Javadi’s path to reelection as a Republican difficult, something he acknowledged on the chamber floor.
“I think my job’s worth the handful of jobs [the bill is] going to save in Astoria if it comes to that,” he said. “Or the hundreds more it’s going to save across the state.”
Political observers were already predicting a GOP primary challenge in which Javadi was likely to overwhelmingly lose his bid for the party nomination — a not unfamiliar occurrence for Republicans that stray from party orthodoxy.
The path to reelection as a Democrat is likely more straightforward. Javadi’s district, House District, 32, spans the north coast from Astoria to Neskowin, and has long been viewed as winnable by both parties.
While Democrats currently hold a registration advantage of more than 2,000 voters over Republicans, nonaffiliated voters outnumber them both. HD 32 was held by Democrats until the 2020 election.
Javadi is already working with FuturePAC, the House Democrats’ campaign arm, likely ensuring he won’t face a strong challenge in the party primary. Beyond Javadi, no one has filed a political action committee indicating plans to run for the seat.
If Javadi was having doubts about his party before, they were magnified in the last week.
Following his transportation tax vote, Javadi wrote on Substack that he’s been labeled as “vile,” a “criminal,” and a “traitor.” But he said he’d already grown leery of his party’s values by the time the regular session closed.
He told OPB Friday that he stopped meeting with Republicans in closed caucus meetings in mid-June, after most in his party refused to back a bill he viewed as instrumental. It would have given cities like those in his coastal district more leeway to spend lodging taxes paid by tourists on things like infrastructure and police.
“Every priority for Oregon’s North Coast, nearly every single one, ran into opposition from my own party,” Javadi wrote in the Substack post. “Protecting Medicaid benefits for the nearly 60% of children in Tillamook and Clatsop counties? Opposed. Keeping rural hospitals afloat? Opposed. Preserving students’ access to books that reflect who they are? Opposed. Protecting the First Amendment rights of people different from ourselves? Opposed.”
Javadi concluded that he has not changed. He believes his party has.
“Time after time this past session, it was Democrats who stepped up to support the priorities of the coast, even though I wore the other team’s jersey,” he wrote. “It didn’t matter to them. What mattered was whether the policy worked.”
In response to the announcement Friday, the House Republicans’ campaign arm, Evergreen PAC, said the party remains committed to values like lowering taxes, improving schools, and ending homelessness.
“That mission is not affected by today’s announcement,” Evergreen PAC said in a statement. “Instead it strengthens our work, and our caucus, to advance those ideals by giving the north coast the opportunity to support a new leader who will put the needs of their communities above themselves.”
But Javadi may not be an obvious or entirely easy fit in the Democratic party, either.
While he has gained influential friends with the recent tax vote — it’ll save hundreds of jobs for members of unions that back Democrats — he holds some views at odds with many Dems. The Oregon Capitol Chronicle noted in July he has sponsored legislation to limit abortion access.
The switcharoo means Democrats will have an even larger majority in the House during next year’s short session: 37 of the chamber’s 60 seats.
That’s assuming Javadi isn’t recalled. A Clatskanie woman named Katrina Nelson filed a recall petition against him in late June, saying he is “out of touch” with constituents and citing his votes alongside Democrats. The campaign has until Sept. 24 to collect a little more than 5,400 signatures from voters in HD 32.
The recall campaign hasn’t reported raising any money to do so.
