Like many of my co-workers in the State Capitol, I slept late on the morning of Nov. 6.
Questions fostered anxiety: What will this new administration mean for our LGBTQ friends, women or vibrant immigrant communities? What will it mean for health care, the environment or any number of topics I’d worked on over the past several years? Electoral grief and a creeping sense of hopelessness made for the perfect justification to stay in bed, under sheets and blankets where I tried to hide from the news of Donald Trump’s reelection.
But after that brief indulgence in loss and a sense of helplessness, another reality set in. While the national landscape on election night tilted toward Republicans across the country, Oregon kept her Democratic edge. In fact, we expanded Democratic majorities in both the State House and Senate. We elected three new Democrats to statewide offices…