Kazakhstan is campaigning on a variety of Republican issues, but she remains adamant about one thing: freedom from vaccination requirements.
“In America, as US citizens, we have the right to get sick if we want, right?” Kazachev said in an Oct. 9 question-and-answer session posted on her Facebook page. “That’s the beauty of this country.”
She did not return calls from WW. But allies say she was motivated by 2019 House Bill 3063, which would have removed a vaccine exemption for children whose parents don’t believe in vaccinations. Does this contribute to her motivation to run for office? A snub from incumbent state Rep. Teresa Alonso León (D-Woodburn) during this lobbying effort.
“Anna Kasachev met with her opponent who assumed that she, like many members of the Russian Old Believer community, was not a registered voter,” said Bob Snee, a board member of Oregonians for Medical Freedom, a lobbying group opposed to increasing vaccination rates . “She and others were told that they were not ‘voters’ and that their opponent would not even give them time to listen to them.”
Alonso León disputes this account and says she sat down with her and offered to meet again on other topics. “That’s an absolute lie,” she says. “I am very proud to represent my entire district and all the people in it.”
Now Kazachev wants Alonso León’s seat to give a voice to people who believe vaccinations are harmful.
For many Oregonians, hope for a return to normality depends on the development of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine — and widespread acceptance of its use. But members of Oregonians for Medical Freedom, the group that lobbied against HB 3063, have gone beyond lobbying and run for office.
Kazachev joins Beaverton state Senate candidate Harmony Mulkey and McMinnville City Council candidate Brittany Ruiz among vaccine skeptics seeking office on a platform that would require no one to get vaccinated.
“The women you mentioned and others were probably inspired to run because they didn’t like what they saw and heard from elected officials, both privately and in legislative hearings and chambers,” Snee says. “There are many Oregonians who believe so strongly in medical freedom that the vaccine issue turns them into individual voters.”
As the coronavirus pandemic dominates daily life, vaccines have become a battleground in the election campaign. Oregonians for Medical Freedom has also made relatively modest campaign contributions to Republicans who opposed HB 3063, including $250 to Secretary of State candidate Sen. Kim Thatcher, $1,000 to State Sen. Tim Knopp of Bend and $1,500 to State Sen. Denyc Boles from Salem.
But the Democrats have also taken up the issue. In some key Senate districts, Democrats are using the vaccination issue to hurt Republicans, particularly in the hotly contested Marion County legislative seat that Boles holds.
“Our future depends on a lot of science and a safe vaccine,” says a mailer from the Oregon Democratic Party. “Denyc Boles doesn’t believe in either.”
Democrats are trying to link Oregon’s vaccine debates to national Republicans’ unscientific response to the pandemic.
“Our candidates trust public health and science experts,” said Meghan Cavanaugh, executive director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Fund. “You are running against Republican incumbents who question the science behind vaccines. The anti-vaccine movement both threatens public health and is completely at odds with the position of most Oregonians who have made it clear that they trust scientific experts.”
Boles, then a member of the House of Representatives, opposed HB 3063. “My children have all received vaccinations,” she says now. “I believe in science. I also believe that parents should have a say in their children’s healthcare. I also think it is important to note that HB 3063 was opposed by members of both parties.”
Democrats are pursuing a similar strategy against Sen. Knopp in Bend. Like Boles, Knopp holds one of the GOP seats most vulnerable to Democrats.
A mailer from the Oregon Democratic Party adds in a bullet point list: “He’s an anti-vaxxer” with the slogan “Tim Knopp: Too extreme for Central Oregon.”
Knopp was the only Republican state senator who did not participate in the GOP’s last walkout in 2020, so it might be difficult to label him an extremist. But he rejects efforts to increase vaccination rates.
Knopp was the sole sponsor of a 2019 bill that would ban employers from requiring vaccinations as a condition of employment, and he voted against a bill that would have required disclosure of vaccination rates.
“If the government can send you a directive to undergo a medical procedure you don’t want, there is no freedom in America,” he said at a rally in 2019.
Knopp says he is not campaigning on the topic of vaccines and that he is not an “anti-vaxxer.”
“Democrats are misrepresenting everyone’s opinion on this issue,” he says. “I’m in favor of informed consent – which, by the way, is part of the Democratic platform.”
Democrats are hoping to defeat Boles and Knopp to prevent future Republican walkouts, a tactic Republicans have repeatedly used to stall carbon reduction bills. A victory over the duo would have a second advantage for the Democrats: clearing the way for compulsory vaccination.
In the past, vaccinations have not been a party political issue. In 2019, State Senator Chuck Thomsen (R-Hood River) co-sponsored HB 3063, while three of his Democratic colleagues, Sens. Jeff Golden of Ashland, Lee Beyer of Springfield and Betsy Johnson of Scappoose, were not considered for support.
Most Oregonians and most Americans support expanding vaccination laws. A 2016 national Pew Research poll found that 83% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans supported requiring vaccinations for healthy schoolchildren. Likewise, the vast majority of Oregonians vaccinate their children, but for many of the few who don’t, it may be the most important issue of all.
It’s unclear whether the pandemic will change that, especially as confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine has waned. According to a September Economist/YouGov poll, a third of Republicans and 19% of Democrats say they will not get a COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available.
Meanwhile, another vaccine activist is running for city council in the Willamette Valley wine region.
In perhaps the most unlikely endorsement of Oregon’s political season, a Hollywood actress weighed in on a McMinnville City Council race, calling for a vote against a challenger named Brittany Ruiz.
“Your sole purpose in running for office is to secretly represent Scientology and gain influence over the activities of this destructive cult,” Leah Remini, a renegade Scientologist who starred in the sitcom “The King of Queens,” tweeted on Oct. 14 .
Even though the city council position is nonpartisan and unpaid, Ruiz’s candidacy is attracting attention.
Although the Church of Scientology has not officially endorsed an anti-vaccination position, Scientologists have participated in efforts to oppose California’s proposed legislation to eliminate vaccine exemptions.
Ruiz has been a vocal opponent of mandatory vaccination in Oregon. Oregon’s rate of child exemptions for non-medical reasons is among the highest in the country. But after the 2019 measles outbreak, Ruiz called the Oregon Health Authority’s characterization of vaccination rates “incorrect.”
“I valued the insights of Scientology,” she says. “My worldview takes a broad look at a range of ideologies. This taught me to accept everyone’s path without judgment.”
Rachel Monahan reported this story with support from the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the 2020 National Fellowship of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.
[This story was originallly published by Willamette Week.]