The second-ranking Democrat in the Oregon state Senate says his decades of experience in the U.S. Army makes him the best choice to run the state’s elections and audits.
Sen. James Manning, D-Eugene, is one of two Democratic frontrunners for secretary of state. The Capital Chronicle is profiling him and Treasurer Tobias Read, the other Democratic frontrunner, and running answers to written questions from four candidates who answered them. All of the candidates are men.
Oregon’s next secretary of state will face a number of challenges. He will have to implement new campaign finance laws passed by the Legislature this year that will take effect ahead of the 2028 elections. He’ll also need to work to restore trust in both the office itself and in Oregon’s elections in general after damage dealt by former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s choice to moonlight for a marijuana company involved in an audit and by years of doubt in elections spread by former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
He’ll have to convince lawmakers to provide the necessary money and support to implement the new campaign finance laws and run elections. And he’ll need to work with local election officials around the state – several of them new to their roles after long-serving county clerks retired – to run elections smoothly.
Manning worked as a state corrections officer, police officer, railroad special agent and private investigator before enlisting in 1983 in the U.S. Army where he spent 24 years on active duty, including conducting audits as an Army assistant inspector general. That experience makes him the most qualified candidate, he said.
“There is no one else that has the background, the skills, the leadership experience that’s running for secretary of state,” he said. “That distinctively separates me from everyone else.”
After retiring from the Army in 2007, he moved to Eugene, where he quickly became involved in volunteer work that’s included chairing the Oregon Commission on Black Affairs, co-chairing the Gang Awareness Planning Committee and mediating 300 small claims sessions for Lane County. He was elected to the Eugene Water and Electric Board in 2012, appointed to the state Senate in 2016 and then elected to the Senate in 2018 and 2022.
During his years in the Legislature, Manning introduced various measures to expand access to the ballot. He sponsored a 2019 law to require the state to provide prepaid envelopes for Oregonians to mail in their ballots, which he described as a way to increase participation in rural areas where voters don’t have easy access to a ballot drop box.
He was also a chief sponsor of a law passed this year to double the number of languages into which the state-issued voters’ pamphlet is translated from the five to 10 most commonly spoken languages in each county, as well as another 2024 law that requires disclosure of the use of artificial intelligence in campaign materials.
He supported a 2023 law that expanded automatic voter registration, long a fixture of interactions at the state Driver & Motor Vehicles division, to people who receive their health care through the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s version of Medicaid. A bill Manning introduced this year to automatically register residents who applied to public universities and colleges in the state didn’t move forward.
Funding request
Manning said he has visited several county election offices and plans to make it to all 36 counties. He’s most familiar with Lane County, where he has filed election paperwork and seen firsthand how staff verify that he’s eligible to vote and run for office.
He said one of his first actions would be requesting $5 million to $10 million from the Legislature for election funding, focusing on security needs and centralized training for local election workers.
Manning also plans to lobby the Legislature for funding to implement new campaign finance limits, a law he said he was proud to have co-sponsored and voted to support.
“Oregonians wanted it,” he said. “They demanded it, and the Legislature, we delivered. One of the problems that’s going to hold up is the funding, so as the next secretary of state, I have to go back to my legislative colleagues and I have to request the funding to implement the program.”
If elected, Manning said he would be publicly engaged and continue the school visits he leads as Senate president pro tem. Griffin-Valade has left many public appearances and speaking engagements to her deputy, Cheryl Myers.
Manning said he views visiting schools and speaking with elementary school students who are learning about U.S. and Oregon history a top priority because they’re the next generation of voters.
“My time in the military has taught me something that is really important,” he said. “You cannot lead from behind a desk. You have to be engaged with the public. I do that right now, and I will continue to.”
When it comes to audits, he said he wants to start with the programs and agencies he has heard complaints about during his past eight years in the Senate: the Oregon Department of Transportation’s contracting process, the Oregon Health Authority and the Employment Department.
After that, Manning said he hopes to see each agency perform a routine self-assessment, something divisions in the military do annually.
“That’s going to require some additional funding in order to be effective,” he said. “I accept that challenge. As a former United States Army assistant inspector general who has done audits nationally and internationally, I will be a part of overseeing the audits and performance audit.”
He said he would consult the Oregon Government Ethics Commission for guidance if he has any conflict of interest on an audit, something Fagan was faulted for not doing when the Audits Division under her leadership interviewed the marijuana entrepreneur who hired her for a moonlighting job.
“ I will never do anything in secret,” Manning said. “One of the things that I’ve learned from my military career are values, and three things continue to reign: According to the creed of the noncommissioned officer, I will not use my position to gain pleasure or profit. I will not compromise my integrity, nor my moral courage. Those are values that I lived for throughout my time in the military, and those are the same values that I live for since I’ve been in the Oregon state Senate, and I will take that with me to the office of secretary of state.”
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: [email protected]. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.
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Julia Shumway is deputy editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. An award-winning journalist, Julia most recently reported on the tangled efforts to audit the presidential results in Arizona.
