Sean Cruz, Senate District 23

This is the first installment in a series of posts introducing candidates that I support, why I support them, and to get their names out there. I welcome other candidates to introduce themselves here so that readers can compare.
Sean Cruz is a Democratic candidate for Oregon Senate District 23, the seat now held by Avel Gordly. He has been Senator Gordly's current Chief of Staff since January of 2003 which has given him a solid foundation for intimately understanding how the Oregon Legislature works. Sean has been out front on many issues including pointing to the impact of the Iraq War on Oregon families (he has a son there, himself), demanding quality care for returning and injured veterans, supporting proper application of Oregon's land use policies by supporting Measure 49, to name a few issues.

In the time that I've been following Mr. Cruz' efforts, he has been passionate, articulate and consistent in his views and work on many issues. On Iraq he says:

For me, the occupation of Iraq is not about campaigning, it is about life and death, it is about living daily with the consequences of the Bush Administration’s catastrophic failure to act in the best interests of the nation and of the citizens of the State of Oregon.I worry about the same issues that our veterans and their families face, the acute shortage of services across the entire spectrum of need, PTSD, IEDs, Traumatic Brain Injury (the signature injury of this war), stop-loss, multiple deployments, traumatic amputations, unemployment, homelessness…, because I am one of them, citizen father of two citizen soldiers.

This month marks four full years since both of my sons were ordered to Iraq with their Utah Army National Guard unit, after having been held on alert since the spring of 2002, four full years of unceasing worry, with no end in sight, not for years to come.I have fought to bring the issue of the war, and of the needs of our troops, our veterans and their families to the Senate floor for three sessions, one of the few people in the Capitol with a personal stake.

Like Amanda Fritz (whom I support for City Commissioner) Mr. Cruz maintains a personal blog where you can get an in-depth view of what is important to him and how he approaches the issues.

I believe that Sean Cruz would be a worthy successor to Senator Gordly, whom I hold in the highest esteem of most any elected official in this state.