Our own contributing RP, Jason Atkinson, has decided to take a sabbatical from politics, announcing they he would not run for a second term.  Here’s the story from The Oregonian:

Steve Duin: Jason Atkinson’s choice not to run again means Oregon Legislature suffers an untimely loss

Published: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 10:00 AM

 By Steve Duin, The Oregonian 

 

Why is Jason Atkinson involved in Oregon politics?For years now, the Central Point Republican has been close to the Ramirez family, the patriarch of which slipped across the border with Mexico in the ’70s, gained amnesty during the Reagan administration and raised eight children in Medford.

After Cesar Ramirez, the youngest of those children, graduated fromSouthern Oregon University in June, he told Atkinson he planned to take two years off to raise money for law school.

No way, Atkinson said: You can’t afford to take a break; we need to find you a scholarship. Three weeks ago, he invited Ramirez to the Capitol, showed him around Willamette University’s College of Law, then introduced him to a fellow Willamette Law grad, Paul De Muniz, chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court.

Mightily impressed, De Muniz handed Ramirez his business card and said, “Let me know when you apply.”

When Ramirez later asked his tour guide how he could ever thank him, Atkinson said, “Show the chief justice’s card to your father. He’s going to have a proud smile on his face, holding that card. Memorize that look. And work as hard as you can getting through law school, remembering that look.”

Why is Atkinson exiting Oregon politics?

“We don’t do that in Oregon politics anymore,” he said. “In Oregon politics, that kid would be considered a Hispanic kid who is a drain on the system. That’s the pettiness of politics right now. It’s completely devoid of humanity.”

 

When Atkinson announced last week that he would not seek re-election in November, the state Senate lost one of its more thoughtful, balanced and idealistic personalities.”Twenty years ago, he would have been considered an idiosyncratic conservative,” said Jack Roberts, the former labor commissioner. “In a healthy party, that kind of conservatism, which carries some independence of thought, would be valued. Now, it doesn’t seem to be.”

Money is a significant factor in Atkinson’s sabbatical. He needs a better-paying job. “I’ll come back,” he notes, “when I can afford to come back.”

But Atkinson is increasingly unnerved, he said, by the anger in the public arena and the colleagues who pander to it.

When Atkinson decried the January 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., arguing that we must abandon “the idea that I am right and you are evil,” he received so many threats that a sheriff’s deputy spent several weeks parked outside his Jackson County home.

When he finished speaking last week at a woman’s retirement party in his district, Atkinson said he was “attacked by three angry people. One guy comes up to me and says, ‘Why are you taking my freedom?’ The other two guys are angry that I’m too fish friendly.

“I’m thinking, ‘Hey, if you’re gonna beat me up, beat me up on Monday, will ya?’ It’s getting angrier and it’s getting more petty. I’ve lost my taste for the pettiness of politics.”

Atkinson — who reached the Legislature in 1999 — is the rare political figure who celebrates the Tea Party and a 100-percent rating with the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.

Huge chunks of his library are devoted to Theodore Roosevelt and fly-fishing. He knows the best book on C.E.S. Wood and regularly exchanged letters with the late Mark Hatfield on Herbert Hoover, the only U.S. president to live in Oregon.

Five generations of Atkinson’s family have waded the Klamath River. And every Wednesday during legislative sessions at the Capitol he leads a college seminar on politics and history for Senate floor staff and interns.

That weekly gathering, the Floyd McMullen Fire Brigade, is named after the 23-year-old firefighter — and Willamette Law student — who died when the Capitol went down in flames in 1935.

The decision to put that career on pause has been draining, Atkinson admits. But he needs some financial security, more time with his 9-year-old son, Perry — who was born three months premature and has already survived a romp with thyroid cancer — and a reason to believe there’s still nobility in public service.

Until the riptide turns, the last is a daunting proposition. Should he need a little extra encouragement, Atkinson could do far worse than to check in with a freshly energized Southern Oregon grad who is still working his way toward law school.

“Mr. Atkinson always told me to follow my dreams,” Cesar Ramirez said, “and if challenges come, to not be afraid to face them.”