The race for Oregon Senate District 27 sees Democrat Anthony Broadman squaring off against Republican Michael Summers. Broadman is a lawyer and current Bend City Council member. Summers is a Redmond School District board member and a small-business owner. The district they are vying for encompasses Bend, Sisters and most of Redmond.

The senate seat is currently held by Republican Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend. The incumbent is barred from running again for the seat due to missing too many legislative floor sessions after leading a Republican walkout last year. Knopp has held his state Senate seat since 2012.

Anthony Broadman

Tony Gwynn occupies a prominent place on the wall of Broadman’s home office. Baseball cards featuring the San Diego Padres legend are strategically placed above his oath as a Bend City Council member. He said the Gwynn cards are a daily reminder of good work ethic — the member of the Padres is known as one of baseball’s most consistent hitters.

“When things are tough, I just have to hit singles and doubles today like Tony,” he said. “He was always working.”

Broadman’s interest in Tony Gwynn dates back to his childhood growing up in Visalia in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where his father was a judge and his mother was a public school teacher. He attended Princeton as an undergraduate, where he majored in English.

After college Broadman spent a year in Vietnam where he worked for a local English language daily newspaper. He then moved to Arizona and spent time as a reporter with the Arizona Daily Star, covering music, features and Arizona Wildcats basketball.

It was in Arizona that he decided to make a career change, turning his attention to law.

“At the Star, I was working on a story and I really wanted to help the person who I was reporting on, but I felt like I was limited in my role as an outside observer and reporter,” said Broadman. “I really loved journalism, but I recognized my own limitations as a writer and that I was better suited to serving people in other ways.”

Broadman, 45, left journalism to attend law school in Arizona.

Broadman and his wife, a pediatrician, later settled in Bend. He set up a law firm in Bend focusing on the representation of tribal governments, Indigenous rights and tribal business. He is currently general counsel for tribal governments and a chief judge of the Warm Springs Court of Appeals.

In 2020 he won a seat on the Bend City Council. During his time on the council he describes multiple “community victories” including a expansion of Bend’s housing stock to meet the needs of the growing community.

“We did so sustainably and inside the urban growth boundary that existed when I was elected,” he said.

When asked about his personal achievements, Broadman cites his work on House Bill 3318, which specifically targets affordable housing for educators. He adds that he also aims to make Central Oregon more affordable for other working class families, as well as students and seniors.

“In addition to building more homes sustainably we need the tools that we know work, like House Bill 3318. We are not just going to build our way out of a housing crisis. We need to make sure the homes we are building at every level are the ones that working families need,” he said.

Broadman also highlights his work in establishing the Coordinated Houseless Response Office, which tries to address homelessness in Central Oregon, as one of his most significant accomplishments while with Bend City Council.

Homelessness has seen a decline in Bend in recent years but remains at relatively consistent numbers in Central Oregon.

Broadman also cites his work in advocating for full staffing at Bend Police Department and his support for a levy that helps pay for staffing and equipment for Bend Fire & Rescue.

Although a Democrat, Broadman said he “leads from the middle” and seeks to work in a bipartisan way on issues.

“I love working with people … I disagree with. That is the beauty of public service,” he said.

Compared to his opponent, Broadman said he has “better policy, better experience, better approach to working with everybody in the community, setting aside differences to move forward.”

Broadman said if elected his priority issues will be public safety, housing and homelessness, and wildfire resilience.

“We have significant challenges across the state,” said Broadman. “So much of our work has been held back by walkouts and divisiveness and partisanship. The Central Oregon way is leading from the middle of the state. Coming up with solutions that work for everyone.”

Outside of politics, Broadman enjoys jogging with his dog and bike riding. He is an avid hunter of the chukar partridge, a ground-loving bird common in Eastern Oregon. And he listens to a lot of Grateful Dead.

Michael Summers

Summers, 42, grew up in Bend and attended Mountain View High School. He earned a degree in commercial music business from Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho.

After college, Summers played drums with Elliot, a rock band that produced multiple albums and partnered with humanitarian organizations as they performed around the U.S. and abroad. In the early 2000s, the band made two trips to Eastern Europe, performing in front of a range of audiences, from large stadiums to orphanages. The group traveled with international evangelist Richard Michalski.

Summers said it has been difficult to watch images of Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine over the past two years because of his own memories of traveling in the war-torn country.

“A lot of things we did over there were at orphanages near Chernobyl. Now those kids would be in their 30s, so I wonder how they are doing. It’s something I think about a lot,” said Summers.

Back in the U.S., Summers met motivational speaker Nick Vujicic, an Australian man born with no arms or legs. Summers and his bandmates joined Vujicic on a speaking tour — a campaign for suicide prevention and to stop bullying in schools.

Summers’ worldview and goals were also inspired at a young age by his grandfather, Bob Summers.

“He was very humble, never had anything flashy or worldly wealth, but he was the most generous person you’ve ever met,” said Summers.

Bob Summers and his wife sometimes housed single mothers, foster youth and others who needed help. He ran a food bank in a low-income area of the Willamette Valley.

“I still look up to him tremendously. He did all the things people brag about, but you’d never know about it,” he said.

Following his travels, Summers settled back into Central Oregon and helped run the family flooring business, Summers Flooring & Design, while still committed to playing drums professionally for local band Precious Byrd.

Summers joined the Redmond School Board in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when he saw school districts across the country in crisis. He believed he could be a voice to bring different viewpoints together.

“School boards were blowing up and communities around them were doing the same. I knew what we needed was someone who could build some bridges and connect some dots in our community and that is why I jumped in,” he said. “I knew it was something I could do.”

As a Republican in a state where Democrats dominate the state Senate, Summers said he is the candidate for people who believe more political balance is needed in Salem.

“When you don’t have balance, one side feels unrepresented and they start doing extreme things like saying they are going to leave the state. That is unacceptable to me. We need each other,” he said.

But Summers maintains that he is a centrist and will “ask good questions” from both sides of the political aisle. He said the proof is the school board, which he chairs.

“We have healthy interactions on controversial topics. Both sides are well-represented, and we have kept the extremes out,” said Summers.

Summers said he understands the challenges that Knopp has in dealing with a Democratic supermajority but adds that he does not like walkouts and if elected would seek to “stay at the table.”

“I am not Tim Knopp, and I feel like half of this race has been against him,” he said. “I can’t control other people’s behaviors, but I am my own man and I believe in maintaining relationships, and that is not something I am going to Salem to do. I am not going there to throw a wrench into the gears.”

If elected, Summers said his first priority will be to speed up the development of affordable housing, which he said can be done by cutting red tape, streamlining regulations and opening up undeveloped land. Making housing affordable will also help to lower the costs of goods and services, he said.

Also top of mind for Summers is tackling Oregon’s drug crisis and mental health crisis.

“We have a dramatic drug and mental health crisis where we are inundated with drugs. Once the hardcore drugs were decriminalized, we got flooded and we have seen the fentanyl crisis explode,” he said.

Summers said the problem could be addressed by increasing training and funding for mental health services and giving counties greater power to decide what works best for their parts of the state.

When he is not working or playing the drums, Summers spends his time watching his daughter’s sports teams or taking his family on trips to the Oregon Coast, where they spend time on a farm picking blueberries.

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