Oregon Voices Podcast: Episode 21 - Sara Duncan & Maria Hinojos Pressey, Marion Co. Comm. Cand.

Sara Duncan and Maria Hinojos Pressey are running together as a Democratic slate for the Marion County Board of Commissioners, in a county Republicans have held for more than forty years. Sara is challenging Kevin Cameron for Position 1. Maria is challenging Colm Willis for Position 2. Win both seats, and the majority flips. Forty years, over. Sara went to college to become a doctor. Then, studying for the MCAT, she was diagnosed with narcolepsy with cataplexy, and the life she had planned fell away. She came home to Salem, tried to catch the bus, and got stranded on her very first try. So she did the thing most people wouldn't. She got herself onto the board of the transit district to fix it. Transportation, she'll tell you, is freedom. Maria is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, a mother, and at thirty-one the first Latina and youngest board president of Salem's transit district. She moved to Oregon while pregnant, taught newly arrived refugees how to ride a bus system that barely ran, and asked the question that started everything: where are all the buses? Years later, an ICE agent walked into her backyard, left the gate open, and walked away like nothing had happened. They met as transit nerds and found they wanted the same things. They both organize for PCUN, Oregon's largest farmworker union. And they watched a county government that would rather sue the state than serve the people inside it. Everyone said the race wasn't winnable. They ran the numbers, and ran anyway, together, sharing everything, going after the voters everyone else had written off. Listen to what they're building. Guests: Sara Duncan and Maria Hinojos Pressey, Candidates for Marion County Commissioner Hosts: Eric McGuire and Katherine Watkins Thanks for listening to the Oregon Voices Podcast! If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you never miss a conversation. Sharing the show with others helps these stories travel farther.