• Dennis Richardson thanks newspapers: Dennis Richardson credits Oregon’s newspapers with helping him break the Democrats’ stranglehold on statewide elected offices. When Richardson is sworn into office next month, he will be Oregon’s first Republican secretary of state since Norma Paulus, who was first elected 40 years ago.

Richardson gained all the endorsements made by Oregon newspapers in the secretary of state’s race this fall. When we talked Monday at the Oregon Leadership Summit, he agreed that those endorsements provided cover for Democrats to vote for him.

Several leading newspapers, including ones seen as traditionally liberal-leaning, have made a conscious effort in recent elections to endorse one or more Republicans for statewide office. They believe Oregon is healthier with two strong political parties, instead of continuing as a one-party (Democrats) state.

Richardson also was helped by newspaper editorial boards’ antipathy toward Democrat Brad Avakian, who had a much more expansive view of the secretary of state’s role than did Richardson.

Yet on the national stage, Donald Trump won the presidency — assuming that the Electoral College elects him on Dec. 19 — despite being scorned by editorial boards across the country.

Side note: When Norma Paulus ran for governor, she walked into the editorial board interview with her local newspaper presumably having the endorsement in her pocket. She walked out having lost the endorsement from the Salem Statesman Journal. Those in the room later confided that she came across as whiney, complaining about campaign coverage. (Brent Walth, a former journalist turned journalism professor at the University of Oregon, wrote a compelling story about Paulus and the 1986 governor’s race that was published in the November 2016 Portland Monthly.)

• Goodbye to new and old hospital? State government will have more money for the 2015-17 – just not enough to keep all programs running at the current levels and pay for the state’s skyrocketing costs for Medicare and especially PERS.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown released her proposed state budget last week. Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day responded in one sentence: “Governor Brown’s budget is a self-inflicted wound caused by years of Democrat overspending on the wrong priorities.”

Brown told me that her toughest budget-balancing decision was proposing to close the Oregon State Hospital at Junction City. OSH opened the Junction City campus and closed its outdated Portland campus last year.

State Sen. President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, has been a staunch advocate for building and opening the Junction City facility, as well as the rebuilding the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.

Courtney’s staff was alerted to Brown’s plan for the hospital the night before she announced her budget. They are taking it as a sign of the state’s budget difficulties, not a done deal. The Legislature, not the governor, writes the final state budget.

Lawmakers do it through a plethora of spending bills, not one big piece of legislation. Instead of being a blueprint for the Legislature to follow, a governor’s budget indicates the broad parameters of what she is likely to accept instead of using her veto powers.

Side note: The old state psychiatric hospital in Salem was where the 1975 Oscar-winning movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” was filmed. The new Salem facility opened several years ago, with a modern treatment program complementing the modern building. The Salem City Council voted this week to buy Yaquina Hall on the old hospital grounds from the state for $520,280 and turn it into 50 affordable housing units. The Salem Housing Authority has a waiting list of 6,000 families seeking low-income housing.

• Affordable housing at the Legislature: House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, has a series of proposals to deal with “the crisis of affordable housing,” which is being felt in communities throughout the state. Those proposals likely will be discussed next week when legislative committees meet Dec. 12-14.

In an email that included comments about the 2017 legislative session, Portland economist Eric Fruits said: “If you have anything to do with residential real estate and you live in a biggish city, you need to start paying attention to rent control. Rent control is coming.”

Dick Hughes has been covering the Oregon political scene since 1976. Contact him at TheHughesisms@Gmail.com.