It took two years in a fight over chickens — yes, chickens! — to show how partisan divides can be overcome in local communities empowered with local control.

Anyone watching the Legislature’s hearings on a bill to place restrictions on industrial-scale livestock operations earlier this year would have seen a stark demonstration of hardline party politics. Republican lawmakers lined up against the bill, castigating Democrats for over-regulating their constituents and interfering in their communities. Democratscpassed the bill without a single Republican vote.

But it didn’t have to be this way — at least not at the local level. In a recent vote, the county commission in reliably red Linn County took the legislation a step forward and adopted rules that will preempt factory farms in the Scio area, where the fight over chicken factories began in 2021.

“This is how democracy is supposed to work,” Kendra Kimbirauskas told me. “You can’t have a localized democracy if you’re preempting local control.”

Kimbirauskas, who runs a small farm with her husband near Scio, was one of the lead organizers in the effort to stop a land and water grab by growers fronting for chicken processing corporations like Foster Farms.

One such grower had quietly begun to secure county and state approval for a “confined animal feeding operation,” or CAFO, that would have raised more than 3 million chickens a year in massive, warehouse-sized structures.

When these projects came to light, state law provided few controls on the siting of such operations. CAFOs were considered an agricultural use, unfettered by most water and land use regulations.

So, Kimbirauskas and her neighbors, organized under the banner of Farmers Against Foster Farms, set their sights on this year’s legislative session, intent on updating old laws enacted when farmland wasn’t seen as a ready source of water and real estate for industrial livestock operations. As legislation was drafted to address the issues raised by the siting of chicken CAFOs in Linn County and mega dairies in Eastern Oregon, the process polarized in Salem. Republicans rallied around protecting the “right to farm,” criticizing urban Democrats for trespassing on farmland issues.

But, Farmers Against Foster Farms spanned the range of red-and-blue political loyalties. I saw their signs in front of farms and homes that sported Trump banners and others that had displayed Biden signs the year before. These were not partisans, nor were they outsiders. They were local residents trying to solve local problems.

In the end, lawmakers voted to control access to groundwater and give county governments more control over siting restrictions for large CAFOs. But the party-line votes for and against were a stark illustration of what is increasingly making our politics so contentious.

Then, the Linn County Commission, chaired by Republican Roger Nyquist and consisting of two other Republicans (one a former legislator), took advantage of its new authority under the legislation. The commissioners voted unanimously to ban large CAFOs from sites within 1 mile from the property line of any residence, effectively prohibiting them in the Scio area.

Kimbirauskas believes allowing more local control over decisions at the city and county level is one way we can narrow the divisions that plague our politics today.

I tend to agree. Local control is not always the cure for what ails us. But preempting local control has been unhealthy for democracy. So, too, is the habit of state lawmakers to retreat to their partisan corners.

Not a single voice of opposition was heard at the Linn County meeting when the commission voted to support local farmers and block the expansion of factory farms in the Scio area. For them, it was a problem-solving vote. For their colleagues in the Legislature, it had been a call to arms. Happily, for the farmers of Scio, it was also a lesson in the success of local advocacy when their elected officials listen, engage and have the power to respond to their concerns.