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On December 30th, Chief Petitioners plunked down the last pile of signatures on the Secretary of State’s desk. It was a slam dunk for the Oregon System.
In a record-breaking 40-ish days, a quarter-million Oregon voters lined up in every county to sign the “Stop the Gas Tax” petition and refer Governor Kotek’s $4.3 billion transportation tax to the November ballot.
These voters participated in the “Oregon System,” a form of direct democracy passed in 1902 and giving voters the right to challenge legislation in a veto referendum. Since then, Oregon voters have repealed 42 laws.
Oregon Freedom Coalition’s Nick Stark told Cascade there were nearly enough signatures to even qualify for a constitutional referendum.
The record-breaking signature drive signaled legislators that Oregon’s voters are up for any challenge—especially the legislative session beginning in February.
No sooner had Stark spoken, when Governor Kotek called for lawmakers to “redirect, repeal, and rebuild” the transportation bill, admitting that “thousands of Oregonians across the state have made their point.”
As designed, the Oregon System earned the Governor’s attention.
So what’s next? The Bill’s Chief Petitioners say a full repeal isn’t the best answer as it would gut the good parts, re-institute tolling, and halt the audit of ODOT.
In any case, the Governor and her supermajority are back where they started one year ago, unable to govern and unable to carry out the state’s most basic functions: to maintain roads and bridges—the stuff all of us need and care about.
Two things—a lack of imagination in spending solutions and a narrow fixation on collecting more taxes—make up a mindset where nothing can be done unless voters pay more for less—more for gas taxes, more for fees, more for dying transit, and more for fewer roads and fewer lanes for cars.
While New York’s socialist mayor touts the “warmth of collectivist action” — taxpayers in Oregon were nearly condemned to the cold gulag of blistering tax increases and service decreases. That is, until a quarter-million voters decided to light a fire, ignited by the spark of individual freedom.
