A group led by Oregon Republicans wants to claw back new revenue for transportation recently passed by the legislature. Operating under the banner of No Tax Oregon, volunteers have already collected over half the 75,000 or so signatures they need to put key elements of House Bill 3991 on the ballot. The pitch is easy: Sign here if you don’t want to pay more taxes.
While signing is easy, operating the Oregon Department of Transportation without the additional $430 million the bill is expected to raise each year, might not be. ODOT says the $4.3 billion the bill raises over 10 years is everything and nothing. It’s everything they have to keep the agency afloat, but it’s nothing more than a stop-gap measure to stave off massive layoffs and do the minimum amount of road maintenance necessary to keep roads clear and people alive.
Republicans don’t believe that. They think ODOT can manage its 8,000 miles of roads and 3,000 bridges with existing revenues if the agency cuts everything that’s not a “core function.” The problem is, reasonable people disagree what a “core function” is. For example, Democrats believe transit and safe routes to school are a core function of ODOT. Republicans do not.
During this past session, Republicans put forward a bill that would have made radical shifts in state transportation policy. The Republican’s proposal would have required ODOT to completely ignore transportation’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions (despite transportation being the top contributor to them) and its impacts on Oregonians who’ve been historically left out of transportation conversations and harmed the most by the product of them. Their bill would have zeroed-out state funding for bicycle infrastructure, rail maintenance and construction, the Safe Routes to School program, transit service and expansion, and more. The bill even went so far as to repeal Oregon’s vaunted “Bicycle Bill” that was signed in 1971 and is known as the country’s first-ever complete streets law because of how it mandates a minimum investment in bicycling and walking facilities.
The radical Republican proposal would have rolled back the clock at ODOT to the 1960s and turned it into an even more outdated, freeway-first agency. It’s almost impossible to work across the aisle on such a politically toxic and tone deaf proposal — one that ultimately failed to make it out of committee because it was considered a non-starter by Democrats and everyone else who lives in the real world and understands transportation policy.
Even if you agree ODOT should focus solely on maintenance of existing roads and projects that benefit only car drivers, it’s unthinkable that revenue would stay frozen while inflation and project costs have risen dramatically since 2017, which was the last time Oregon updated its transportation law. Many of the Republicans leading the anti-ODOT, anti-tax crusade live and work in agriculture-based districts, where costs of basics like labor, fertilizer and land have risen about 40% since 2017. Do they really think transportation costs are magically immune to similar increases?
Based on Republicans’ actions during the session and their push to repeal HB 3991, it’s clear their stance on transportation policy isn’t about policy at all. It’s about politics and power. Democrats have it, Republicans want it.
Republican Senator Bruce Starr and House Representative Ed Diehl are spearheading the effort to repeal the funding elements of HB 3991. They claim Democrats “rammed through” the transportation bill without working across the aisle and they believe Oregonians should not have to pay for transportation services. Starr, Diehl, and other leading Republicans see the transportation legislation — and the process it took to pass it — as an illustration of everything that’s wrong with how Democrats govern; but it also says a lot about them.
Beyond not wanting to pay their fair share to use roads and bridges, a central allegation of “No Tax” petition backers is that Democrats didn’t collaborate with Republicans during the session. But similar to their policy and funding proposals, the claim doesn’t hold up. Democrats likely spent too much time currying favor with Republicans. Public hearings and legislative committee debates didn’t even begin until five weeks left in the session.
Why the hold up? Because Democrat party leaders were in (not so) secret meetings with Republicans trying to hash out a bipartisan package. And Sen. Starr, who now shamelessly laments the lack of bipartisanship on social media and media interviews, was one of the people in the room. Not only was Starr involved in early policy negotiations, but he was named by Democratic party leaders as point person on an important ODOT accountability initiative.
Republicans want Oregonians to believe that Governor Kotek and the Democrats are acting like dictators. They’ve even adopted a “No Queens” battle cry. But beyond the aforementioned facts about how Republicans were intimately involved in early negotiations, the clearest example of Republican party influence is HB 3991 itself. Far from the behemoth it’s being made out to be, the bill is an anemic, heavily-compromised, bare-bones package of tax and fee increases that will cost the average Oregonian about $144 more per year than they pay today. HB 3991 also raises just 35% of the revenue Democrats initially sought.
The bill is so small in fact, that Democrats lost significant support from the large coalition of progressive transportation advocacy groups they typically count on. In the end, because Democratic party leaders mistakenly assumed Republicans would negotiate in good faith, the only Oregonians who love the transportation bill are the ones whose jobs it saved. On the flip side, Republicans have launched a massive, misleading PR campaign to excite their base in advance of next year’s general election — a campaign that blames complicated problems on a progressive government bogeyman they would rather destroy than debate.
If early returns are any indication, No Tax Oregon will likely succeed in their signature-gathering effort and ODOT’s future will be on the ballot next November. If we don’t see more Democrats and other progressive leaders stand up, shape the narrative in their favor, and expose bad-faith Republicans, Oregon’s transportation future will be a dead end.
Thanks for reading.
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100% agree. Democratic leadership needs to wake up here. Spending all your time trying to form consensus with an opposition that is clearly going to hang you out to dry is a complete waste of time. Focus instead on delivering results for the people who voted for you.
“Focus instead on delivering results for the people who voted for you.”
What if the results you think your constituents want include wider urban highways?
Or perhaps we shouldn’t be building wider urban freeways than are surrounded by freeway segments with exposed rebar in the road…
I strongly oppose highway expansion. I also strongly oppose pushing an overly partisan message when the problem is that both the Democrats and the Republicans are the problem.
The call is coming from inside the house!
Wrong, Democrats have it, voters want it. Why are the Democrats not interested in a little democracy next year?
I am sorry, is this an emergency or not? Why wait 30 days to sign the bill after passage if this is a dire emergency where the future of ODOT hangs in the balance? If the only side working in good faith is the Democrats, why not sign the bill and get to work solving this emergency? Jokers. If your governor is so popular, if the bill is so popular, if the track record of on time and on budget projects and clean audits is so comforting, if the passes aren’t going to be plowed and everyone is going to be dying is such a good faith argument, what is the worry about this going to referendum?
because she wanted to make it as hard as possible for Republicans to gather the signatures. And I don’t blame her given that Rs have done everything they could to play hardball with Dems. Sucks we are in this place, but that’s where we are.
Also, I’m not going to defend Kotek or the Dem leadership or ODOT. Their actions on them and I don’t agree with many of them! I am focusing my critique on the Republicans because I feel what they are doing and have done are necessary to call out and lend some attention to.
My message to Tina “No Kings” Kotek is to let the people speak. If your bill is good for the majority of Oregonians they will vote for it. If not, it will go down in smoke.
This is such a disingenuous understand of what No Kings is about. The gas tax bill was passed by 54 elected representatives – supermajorities (60%) in both the house and senate – and signed by the elected Governor. The people spoke and elected these people.
The No Kings protests are about the unconstitutional usurpation of various powers of Congress (and in some ways the Courts) and checks and balances.
Certainly part of Oregon’s democratic process is the referendum power in our Constitution, and Gov. Kotek has done nothing to preempt that. Under the Oregon Constitution, Article V, Section 15b, she had 30 days to sign the bill.
Measure 113 made it such that Republican’s have nothing to lose. They can’t walk out, so they might as well refer this stuff to voters. To have the party that can’t quit talking about “threats to democracy” mad that this could go to voters is such a laughably bad look it isn’t funny. Regardless, from the cheap seats this is fun to watch play out and if we all have to endure some austerity as a result, its probably for the best, since PERS is going to push that on us at one point or another.
113 is an example of real political hardball that many people accuse the Repubs of doing, but that the Dems actually have done. Heck, the Texas Dems flee the state periodically and the Texas Repubs haven’t tried to emulate the Oregon Dems ruthlessness.
There is no need to refer this stuff to voters. You could say the exact same tripe about any and all legislation: “refer it to the voters.”
But we don’t do that and we shouldn’t do that. We don’t do direct democracy, voting on every single detail. Legislators are elected to do legislation.
If voters hate it so much they can try repealing it later, or voting out the people who did the thing they don’t like.
But to pretend it makes sense to “bring this to the voters” is just bad faith nonsense.
There absolutely is. When one party is stripped of all power, they’re going to keep looking for ways to exercize some measure of control.
Don’t want junk like this to end up on the ballot? Give people enough of a voice so that they don’t feel like this is their only resort.
I know, I know… both sides strawman Maga or whatever.
If 4% of the voters in the last gubernatorial election decide that an issue is important enough, they could do the exact same thing about any and all legislation.
The genesis of this being an amendment to the constitution was during the Progressive Era over 120 years ago, when the perception by the electorate was that the legislature was full of corrupt special interests.
Then it was corporate interests (railroads and land developers), now it is public and private unions (SEIU) with some non-profit activists sprinkled in, but to argue that the legislature is not corrupt is an exercise in futility. It is, and the fact that regardless of what you, or any blog, or any social media post says, I can go to and sign a form, and if 77,999 other people do the same, we get to have a say on something, is all that matters.
Do keep on with the idea that direct democracy is “bad faith nonsense” though, I think that position is going to have some real dividends.
Have y’all ever thought that maybe it has nothing to do with either party? That maybe it’s whoever is in government wants to look good and be re-elected, versus the bureaucracy who want to be paid and perform well, versus external contractors for services who have an incentive to adjust the state (and local) budgets, versus Oregon voters who always want something for nothing?
Let’s face it, every jurisdiction wants everything but doesn’t want to pay for it, and everyone wants to get their sticky fingers in every pie, and everyone is quite happy to blame everyone else, and the press as usual is a sucker for all of this.
Oregon faces dead end if Republicans lead transportation conversation
Unfortunately, we also face a dead end if Democrats lead the conversation. Governor Kotek unilaterally eliminated tolling that had been carefully fought for and negotiated and was in the process of being implemented. She had no replacement plan for that money or concept for dealing with the congestion that tolling could have helped mitigate. Democrats have consistently fought FOR extremely wasteful and harmful highway megaprojects. Democratic support for alternative transportation, cycling and environmental stewardship is mostly greenwashing and bikewashing- hyping up tiny ancillary benefits of massive, harmful projects to garner support from groups that would otherwise hold them accountable. The Republican anti-tax craziness in Oregon are a real problem, but this opinion piece does a disservice by making this a partisan issue where the Democrats are good and Republicans are bad. The Democrats are corrupt and disingenuous, and we need some real reform and real change. Providing media cover for all of the missteps and terrible decisions from Kotek and state Dems does not feel like the typical high quality of journalism I usually find here.
depends on which Democrats. I agree that Kotek has not done well. Her abandonment of tolling was a terrible move and historically Dems have been happy to line up behind the megaproject trough. What I want are new Dems and new people to run for office that will take things in a different direction than the status quo.
Getting new Dems in that will change the status quo seems far more likely given voter demographics than expecting rural voters to elect human scale transportation supporting republicans. Since this is a one party state, having new Dems that actually support human/public transportation as a means to itself and not just talking points would instantly equal positive change.
So why focus on the political party that doesn’t really matter? The corporate Dems need to be called out and their pro-auto actions explained so they can be replaced.
That is a worthy and attainable goal.
Part of why I wanted to say these things is because Oregon Dems are getting absolutely destroyed online. There is a very strong and influential Republican-supportive online media ecosystem that has no counterpart on the left. One of my goals here is to get Dems and others to realize this fact and maybe start to stand up and speak out a bit more. Also, sometimes I just want to say things that aren’t being clearly stated so that they are at least on the record. I’m tired of how Starr and Diehl and Boshart Davis and others are lying to people and crafting false narratives and while I don’t expect their fans to read BikePortland, I can sleep better at night knowing that at least I called it out and tried to clean up the record.
“…and others are lying to people and crafting false narratives…”
One of the things I despise as well so I completely understand the desire and need to clear reality up for people. I’m not online much socially so I didn’t know it was as bad as you’re saying. Yuck! Good luck! Sane transportation needs your voice on what can be accomplished with the right people in office.
Oregon Democrats and Republicans just aren’t that different. With a few exceptions they drive cars to work, have middle class life styles and university educations. Their constituents pretty much all drive cars as well, whether rural or urban.
Republicans map pretty well onto rural districts so they hold the line on highway funding a little more than Democrats. In horse race politics the Democrats could point out the number of people who are served by rural transit and the degree to which they are dependent on it. We’re all distracted by the issue of how to make urban car driving easy and fast, versus the real costs of putting more pavement in cities.
Are these republicans governing only by feels now? Do they really think we can fund our maintenance and infrastructure project for drivers by removing all other non car projects from the budget? I mean I look at the budgets pretty often and the math doesn’t math out. Never mind the fact that a lot of that money can’t be moved over to other driver projects because they’re only available for specific projects. Removing ODOTs ability to work on non-driver projects means the money just goes away it doesn’t suddenly become available to pave a road or widen a freeway.
The Democrats haven’t been doing such a hot job either.
The problem isn’t that Democrats have been insufficiently partisan, it’s that our machine politics gives us lousy candidates with priorities such as widening highways through urban areas.
true! But y’all really need to stop bothsidesing this thing. It can be a fact that Dems have not been as awesome as some of us might hope, but what Rs are doing is way way worse by comparison. Come on. Focus.
This isn’t the federal level. There is no trumpesque demagoguery exhibited by anyone in Oregon. The dem machine has demonstrated that it is in the way of getting quality candidates. The machine is more a threat to human/public infrastructure than trump is at the local level.
Both sides ing it is very appropriate since neither side is helping human/public transportation.
Look at what the politicians actually do instead of listening to what they say they want to do.
We disagree here. The leading voices of the Republican party in Oregon – and their leading voice on transportation specifically – is a co-host of a podcast called Oregon DOGE. And former Senator Bonham was one of the leading critics of the transportation bill before he took a job in the Trump Administration. Blaming government for everything and opposing taxes like this, while caring more about social media clout than fixing problems, are extremely Trumpesque!
And there are absolutely some Dems – and Dems w power and influence like Sen. Pham and Rep. Gamba – who are helping transportation. They tried to push vastly different proposals than Dem party leadership and they are much more progressive than Kotek. It’s a failure of Dem and Gov. leadership to not embrace Pham and her ilk.
It sounds like you agree with me that this is a Democratic party problem, when voices like Pham and Gamba can’t be heard about the din of the machine.
I don’t know a lot about the state Dem party problem, but yes I think we agree that they are not doing a great job. I was very disappointed with how the transportation bill was handled and I think they are similar to the national Dems who’ve seen their support crater as many folks crave a stronger type of leadership — like the type many are finding in the DSA-backed candidates.
Here’s a prediction you can take to the bank: The DSA isn’t going to sweep American politics, even if it manages to win in a few places that are not representative of America as a whole (as it always has).
” Blaming government for everything and opposing taxes like this, while caring more about social media clout than fixing problems, are extremely Trumpesque!”
True, I hadn’t really thought of it like that, but you’re right.
” It’s a failure of Dem and Gov. leadership to not embrace Pham and her ilk.”
Totally agree with this and its why I am against the dem machine politics and how we need to get new, positive, sane transportation people elected rather than the next dem on the rung.
“Bothsidesing”? Hell no. We need a different way.
Revolting
Empty
Patriarchal
Ugly
Bitter
Lamentable
Impudent
Creepy
Absurd
Nefarious
Resrouceful
Energetic
Principlaed
Unflappable
Bold
Logical
Independent
Committed
Active
Neighbroly.
See?
With the right adjectives you can make any party sound heroic. Your hyper partisan insults really do nothing to help us come together to solve some big problems that Oregon has. Think about it.
The difference is that surly ogre used apt adjectives. I’ll give your “resourceful”, but “principled”? Really?
Knowing the way that Oregonians typically vote, particularly among non-partisan voters, it will probably pass. And if someone had a referendum to dissolve the state, that would probably pass as well.
According to the Oregon 2025-2027 Budget Highlights,
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/lfo/Documents/2025-27%20Budget%20Highlights.pdf
the Oregon DOT gets four percent of the budget. That’s $6.1 Billion. One comparison: fourteen percent, $19.0 Billion, goes to Administration. I haven’t looked at what falls under that subhead but it should be interesting.
I was surprised that the ODOT share was that small, considering the importance of transportation to the economy and the impact of our Twentieth Century transportation infrastructure on our environment. If we are strangling ODOT and alternative transportation gets only the crumbs from freeway widening we are screwed. (Everybody knows that after one collapse we’ll find some money for bridges so until then we just abide.)
ODOT can go back to being the highway department as far as I’m concerned because institutionally they think about motor vehicles first and last. The greatest resource of our transportation infrastructure is not the built things, it’s the ground under the pavement or the tracks. We need to allocate that space to the most efficient uses and single occupant motor vehicles are not that.
Administration includes PERS, the pension fund. What’s fun about reading these documents is trying to find out how much debt the state is paying, and see how thoroughly it gets buried in the document.
One tidbit, on pages 61-62, apparently funded:
Who needs the legislature when you can always issue bonds and take on debt that the state must pay back?
“Administration”
The first order of business is to feather your own nest. Recall that one of the first actions of our new DSA city council was to give themselves more money for their offices.
JM, on your photo above is a prime example of a “complete street” with sidewalks on both sides, painted bike lanes on both sides, 2 lanes of car traffic in each direction, medians/turn lanes, and onstreet parking (plus lots of land use noise, air pollution, and traffic congestion), which I’m guessing is SW Barber. You are saying that Republican support this type of design on your caption and I’d say most democrats do too. I personally find such stroadway designs nauseating and prefer road diets and barrier-protected bike lanes, but both parties very publicly support highways and stroads, plus visual clutter and sprawling land uses.
ok david i changed the lead image so as not to distract from the piece and so folks don’t misunderstand my views based on an image and caption.
Indeed, much better, let’s talk about political parties that want to expand freeways in the Rose Quarter and across the Columbia River!
Yet another reason why Oregon sits in neutral. Tina played the delay game which seems to only inspire the right. Also, ODOT feels like a bloated organization with little consequence for their actions.
Yes it’s so frustrating. I wish we actually had a Republican party that offered good critiques of the Dems and forced healthy compromises and checks and balances and accountability. But we don’t have that and both parties — and our state! — are worse because of it.
Jonathan, I get that you’re worried about Republicans steering the transportation conversation, but you’re skimming over the part where tens of thousands of Oregonians have already signed petitions saying, “Hang on mate… maybe ask us before taking another bite out of our wallet.”
When a grassroots signature drive racks up 45,000 names in no time, with volunteers in tents across the state, small-business owners, commuters, and retirees all lining up, that is not a fringe uprising. That is people who are already paying the fourth highest gas prices in the country, staring down higher registration fees, title fees, payroll taxes, and thinking, “Righto, when does it end?”
You say Republicans are playing politics. Sure. But pretending that ODOT has not mismanaged money or that voters should just cheerfully fork over more cash feels a bit insulting. People are not signing because they want a 1960s highway system. They are signing because they do not trust the current system to use the money responsibly.
And the governor’s line, “Don’t sign or we can’t keep the roads operating,” does not exactly inspire confidence. It sounds less like leadership and more like emotional blackmail from an agency that has had years to get its books in order.
Meanwhile, Democrats negotiated so hard behind closed doors they watered the bill down until their own advocacy groups walked away. Then they were surprised that voters were not thrilled about footing the tab anyway.
So you can blame Republicans if you like. But you are missing the bigger picture. Oregonians of all stripes are fed up. They feel overtaxed, underserved, and talked down to. At some point, you cannot dismiss that as mere politics. It is lived experience.
If lawmakers want public support, maybe the first step is not another tax increase. Maybe it is proving the last few were not flushed away like loose change at a pokies machine.
no i’m not. I mention that several times in the piece.
never said it was.
that’s a very fair question, and one we need to ask in Oregon. Unfortunately, because in part due to reasons I explain in this piece, Republican leaders are not doing a good job of making that point in a way that doesn’t make them politically toxic to work with.
I never said anything like this. I agree ODOT has mismanaged money and have covered that mismanagement many times over the years. And again, I never said folks should just hand over their cash.
Government services cost money. I agree gov’t trust is in the toilet – and one major reason why is Republicans blame it as the bogeyman at every opportunity. It’s the right wing playbook old as time: Destroy gov’t and then take power and enrich yourself and the private sector. That shit don’t work. Dems don’t always help by failing to talk more about accountability and cutting bureaucracy where needed, but this is not “Both sides are bad” conversation in my opinion.
Another, and I would argue far more important reason than “Republicans!” is that even with all the power concentrated in a single party, objectively, Oregon has very poor measurable outcomes despite spending boatloads of money. One example that I think is far more important than transportation: we’re 15th in education spending, and DFL in reading scores, with some of the shortest school years in America (if not the rich world).
You can’t blame that on Republicans, or on “both sides”. Democrats own that, and it’s disgusting.