(Updated to include Thursday response from Republican leaders)
SALEM, Ore. — Democratic leaders in the Oregon Legislature say they will seek to speed up the process of getting a referendum to repeal the 2025 transportation bill — and its associated tax and fee hikes — to voters. This comes after a determination that the legislature cannot repeal the bill itself now that the referendum has qualified for the ballot.
House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said Wednesday they will introduce legislation in the upcoming session to let voters decide on the repeal during the May 19 primary, not the November general election. The session starts Feb. 2.
Republicans in the legislature, including one who led the effort to get the repeal on the ballot, blasted the move on Thursday and claimed Democrats are trying to get the measure into an election cycle that has a lower turnout.
Here’s a look at how we got to this point.
Transportation bill passes
Facing a major transportation funding shortfall. Gov. Tina Kotek called a special session of the Legislature last summer.
Lawmakers passed House Bill 3991. The $4.3 billion bill to fund transportation projects and stave off hundreds of layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation. It includes, among other things, a six-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax, a doubling of the payroll tax to 0.2%, and increases to vehicle title and registration fees.
“No Tax Oregon” referendum puts bill on hold
Within weeks of Kotek signing the bill, a Republican-led effort turned in more than twice the required valid signatures to put a referendum on the ballot to reverse the aforementioned tax and fee hikes. Referendum sponsors said the voters should have the final say on such increases.
Because the measure qualified, those aspects of the bill were immediately put on hold until it goes to voters. But that won’t happen until November’s general election.
Kotek calls on the Legislature to repeal the bill
On Jan. 7, Kotek called on the Legislature to repeal the bill she championed now and to develop a new funding plan.
“Leaving the law in place would require ODOT to absorb implementation costs without new resources, thus prolonging uncertainty for communities and the transportation agency and further delaying progress toward a durable solution,” Kotek’s office said.
Republicans cite a 90-year-old opinion saying it must go to voters
An article by the Oregon Journalism Project found that an opinion by a former Oregon Attorney General in 1935 determined that once a law has been referred to the ballot, the Legislature cannot undo it.
Republicans pushing for the repeal vote cited this as a reason why the Legislature could not repeal it.
Democrats push to speed up the vote
Kotek’s office released a statement Wednesday saying “updated legal analysis” determined the Legislature could not repeal the bill itself.
“Two weeks ago, I was clear with Oregonians about transportation: we must redirect, repeal, and rebuild,” Kotek said in a statement. “The legislature and the constitution will determine how and when repeal occurs. My responsibility remains the same: keep our roads safe, our economy moving, and help deliver a bipartisan long-term transportation solution.”
Fahey and Wagner said they will seek to get the measure on the ballot in May, not November. They said the Oregon Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to set dates for initiative and referendum measures.
In addition to giving voters their voice, the leaders said an earlier vote would allow lawmakers and jurisdictions know sooner what kind of funding they can expect for the next two years.
“Voters were clear that they want to have a say on this bill, and legislators and our local partners need to know the transportation funding landscape so meaningful conversations can continue,” Wagner said in a statement. “Setting the election date for May achieves both these goals.”
Republicans claim Democrats “disenfranchise” voters with move
Senate Republican Leader Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, and House Republican Leader Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, blasted the effort to move up the vote on Thursday. They claim it’s an attempt to disenfranchise voters by moving the measure to a lower turnout election in May rather than the higher turnout election in November when major races for governor and Congress will be decided.
“This is politics, plain and simple, and the worst kind,” Starr said in a statement. “Democrats spent months trying to keep voters from having a say at all. Now they want to rush it into a low-turnout primary because they know this tax package is deeply unpopular with voters. In a November election, nearly seven out of ten Oregonians vote. In a primary, it is closer to one out of three. That choice is about protecting politicians who voted for a massive gas tax increase, not giving voters a fair say.”
Starr was one of the chief organizers behind the referendum. Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Stayton, another leader of the repeal effort, predicted in December that Democrats might try to move the vote out of the general election, according to the Salem Statesman Journal.
Moving the referendum up six months would also mean that the measure would not be on the same ballot as Kotek in the general election, should she make it out of the May primary.
“Right now, my major concern is the fact that we have about a $300 million budget hole in the Oregon Department of Transportation,” Kotek told KATU in Thursday. “What was passed last year is not happening. So my job right now is to figure out, in a bipartisan fashion, to fill that budget hole. And I’ve had at least three meetings now with legislative leaders, bipartisan meetings, to say ‘How do we fill that hole?’”
Starr added in his statement that Republicans will be working in the 2026 session to tackle transportation funding without raising taxes.
Diehl announced on Wednesday he is running for the Republican nomination for governor.
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