Victoria Taft's weekly "West Coast, Messed Coast" column is up
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(May, 2022 — She went on to become governor)
Winner!
— of most corrupt state of the West Coast, Messed Coast™.
The unfortunately-named Tina Kotek, the governor of Oregon, rammed through a bespoke bill to pull a switcheroo on the initiative-petition-signing opponents of a massive gas tax increase. That switcheroo completely turned Oregon law on its head and pulled a bait and switch on voters. But her path to getting there was even more traitorous and torturous.
Kotek signed the massive tax increase earlier in a special legislative session but only after waiting until the last minute to deprive opponents the ability to collect enough signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot.
Opponents got the signatures in record time, however, and qualified the tax repeal for the November ballot.
Knowing the repeal would pass, Kotek then attempted more political chicanery by issuing a press release to stop her own tax increase.
Then she tried to stop the gas tax by attempting to repeal the entire bill, which would stop and/or moot the November vote on the legally qualified initiative.
Then came her effort to get the initiative moved to the May ballot. Kotek got Democrats to sponsor a bill to pull the date switcheroo.
In the meantime, a Democrat appointed judge (what other kind are there in Oregon anymore?) ratified the moves by the lawbreaking Democrats.
And now Kotek has signed the bill into law, changing the date of this particular initiative.
I'd say this is the most corrupt practice I've seen in Oregon, but that's not true. Indeed, the other most corrupt practice also occurred this past week when, at Kotek's prompting, Democrats produced a bill allowing secret meetings by lawmakers. The move completely blows up the Oregon open meetings law.
Kotek's party also "disconnected" Oregon's tax law from three of Trump’s 2025 tax cuts in the Big Beautiful bill.