Oregon, My Oregon

 Beege Welborn at Hat Hair: Oregon's Gas Tax Increase/Transportation Bill in for a Fight

Oregon's governor, Tina Kotek, was in a spot a couple of months ago. She and her Democratic legislature had themselves a six-month-long battle to get a wish-list transportation funding bill passed that they, even after months of wrangling and browbeating, couldn't get past all the members of their own party, let alone united-in-opposition Republican legislative members. 

Layoffs and cut-backs throughout state transportation departments ensued, and the governor finally had to resort to calling a special session this summer to get it done.

...The signing of House Bill 3991 caps off what became a nearly yearlong battle to get some sort of transportation funding passed, and the final product falls far short of what Kotek and leading Democratic lawmakers initially sought. ODOT and other transit agencies will still be left with structural financial problems, and TriMet is still moving forward with significant service cuts.

Democrats went into this year's legislative session in January aiming to pass a comprehensive package that would address ODOT's immediate budget gap and provide new funding for a host of priorities. The proposal faced of near-total Republican opposition, and Democrats ultimately failed to muster enough votes from their own caucus before the session ended in June.

ODOT announced major service and staff cuts after the package's failure, but Kotek delayed them and called a special session to pass a smaller stopgap bill. HB 3991 passed the House on Sept. 1 but then languished for nearly a month as Democrats waited for the return of one senator who was recovering from surgery and whose vote was needed to overcome Republican opposition.

The bill finally passed the Senate on Sept. 29, but has been waiting for the past six weeks for Kotek's signature, even as the governor directed ODOT to cancel the layoffs and the agency began sending out news releases notifying Oregonians about the pending implementation of some of the bill's provisions such as the gas tax hike.

A slimmed-down version finally passed in September and has been waiting on the governor's desk for her signature ever since. That has not been because of anyone's ill-health or problems legislatively, but a strategic move on Kotek's part.

When those news releases mentioned above started going out to Oregon's residents about provisions within the bill on her desk, it turns out Oregonians were not pleased in the least by what the legislature and governor were fixin' to do to them. Across the state, outraged citizens threatened to put provisions of the bill on the ballot the second they could start circulating petitions to do so.

When could they do so? Once the bill was signed by the governor, who has thirty days to sign legislation from the day it's passed.

Oh.

Well. No worries. When did the petitions have to be submitted by?

30 December.

OH.

Grok tells me gas prices in Oregon currently average $3.79 per gallon, while in Maryland, not exactly well known for it's low taxes, it's  only $3.31 (seems about right).