Oregon's legislators ared a sneaky bunch, always trying to slip in new taxes to appropriations bills.
I am going to start with this article from the Taxpayers Association of Oregon, which gives a whiff of how bad it is:
The 2025 Oregon Legislative Session ended on Friday night with only two days left before the cut-off deadline on June 29th.
The end to the 6-month Session found a desperate, sneaky, and dangerous attempt to cram last-minutes taxes down taxpayers throats when they were not looking.
The $2 billion dollar gas tax/road tax transportation bill (HB 2025) waited until the final days of entire 6-month session to become known. The details of the massive tax were not even fully made public as they were having public hearings on them. It was a scam and a sham to hide taxes during a public hearing. This gas tax/road tax transportation bill died in committee as a colossal failure. And yes, Governor Kotek tried to save the bill at the last minute with veto threats according to Capitol insiders.
Also, a last-minute effort to pass a hotel tax (Hb 2977) to fund wildlife tried to squeak by. This was a massive 80% hotel tax increase for something that had nothing to do with hotels.
The good part is that these measures failed, having been caught in time for voters to be alerted
In June of 2025, there was a seismic shift in Oregon politics as the regular working people from both sides of the aisle fought the Democratic and Republican RINO elites to a total obliteration of most of the taxes the Democrats and RINOs wanted to impose on the Oregon populace.
It was a spectacle unlike anything we in Oregon politics have ever seen.
Conservative MAGA and moderate Democrats testified against the largest attempted wealth grab because both sides of the working folks knew these taxes would end Oregon as a functioning state. This was a titanic struggle, especially in the last two weeks of the legislative session.
What was different about this pushback was that moderate and far-left Democrats stood up and roared, "NO!" Democrats testified in front of legislative committees and sent thousands of emails to Oregon legislators with a single unified message: Don’t pass the most significant tax ever levied in Oregon, and if you do, start cleaning out your Capitol building office, even with leftwing Gov. Tina Kotek calling, threatening, and screaming at the Democrat legislators.
The people's message of 'no' trumped her angry outbursts.
Very late in the session, I think with two days left, the governor attempted to push through a significantly reduced transportation tax bill, which died in committee. Two other tax bills, the Hotel and Google tax bills, were also killed at the end of the session. Plus, the tax kicker all goes back to the people.
It is an extraordinary time here in Oregon.
We are looking at the smoldering ruins of all the wealth-robbing schemes and scams that the Democrats and the weak Republicans who cooperated with the Democrats were going to enforce on the citizens.
The Republicans who decided to make a deal with the devil are sending out letters and emails trying to explain to other Republicans why they voted to tax hard-working people to reward the Oregon Department of Transportation, or as we all call it, ODOT, billions of dollars in tax money.
The typical propaganda tactics were and are being used on the people of Oregon by the governor and other officials. We see stories now in the media saying hundreds of ODOT workers will be laid off in the coming weeks, all the result of the people of Oregon saying “No More Taxes.”
My question is, and has been, how do you squander a supermajority in a state legislature? I believe the answer is that if the Democrats thought they had all the aces and high cards, they overplayed their hand, forgetting that there was a wild card in the deck—the citizens of Oregon.
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