One of Oregon’s biggest needs, as the Legislature is about to consider in the short session that starts Monday, is financing maintenance and improvements of its transportation system.
In most times, that would be a no-brainer, right?
But over the last year, it has become a mind-bending puzzle with elements of three-dimensional chess and a Rubik’s cube.
For many years, the formula was simple: Gas taxes, with some related fees, along with federal grants and a few other sources, were enough to take care of the basic work.
In recent years, though, electric vehicles and better gas efficiency have cut into the revenue stream, and the cost of road work — a complex subject by itself — has shot through the roof. The system the state has relied on no longer meets the state’s needs.
This much is more or less indisputable. Few Oregonians argue those basics.
The problem has been apparent for a few years, but because any solution would involve either raising taxes or fees on one hand, or letting roads and bridges deteriorate (alongside mass layoffs at the Department of Transportation) on the other, there’s political pain in grappling with any answer.
So let’s review quickly our transportation funding quagmire over the last year.
During the 2025 regular session, legislators talked for months about transportation funding, although until its end not always in a wide-open fashion. Democrats argued that $14.6 billion (over 10 years) was needed, but couldn’t get the votes; then cut that down to $11.7 billion (over 10 years) which also couldn’t get the votes.
Republicans, who were barely brought into the process, agreed (in general) to oppose almost any Democratic transportation proposal. The session ended with no additional funding and the impending layoffs of hundreds of ODOT workers.
Gov. Tina Kotek understandably wasn’t satisfied, and called a special session, to pass a proposal finally priced at $4.3 billion — down more than two-thirds from the original stated need only months before.
That one — decried by Republican legislators as a tax increase of historic proportions — finally passed by a single vote only after a super-extended special session ended when a single member was able to return to duty after medical issues. Kotek waited until Nov. 7 to sign the revenue bill into law, which had the practical effect of shortening about as much as possible the amount of time opponents would have to get petition signatures so voters could opt to vote against it a year hence.
But surprise (or probably not): Within a few weeks before the end of the year, well within the deadline, a quarter-million Oregonians signed petitions to put the referendum on the ballot, an indicator of massive opposition to the transportation package.
Next, the Democrats said they would try to repeal the bill in the upcoming special session to head off the referendum.
Then, Republicans (and legal analysis) said it was too late for that — the referendum was going to the ballot regardless. That analysis seemed to hold up.
Next, Democrats said they would move the referendum vote to the May primary election, presumably with the hope of taking the issue off the table during the general election campaign. The (inevitable) legal challenges on that aren’t all in yet.
And then, the Republican field for governor (which office is on the ballot this year) grew in January to include state Rep. Ed Diehl of Scio, who was a leader of the referendum effort and strongly indicated he planned to make it a centerpiece of his campaign.
That may have had the effect of scrambling a Republican nomination race that had seemed all but in the bag for 2022 nominee Christine Drazan. But within days the race was scrambled again by the entry of 2010 gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley, whose views on transportation funding (and much else) seem … unformed.
So, as the special session is about to start: Does anyone remember that Oregon still has, you know, a problem with fixing its roads and paying for it? Work that apparently lots of Oregonians do understand needs to be done?
This funding battle has evolved into an infernal knot. As the new legislative session and election cycle bears down, it’s worth asking if there’s any way out.
Maybe.
We could start by going back to basics. We could ask Oregonians if they do in fact recognize the need and, if they do, if they’re willing to in some form fork over the bucks to deal with it.
It could help to pose the question most directly, and unavoidably, to Republican legislators: What sort of an actual solution would you support? And ask Democrats: This time, are you willing to work more equitably with the Republicans?
A batch of town hall meetings around the state dedicated to the issue actually might help, and could focus people’s thinking.
The clock is ticking. As in hours more than days, days more than weeks.