A couple of decades ago, the comedian Chris Rock led a TV series called “Everybody Hates Chris,” its name a spin on “Everybody Loves Raymond”.
Not to pile on too much, but did Oregon just see the “Everybody Hates ODOT” election?
The context is that practically everyone in the state seemed to expect the transportation tax and fee law passed last year by the legislature to be given the boot by the voters; the only question was how strong that vote would be.
It turned out to be overwhelming: as of mid-evening on Tuesday, 83.1% of Oregon voters opted to throw out the taxes and fees (which already were on hold pending the election).
And it was as across-the-board a decision as you could imagine. No county voted for the package, and none even came close. You could note that the three counties with the highest pro-transportation tax votes were all Democratic places: Benton, Hood River and Multnomah. But look at the percentages in favor even there: 29.3%. 28.1%, and 25% respectively.
In Harney, Lake, Morrow and Sherman counties, the tax plan couldn’t even crack 4% favorable, and most of eastern Oregon, and many other counties, didn’t generate a lot more support.
The package was passed originally as a cobbled-together effort to save basic services provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation. You have to imagine this kind of a mass repudiation making a big impact around its state offices in the weeks to come. Or at least it should.
There’s another side effect almost as worthy of note, though: The part of this political equation that didn’t translate into everybody loving someone else, at least not as much as some people might have thought.
The candidate in question is Ed Diehl, a state legislator from Stayton running for the Republican nomination for governor. Last fall, before he got into the gubernatorial race, he led an effort to put a referendum about the newly-passed transportation revenue plan on the statewide ballot. That effort not only worked but succeeded spectacularly: Within just a few weeks a quarter-million petition signatures were delivered, and the momentum to kill the transportation plan was massive and building.
That kind of success apparently got Diehl looking toward statewide horizons, and he filed for governor. His connection to the referendum was front and center, and his signs made sure to identify him as Ed “No Tax” Diehl. That labeling may have given him a slightly more focused identity than any of the other Republican candidates had, though most if not all of them were on his side in the issue.
To be fair, Diehl did a fair job campaigning and spoke with some depth about other subjects as well. But his identification with the referendum was so strong that it’s hard to imagine he would have been running were it not on the ballot.
So the question was, could it be enough to lift him to the Republican nomination?
You probably can’t say it didn’t help.
As of mid-Tuesday evening, Diehl was at 32.2% of the vote in a 14-candidate field, well behind expected front-runner Christine Drazan (the party’s 2022 nominee for the job) with 42.8% and well ahead of Chris Dudley, who had 15.6% (he was the nominee in 2010). No one else cracked 5%.
Drazan’s win was widespread, taking all but the seven counties Diehl won (Polk, Marion, Linn, Crook, Grant, Harney and Wallowa). Marion and Linn were home turf for Diehl, and the referendum had especially lopsided results in the others.
Put another way, Diehl likely did benefit a little from the association with the referendum, but probably not all that much.
Let’s shift the focus a little now toward November. The big transportation plan pushed by Democratic Governor Tina Kotek now has been dramatically rejected; apparently in anticipation of that, she already has started a process toward planning what to do next.
Will the rejected transportation plan be front and center in the Kotek-Drazan rematch?
Likely, it will be a factor, but its ability to carry its impact into other races may be limited. The governor’s race no doubt will feature talk about transportation funding, and Drazan will quite reasonably talk about the politics and policy of Measure 120. But Kotek likely will come back with other options, and by November the issue may be reframed.
Fury doesn’t seem to be all that transferable. Especially once it’s been given expression and, possibly, has blown itself out.
Randy Stapilus has researched and written about Northwest politics and issues since 1976 for a long list of newspapers and other publications. A former newspaper reporter and editor, and more recently an author and book publisher, he lives in Carlton. This guest commentary is from news partner Oregon Capital Chronicle, and it may or may not reflect the views of The Corvallis Advocate, or its management, staff, supporters and advertisers.
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