Aug. 29 marks the opening — and maybe closing as well — of this year’s special legislative session.
The stakes are higher than usual, not only because of the state budget issues involved but because that also may be the day the 2026 race for Oregon governor effectively kicks off.
All the raw materials for the campaign seem to be in place.
Those do not, for the most part, include the actual candidates. The field for governor as of now is far from set. Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has not formally declared her reelection campaign — though considering the many fundraising emails her organization has been sending for many months, Kotek opting out would be a true shocker. There are several little-known candidates in the field, but so far none with major organization, funding or broad familiarity have formally announced.
This environment could change greatly before long.
One indicator was the July 28 launch of a recall effort against Kotek, by William Minnix of La Pine. To reach ballot status, he would have to collect 292,933 signatures by Oct. 27 — an immense effort, with no apparent mass organization behind it, highly unlikely to succeed. The recall campaign, even if small in actual organization, may get some attention around the state, possibly enough to affect the opening environment for candidate campaigns.
The stated reasons for recall may also get some circulation among Republicans: “Supporting policies that prioritize the support of illegal immigrants, over law-abiding Oregonians, including veteran, low-income families, elders and victims of crime. In addition, she has failed to abide by presidential executive orders and mandates, eliminating federal funding. In doing so she continues to unfairly attempt to over tax Oregonians to make up for lost federal funding.”
A second indicator of an uptick in gubernatorial politics is the special session. It will feature a rerun of one of the hottest issues of the last regular session, transportation funding. Proposals floated (and never passed) during the session were blasted statewide as becoming the biggest tax increase in Oregon history, enough at least to make a strong campaign slogan.
The non-passage of a transportation funding measure already has resulted in hundreds of announced layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation, but revenue plans — which mean significant increases in taxes and fees, some of which have been proposed by the governor — are sure to remain highly controversial.
Anyone thinking of challenging Kotek is surely looking at attaching that special session to her, and that could be true whether or not the legislators do what the governor wants them to do. If they rebuff her, she’d be dinged as ineffective. If she gets what she’s asking for, the fallout could be greater.
The background of a politically touchy session combined with recall efforts in the wind likely will result, not too many weeks from now, in the appearance of a major Republican contender.
In 2022, Republicans were hamstrung by an enormous field of candidates, none of them so well known as to be an obvious front-runner. That might be different this time.
That 2022 Republican nominee, Christine Drazan, turned out to be an effective candidate who came within 3.4 percentage points of beating Kotek. A former legislator and House Republican leader at the time of her last run, she has since bounced back into state politics, winning election to the Legislature last year (taking out an incumbent fellow Republican, James Hieb, in the process), and now is again House Republican leader. Any discussion of major contenders for the 2026 Republican nomination for governor has to start with her.
She has so far fended off inquiries about that, recently saying she wants to focus on the upcoming special session (which could be true from a candidate’s as well as a legislator’s perspective).
But at least one specific move toward a run has surfaced, in a report from the Oregon Journalism Project of a $55,000 polling effort paid for by Drazan (the results of which haven’t been released).
If after the special session Drazan is interested in running, the period in September or early October (before the probable failure of the recall effort in reaching ballot status), and allowing for a significant fundraising period prior to the next regular legislative session, would be optimal.
If she doesn’t want to run, patience among other Republicans is likely to evaporate soon. Anyone else would have to start from scratch and with fewer assets, and delays among Republicans in getting an early start would be a gift to Kotek. (On her part, Kotek probably will want to announce soon too, to avoid restiveness among Democrats.)
This upcoming special legislative session, then, is becoming a serious pivot in the run for governor over the year beyond it. In some ways, tension at the statehouse could run a little higher than usual.
This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle