Dem Senator to Kotek: sign tax bill "without further delay"
The Governor's signature $4.3B tax hike bill remains on her desk, unsigned, while she and her wife are on an Asian trade mission for a week
In a sign of growing Democratic frustration with Governor Tina Kotek’s weeks-long delay in signing her signature 2025 bill to raise gas taxes and vehicle registration fees by some $4.3 billion, State Sen. Janeen Sollman (Hillsboro) sent a letter to the Governor Wednesday urging her to sign the bill “without further delay.”
The tax bill, HB 3991, was passed by the House in August and by the Senate September 29. A quirk in Oregon law sets the signature-gathering deadline December 30, but prohibits signature collection until the bill becomes law. Each day Kotek fails to sign the bill she described as an urgent necessity to prevent transportation worker layoffs and continue to plow highways this upcoming winter deprives tax hike opponents of a day to gather signatures to require a statewide vote that could repeal the tax hike. If she does not sign the bill into law by November 12, it will become law automatically, starting the signature-gathering clock.
In her letter, Sollman, who voted for the tax bill at the conclusion of the state’s longest-ever special legislative session, which Kotek called for the sole purpose of approving the bill, pointed to bipartisan concerns about Kotek waiting to sign it into law:
Many Oregonians, across party lines, believe that delaying action on this legislation may limit the window for opponents to pursue the referral process. Preserving the full opportunity for civic participation is essential to democratic governance, and I worry that waiting until the statutory deadline risks undermining public trust in that process and in the fairness of our decision making.
Sollman represents Senate District 15, which includes portions of Hillsboro, a Portland suburb home to many Nike and Intel workers, as well as Forest Grove and portions of rural Washington County. Washington County is a solidly Democratic county these days, with voters preferring Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 65% to 31% in 2024. Sollman was elected for the first time in 2022, besting her Republican opponent by around 10 points.
Sollman told me this afternoon via email the only response she’s received from the Governor’s office is acknowledgement of her request.
The Governor’s office did not respond to Oregon Roundup’s request for comment prior to deadline today. The Governor’s office has not responded to any request for comment from Oregon Roundup since December 2024, when we published a story about the governor’s spokesperson, Elisabeth Shepard, holding an emergency meeting with top state staff and a lobbyist for automatic voter registration in the wake of disclosure Oregon had registered at least 1,500 voters who had not demonstrated citizenship as required by Oregon and federal law.
State Senator Bruce Starr (R-Dundee) and Rep. Ed Diehl (R-Scio) announced they will commence collecting the approximately 78,000 signatures needed to put a repeal of HB 3991 on the November 2026 ballot as soon as Kotek signs the bill into law. Petitioners will have just 54 days to collect the necessary signatures if Kotek waits to allow the bill to become law on November 12.
According to The Oregonian, in early October, Kotek encouraged Oregonians to view skeptically signing a petition to put the tax repeal on the ballot:
Frankly, I would urge Oregonians to think about signing on to a referral that will take away our basic ability as Oregonians to keep our roads operating. We’re going to move forward with the assumption we have this and we have to move forward for the state and we’ll see what happens.
Kotek, her wife Aimee Kotek Wilson and three staffers left Oregon yesterday for a week-long trip to Japan and South Korea the Governor’s office says is intended to improve the state’s trade relations with those countries, according to The Oregonian.
In reference to the ongoing feud between Oregon Democrats and the Trump Administration regarding public safety around the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, the Governor’s spokesperson said, “The Governor will closely monitor the situation in Oregon during the mission and will assess daily whether she needs to return immediately to the state,” according to The Oregonian.
Sollman’s letter follows less than a week after State Rep. Emerson Levy (D-Bend) told Oregon Roundup she believes “we need fewer games and more trust-building” in response to a question about Kotek delaying signing the tax bill. Levy voted for the tax bill.
Despite holding a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, Kotek and Democratic legislative leadership labored mightily to pass the tax hike, spanning two separate legislative sessions this year, as some rank-and-file Democrats were concerned about voter backlash for supporting a regressive tax on Oregonians just over a year prior to the 2026 election.
If petitioners are successful in obtaining the required signatures, Oregonians would vote on whether to repeal the tax hike in November 2026. On the same ballot, voters will choose whether to let Kotek keep her job for another four years, and will decide who represents them in all 60 House seats and half the 30 Senate seats, including Sollman’s.
UPDATE:
Shortly after publishing the above article, I received an email from the office of Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland) providing me a copy of a letter Sen. Golden sent to Governor Kotek two days ago, urging her to sign the tax bill “with no further delay.”
Sen. Golden’s letter is similar in tone to the letter Sen. Sollman sent the Governor. Golden says the Governor’s delay “strategy runs squarely against some of our core values as Democrats: open government, citizen empowerment, transparency:”
Observers across the political spectrum seem to agree that the purpose of the delay is to minimize the available time that opponents of the bill would have to gather the signatures needed for a ballot measure to repeal it. If that’s accurate—and I haven’t heard any other interpretation— the strategy runs squarely against some of our core values as Democrats: open government, citizen empowerment, transparency. The growing discomfort that the delay distorts the normal initiative process would be eased, in my view, if you were to sign the bill now rather than waiting until the statutory deadline.
"...I worry that waiting until the statutory deadline risks undermining public trust in that process and in the fairness of our decision making."
Of which until now there was an abundance....
Great update. I'm ready to sign the damn petition with haste and alacrity. I have no patience for these political games. I should either be Governor or stay retired. It can't be something in-between.