GOP: Legislature can’t repeal transportation funding bill
By Terry Murry on Friday, January 16th, 2026 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
SALEM – A grass roots campaign produced far more signatures than needed to force the Oregon Legislature’s emergency session bill onto the ballot for a vote of the people. In a move to counter that, Gov. Tina Kotek is calling on the legislature to repeal House Bill 3991 altogether. Now, Republican leaders say that can’t happen.
“A 1935 Oregon Attorney General opinion confirms that once Oregonians invoke their constitutional right to referendum, the legislature has no authority to repeal the measure before voters have their say,” Republican legislative leaders state in a release issued Thursday.
Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Dundee) said that the opinion from decades ago makes the law unmistakably clear.
“The Constitution requires an election,” he wrote. “There is no statutory workaround, no procedural loophole, and no legal basis to keep this measure off the ballot. Governor Kotek’s sudden call for a repeal is an attempt to censor the people’s vote, pain and simple, and it doesn’t change the law.”
Starr was one of the chief petitioners on the successful referendum. The House Republican Leader Lucetta Elmer of McMinnville agrees.
“It is concerning that it took investigative reporting to bring attention to decisions that appear to deviate from established state policy and practice,” she stated. “Oregonians followed the constitutional process to request a vote, and they deserve transparency, adherence to the law, and leaders who respect the role of voters in deciding major tax policy.”
