Oregon, just like California, New York, and Washington state, is a Democrat-controlled blue wasteland that is now declaring itself an illegal immigrant sanctuary state. The newly-elected state Attorney General Dan Rayfield has announced he is going to Trump-proof Oregon, whatever that means.

In the 2024 election, Oregon went full, deep blue, and we now have a Democrat supermajority, which means any taxes, liberal wants, or just plain dumb ideas can and will be proposed and passed because the Republicans do not have enough votes to stop anything. We have seen this before, and the bills and laws submitted and passed never make Oregonian lives better, cheaper, or less regulated. Already, the legislature is talking about gas taxes to fill the billion-dollar hole that the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has dug for themselves. Already, we are seeing tolls on taxpayer-funded roads, which are the people's roads, being talked about, and this is proposed to strip away even more wealth from working people.

Over the years, Oregon's timber industry has been decimated by ill-conceived green energy ideas and false claims. Who can forget the Spotted Owl debacle? Another owl, the Barred Owl, is moving into Spotted Owl territory. And the solution is to kill all the Barred Owls.

When are liberals and the greenies going to understand that their solution, especially in this area, will only lead to more significant problems? “Nature abhors a vacuum” is a phrase we often hear. So eradicating the Barred Owl in favor of the Spotted Owl may lead to another unwanted owl moving in to fill the vacuum, maybe a Barn Owl or some other species. The real problem is that many Oregon legislators are from deep-blue urban areas like Portland and Bend and do not or will not try to understand that Mother Nature plays by her own rules and controls the game.

Oregon is like a train sitting on a mountaintop; the very steep track in front of the train has a substantial sweeping curve that can only be navigated safely at low speed, like in the 2010 movie Unstoppable where “ Using the independent air brake, Will (Chris Pine) and Frank (Denzel Washington) carefully coordinate their brake timing via radio, managing to reduce speed enough to navigate Stanton Curve safely.”
The Democratic supermajority in the Oregon legislature has made it very clear that they plan on pushing the speed throttle to the maximum while removing any braking mechanisms from the train. All the citizens of Oregon can do is buckle up, because once the train starts moving, we are in for a rough ride.

John Woods: Husband, Father, Conservative, Patriot, Delegate to state Oregon Republican party.

Image: Oregon Department of Transportation