“Don’t ever change, keep your essence / The power is in the people and politics we address”
—2pac, Me Against the World (1995)
Dear Governor Kotek,
It’s been a while.
I write this letter with little joy. In fact, given the work I do in the realm of civics—it is near certain my words will curry no favor, or lend themselves to greater financial gain or access to opportunity. However, I accepted long ago that, practical as my views may be, they are often not reflective of the political establishment of my home state.
So be it.
Now before I get into it, you may wonder why I say “a while.” I don’t expect to be instantly remembered by you. I’m around, but not… in the mix. I did, however, film an ad for your last campaign. I did coordinate media at a rally that you spoke at on the waterfront last summer. And some months ago, I was even at your shoulder as you signed a maternal health bill my partner worked tirelessly on.
But man… has it been a rough four years since I filmed that ad for you.
As not to bury the lead any further: I am not happy with my options for governor right now.
I am no Miss Cleo, but the primary resulting in a rematch between you and Canby Republican Christine Drazan (who I need not remind you, came real close to snatching that seat of yours last go-round) was in fact fully on my 2026 bingo card.
In the subsequent years since Election Day ‘22, I’ve seen you meander to the “middle” on many days, and sound more like your conservative Canby opponent, instead of the Portland progressive I voted for.
In Dirk VanderHart’s 2024 OPB article “Gov. Tina Kotek’s first year in office was not what her critics expected,” you explained your rightward shift as pragmatic, saying:
“I’m going to continue to move the progressive needle if I can, because that’s who I am as a person. But you also have to be able to get things done…. It’s just I have a different set of tools as governor.”
If you can? You are the most powerful politician in Oregon—you can actually do a lot.
You’ve thrown unnecessary weight behind a bloated carceral system in the name of good governance. The environment is in the crosshairs of your development plans. Preschool for All has been dodging your killshot at a time when families like mine desperately need it. And you stood up a corporate “Prosperity Council” then hired as its chief officer Tim Knopp, a man who had been at the top of Republican politics in the state for nearly 20 years. Maybe this is some type of 4D chess I don’t understand though?
Probably not.
That said, I have admired some of the very real ways you have stood up to Trump. The attorney general’s lawsuits you’ve backed to keep Trump’s thumb off Oregon have been critical. You were even forced to have direct conversations with the man to help keep his federal invasion of troops at bay—I can’t imagine that was fun.
When you cursed at a public rally saying what he was attempting to do with the feds in Portland was “bullshit!” I felt that shit.
But honestly, standing up to Trump is kinda the baseline, right?
Your first campaign ad has already been released, stoking the fear of how much of a puppet Drazan might be under a Trump presidency.
And yeah, sure; but I can’t help but want for more.
Where is the vision?
Your new $94 million investment in senior housing is necessary—they’re the most vulnerable right now. To that end, the housing state of emergency you’ve declared every year? Also necessary. You have also been quite solid on abortion and maternal health.
There’s more I could point to, but as rapper/philosopher Kendrick Lamar once said, “it’s not enough!”
The recent victories of DSA-backed candidates Tammy Carpenter and Myra Muñoz for state office in Washington County should be a bit of a wake up call to those who think being “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” is the winning position of the day.
Still, it seems to me your current plan is to shoot from the Democratic Party line and hope to bankshot a victory off the strength that enough people will vote for you in November because there’s a “D” next to your name.
Sure, a Republican hasn’t called the governor’s mansion home since before I was born.
But this year, I don’t know if that statement will hold.
I’m not sure you know either.
It’s because of that very uncertainty some people may wonder, aloud or privately, why I would write this piece now, after the May primary.
“We need to all coalesce around the best candidate to protect ‘X’ ‘Y’ or ‘Z’” they’ll say.
Indeed, many of those same issues are of importance to me, too. But this whole Saving Democracy™ bit from Democrats has gotten overplayed to me. There’s more at stake.
Politics is not meant to be about flash. Nor are politics about being a savior. We cast a ballot, and the winner goes and does a job. But, there’s a difference between flash and spark… and man, could we use something to spark us.
Democracy works best when there’s something to believe in at the ballot box.
It doesn’t take much—just some evidence that you’re fighting for lasting structural change we can feel.
I probably won’t be talking to you between hitting publish on this and Election Day. So I submit these words to you, from afar: Here are some things that would help make voting for you easier this November.
Fight for a moratorium on data centers
The AI revolution is here. And Sam Altman said it will likely end the world. Rural Oregonians are feeling this in the realest way. Google’s data centers in The Dalles account for almost 40 percent of the water usage there, with plans to likely expand. Some see a boon to the local economy; I see another existential threat to the globe. Don’t let big companies bleed our small towns for a quick buck.
Stabilize housing
Continue your homelessness state of emergency because it’s obvious we are still in one. Forty percent of Oregonians are renters, and a growing number of them are becoming homeless as evidenced by increased eviction filings, which have become the highest in state history. In addition, homeownership is becoming out of reach for more and more people. Not only that, but multi-generational living is eroding across the state.
While your opponent says our housing crisis is being driven by drugs and addiction—we know the fact that nurses can’t afford to live in Jackson County these days is because of predatory corporate price gouging—not drugs.
It’s time to remove the state’s pre-emption on rent control. You and I both know that while the local media often says we have rent control in Oregon, we don’t. The rent “stabilization” law we do have has been fought tooth and nail by corporate housing companies, and it still allows landlords to raise the rent in excess of a hundred dollars on market rate units each year. Keeping Oregonians housed is the absolute floor to solving any other issues in our state.
The Market™ is not regulating itself and we can’t build ourselves out of this hole alone.
Invest in real addiction & mental health services
People for Portland had a field day with trashing Measure 110. So against the data, our state (with your soft support) moved backward, once again criminalizing addiction. The “deflection” experiment that was supposed to give cops the “tool” to force homeless people into treatment has been a multi-million dollar flop. It’s time to divest from deflection and redirect those investments into desperately needed services.
Measure 110 funding increased detox capacity in Portland by 18 percent and created the state’s first transitional housing for Black women. We need more of this. While political cycles ebb and flow, it’s going to take years for our state to detach from treating addiction like a crime more than a healthcare issue. There are still lines out the door daily for people seeking treatment. To beat this, we need the state to aggressively increase detox capacity statewide, as well as transitional housing, so when people do get clean they don’t end up right back on the streets. We can’t do this right if we’re treating cops as frontline addiction workers.
Pivot on public safety
Oregon spends billions on its carceral system each year. The result? We have one of the worst imprisonment rates of any democracy on earth, according to the national research organization Prison Policy Initiative. Since its inception, Portland Street Response, our unarmed emergency response agency has never had full funding, even after expanding to city-wide service. Commit to kicking down state funds to ensure that one of our region’s most effective, yet cash-strapped agencies has what it needs to deliver on public safety, and can finally beef up to 24/7 service.
Then end qualified immunity. Every year, Oregon taxpayers are footing the bill for expensive settlements due to cops’ bad behavior. Example: the recent $1 million in payouts the city of St. Helens was forced to allot after cops in two separate incidents in which they kicked and punched people who were already on the ground. It’s time to stop making taxpayers foot the bill for police malfeasance. Qualified immunity offers an unnecessary and expensive burden to taxpayers for the cops’ repeated use of excessive and deadly force. Trump wants to give cops blanket immunity. Unfortunately, we’re already not far off from that. You spoke at a local NAACP’s MLK Day event last year about the need to hold up King’s legacy today. King would be proud if you got this one across the line.
Commit to reparations
In 2021, the city of Portland committed to lobbying the Feds for reparations. Every year since, Sen. Lew Frederick has attempted to advance legislation that would stand up a task force to examine how to enact reparations in Oregon, based on years of exclusionary and disenfranchising policies. This wouldn’t make you popular with your Prosperity Council or the political right for sure, but it would help to make you right with history, and cement your legacy as a trailblazer. This probably feels niche to you, I imagine. It is no more niche than the state’s investments to dress the wounds left behind by the 2021 Alameda Fires across Southern Oregon.
Announce a people’s tour
Your listening tour across all 36 counties a couple years back was admirable. Now do one that reaches those on the edges of prosperity. Visit the corporate apartment complexes that receive the highest rates of rent relief checks statewide—these places are being subsidized by the state, but their tenants can’t afford the rent. Are bad landlords and property managers getting a deal off the back of our housing crisis? Visit all 12 prisons and 36 jails across Oregon and talk to the human beings caged inside about their experiences—do it unannounced—maybe the conditions there are swell?
A campaign is never a place to stifle imagination. We should be able to see how our corner of the world will open to new possibilities with you at the top.
When you break from convention, “the middle” is not just less appealing, but less effective, therefore less useful. The “middle” is not the home of progress. The “middle” does not inspire. Why not encourage the masses to know that the most powerful official in Oregon not only has a vision for us that includes being a dogged advocate for uprooting systems of exploitation—be they draconian or new-age? Why not give us some spark?
Show us that when it counts the most, a real progressive knows how to get things done.
Sincerely,
Scribes (A constituent)
