A Message from Oregon State Senator Chris Gorsek: 

The collapse of Oregon’s 2025 transportation reinvestment package was marked by a dysfunction that can’t be easily described with bite-sized, partisan clichés. Making the end result even less satisfying: we didn’t get the package across the finish line. In a moment when real compromise was required, ideological posturing and calculated disengagement won the day. Yet within this disheartening ineffectiveness, there were legislators spread across chambers, parties, and leadership collaborating to keep the years-long work alive, and for them, I am grateful.    

While many of my colleagues retreated into ideology or refused to participate in earnest negotiations, there were legislators and staff that stayed on task: delivering a bipartisan transportation plan to fix Oregon’s roads. Indeed most of the members in both chambers and parties participated with good faith and trust. I won’t get into specifics; but too often, our missteps and cooperation can be conflated, misunderstood and then vilified. The failure is not one of easy answers, heroes, and villains but a complex web of passionate legislators at times being both sincere and wrong.

Often in the closing weeks committee rooms were tense resulting in cynicism and mistrust. Many of us tried to counter this emerging atmosphere in an effort to defend the seriousness of the work. We challenged pessimism that undermined good-faith efforts from both sides of the aisle. I acknowledge that at least once, my tone did not measure up. I admit my efforts fell short because of my–and many others’–desperation to provide a meaningful transportation package.

We were simply creating a funding mechanism to fill potholes and repave sidewalks. We sought to protect the dignity of workers who perform those tasks. It was an effort to keep our snowplows working through this upcoming winter. It was an effort to connect rural towns to urban centers. Finally it was meant to make Oregon’s communities safer. 

The failure of the package cannot be laid at the feet of those who showed up, stayed at the table, and sought compromise. I believe I was one of many who insisted on transparency and balance, even if I did not always win that argument. I supported my colleagues who sought every opportunity to reach a hand across the aisle and pull someone from the opposing side to our table. I know I did my fair share of reaching, too. 

I supported my Senate President whose sincerity was evinced in negotiations that, despite a Democratic supermajority, gave Republicans greater representation than their numbers would indicate— I still see this as a laudable gesture of bipartisan intent. Unfortunately, a grab bag of Democrats and Republicans still did not appreciate the earnestness and sincerity that we saw throughout the process. Ironically, the rejection and political theater that brought down the package was also bipartisan.

Thousands of Oregonians–especially those working on the frontlines of transportation infrastructure–will bear the cost of this failure. Maybe I’m foolish for looking for silver-linings in a decidedly disappointing ending. And yet amid these outcomes, we have examples of political courage and mutual respect. Legislating at its best is about showing up, listening, and doing the work—even when it is thankless. Especially when it is thankless.