Nigel Jaquiss, Oregon Journalism Project

A 90-year-old legal opinion could jeopardize Gov. Tina Kotek’s desire to repeal House Bill 3991, the controversial Oregon Department of Transportation funding package she backed and lawmakers passed in a September special session. The opinion, dated Nov. 13, 1935, is about a bill lawmakers passed that year related to student fees at Oregon colleges. Before the […]

At a Dec. 15 public hearing on the Interstate Bridge Replacement project, government employees who have been working for years to replace the I-5 bridge over the Columbia River told a bistate committee of lawmakers they did not have new cost estimates for the project. Project staffers first said back in January 2024 they planned […]

At politically oriented holiday parties all over the state, the hot topic is what Democrats will do in the face of a remarkably successful Republican effort to refer a gas tax increase to the November 2026 ballot that lawmakers passed in September. The option that’s getting the most serious consideration, according to numerous Democrats speaking […]

Phil Knight has broken his own record for political spending. The 87-year-old Nike co-founder wrote a $3 million check to the Bring Balance to Salem PAC on Oct. 22, according to a new filing with the Oregon Secretary of State. Bring Balance was formed in 2021. The PAC spent nearly $5 million in 2022 and […]

Ben Brewer’s Bend distillery, Forth Distilled Goods, is selling a lot of ready-to-drink cocktails in Idaho grocery stores. But in Oregon, only the state’s 285 liquor stores are allowed to carry Forth’s products. By law, the state’s 792 grocery stores may not sell them, even though Forth’s products are 5% alcohol by volume. Meanwhile, those […]

A new scientific review says the strategy that Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs developed to return fish to the upper Deschutes River isn’t working.  As OJP previously reported, there is significant disagreement between the utility and the tribe, which co-own the dams, over a device called a “selective water […]