More than 30 years have passed since a native Oregonian was sworn in as our state’s governor.

There is relevance in this trivia question: “Name the last governor born in Oregon.” (Hint: That person attended Gov. Tina Kotek’s inauguration on Monday.)

The significance of that lengthy gap is at least two-fold. First is that a candidate’s birthplace apparently had little bearing on who was elected governor last fall. Republican Christine Drazan was born in Klamath Falls, Independent Betsy Johnson in Bend.

Kotek is a native of York, Pennsylvania. She keeps York Peppermint Patties in her office for visitors as a nod to her roots.

For years — decades, really — some native Oregonians made a big deal about out-of-staters overrunning the state, driving up land and home prices and promoting such dangerous ideas as pumping our own gas. Thank goodness that the legendary prophet and Gov. Tom McCall told tourists, “Visit but don’t stay.”

Actually, he never said those exact words, as journalist Brent Walth clarified in the seminal biography, “Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story.” Yet the nonexistent quote lives in the folklore of Oregonians and the not-so-seminal oratory of politicians.

In the ensuing years, Oregon Ungreeting Cards, “Orygone” cartoon books, the Society of Native Oregon Born (S.N.O.B.) and the James B. Blaine Society paid humorous homage to our state’s rain-drenched reputation and our legitimate desire to preserve our livability.

Longtime Oregonians might remember such Blaine Society slogans as “Don’t Californicate Oregon,” “See Oregon and then go home,” “Oregon for Oregonians,” “When it’s summer in Oregon the rain gets warmer,” “You don’t tan in Oregon, you rust” and “The enemy flag comes in the colors of an out-of-state license plate.”

Despite having arrived from Idaho in the 1970s to attend college in rural McMinnville, I loved those funny slogans. Yet they are problematic. A geographic reason is the majority of the state does not lie within the infamous rain belt.

More important, our economy — our progress as a state, including the success of Gov. Kotek’s attempts to combat homelessness — depends on outsiders. As of 2020, more Oregonians die each year than are born. Population growth now comes only from people moving here, bringing their skills and income opportunities.

Is it any wonder that we continually elect governors born elsewhere? Oregon has become a land of outsiders. In 2018, economist Josh Lehner wrote that only about 43% of Oregon adults were born here.

“[M]ost of the non-Oregon-born residents today came from California and Washington, while most of the Oregonians who left the state moved to California and Washington as well,” he said.

When I said that Kotek’s initiatives on housing and homelessness rest on people coming to Oregon, that probably sounds counterintuitive, given that we already have a severe housing shortage.

To quote Lehner again, “Oregon’s ability to attract and retain young, skilled, working-age households is one of, if not the key driver of the regional economy over the long run.”

As part of the three executive orders Kotek issued Monday, she wants Oregon to nearly double the amount of new housing produced each year. That is a huge lift. In their December economic forecast, State Economist Mark McMullen and senior economist Lehner predicted a 19% decline in new housing starts before picking up strongly by the middle of next year.

They will release a new economic and revenue forecast next month. But their December forecast also predicted a 3.2% drop in construction jobs.

Meanwhile, Oregon is competing against California and Washington, our neighbor states and which also have extreme rates of homelessness, to attract enough workers to build residences and renovate buildings, as well as to provide the myriad services to serve homeless individuals and families.

Kotek acknowledged the workforce challenge during her media availability on Tuesday: “Who is going to do all this additional housing? How are we going to finance it? But I can tell you right now. We will be talking about streamlining and reducing red tape, so if you’re ready to build, you’re not getting beat. You’re not being held up by bureaucratic barriers.”

Who was born where:

The most recent governor born in Oregon was Barbara Roberts, 1991-1995, who was born in Corvallis and grew up in Sheridan.

John Kitzhaber, 1995-2003 and 2011-2015, was born in Colfax, Washington.

Ted Kulongoski, 2003-2011, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

Kate Brown, 2015-2023, was born in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain. Her father, an eye doctor, was serving in the U.S. Air Force at the NATO airbase near Madrid.

Governors Mark Hatfield (Dallas), Vic Atiyeh (Portland) and Neil Goldschmidt (Eugene) were all born in Oregon.

Tom McCall was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, and Bob Straub in San Francisco.