Oregon voters will cast ballots on Tuesday in once sedate local elections increasingly fraught with the bitter partisan divide that’s a leftover from the presidential election two years ago and a preview of the race for the White House a little over two years away.

The May 16 election featuring boards for schools, libraries, recreation districts and a slew of other once snooze-inducing races was rife with fights over pandemic policies, book bans, and barring homeless camps. The atmosphere was turbulent enough that Gov. Tina Kotek announced she’d have nothing to say about who she would tap to replace Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who resigned over a marijuana moonlighting scandal.

The impact of May 2023 on May 2024 was a key part of debates over Oregon Senate Republicans who chose last week to head for the Capitol exits to deny a quorum required to conduct any business. The move was designed to stop another exit – bills on abortion, transgender rights, guns, and rent control going from the Legislature to Gov. Tina Kotek to sign into law. 

It is the fourth time in five years that the GOP minority used what has been called “the nuclear option” to block bills at the cost of obliterating hundreds of unrelated pieces of legislation by Democrats and Republicans alike. If past sessions are a roadmap, the GOP is seeking to cut a deal that would kill off some or all of the bills in exchange for ensuring the state’s two-year budget scheduled to go into effect on July 1 gets wrapped up prior to the constitutional requirement for the Legislature to shut down by July 25.

The Salem stand-off has echoes of the game of political chicken going on in Washington, D.C. The Republican-majority U.S. House passed a plan to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion that including cuts or killing programs and policies of President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate. The GOP was in a position to upend the the partisan status quo because of their relatively microscopic nine-vote majority in the 435-member U.S. House. Republicans wrestled control of the House from Democrats by winning a handful of tight contests that included U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s squaker victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District.

Add in billionaire Nike founder Phil Knight giving $2 million to a political action committee dedicated to reducing Democratic control in Oregon,

With the political news pinnacle possibly playing out in New York where a jury found former President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse – but not rape – in a civil case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll over a 1990s incident in a dressing rooom of the swanky Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan. Trump plans to appeal the decision, which includes $5 million in damages awarded Carroll.

 a spectrum of reactions to a former President Donald Trump being found liable for the new allegations about top officials getting dibs on hyper-rare bottles of bourbon called Pappy XX, new allegations of the funneling hyper-rare bottles of a bourbon with the flip of control was made possible by Republicans were looking to cut a deal with President Joe Biden and the 

For the fourth time in five years, the GOP minority stayed away from the Senate floor to deny a quorum to do any business at all.

rent control, are fraught with partisan In D.C. and Salem, battles are raged the past week over “X-Day” and “Exit Day” as lawmakers in the U.S. Capitol lurched toward a national fiscal train wreck, while the Oregon Capitol was the scene of exiting senators creating anxiety over the Legislature’s timeline to exit for the year. 

Throw in a crisis over influence peddling from the outgoing secretary of state, Gov. Tina Kotek calling a time out on naming a new secretary of state, controversies on once sedate local elections Tina Kotek and the upcoming schooland library district races that have become launching pad for conservaitve dtakeovers from Clackamas to Crook County.

The resignation of Secretary of State Shemia Fagan scrambles the 2024 election picture as two (and maybe three) top state offices will be open.

Add-in Democratic hopes to re-flip lost CD5, GOP making a second run at near-new CD6, and Senators (including Tim Knopp) given a pass from running in redrawn 2022 district face an in-out-elsewhere decision.

All could hinge on the tip-top of the ballot, where President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have announced drives for a repeat of the 2020 presidential race – with Trump hoping to become the modern equivalent of Grover Cleveland and take back the White House after losing it.

The secretary of state is Oregon’s chief elections officer — though elections are conducted by officials in Oregon’s 36 counties — and oversees audits, archives and public records, and business registration and small-business assistance.

Under state law, Kotek must name a member of Fagan’s party — a Democrat — as an interim successor. Oregon does not conduct special elections to fill state vacancies. The nominee must be confirmed by the Senate and would serve the remainder of Fagan’s term, until the winner of the November 2024 election would take office in early 2025.

Both secretary of state and treasurer will be up for election in 2024.

If either Hass or Read were Kotek’s choice for secretary of state, they would be candidates with strong statewide name recognition in political circles.

Democrats to consider in a possible 2024 field include Terrebonne attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who finished third in the 2020 Democratic primary for secretary of state. McLeod-Skinner has said she is focused on a possible 2024 rematch for the 5th Congressional District seat now held by U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Happy Valley. McLeod-Skinner narrowly lost the seat and supporters say a repeat with better national Democratic Party financial backing could flip the seat away from Republicans.

There is also former Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who left the Senate and party to run as an unaffiliated candidate for governor. After strong polling and fundraising in the spring and summer, she faded to a distant third place finish in the governor’s race. As former co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Ways & Means Committee, she could also run for treasurer. The question would be if Johnson, at 72, wants to get back into politics. Secretary of State Dennis Richardson was elected in 2016, the last Republican to hold statewide office. When he died in office in 2019, he was 69. Former House Speaker Bev Clarno was 83 when Kotek appointed the Republican to fill out Richardson’s term. 

On the Republican side, early speculation has centered on former House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby. She resigned from the House and won the 2022 GOP nomination for governor, losing a close race to Kotek. Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Salem, was defeated by Fagan in 2020, but won a new state senate seat in 2022.

The office of Secretary of State has been a frequent stepping stone to the governorship. Of 10 previous secretaries of state, excluding two short-term appointees, four became governor later, and four others sought that job.

When Brown became governor following the 2015 resignation of Gov. John Kitzhaber amid influence-peddling allegations, she named as her successor Democrat Jeanne Atkins, who pledged not to seek a full term in 2016.

Richardson, a former state representative from Central Point and the party’s 2014 candidate for governor against Kitzhaber, was elected in 2016.

Richardson died of cancer in February 2019. Brown then appointed Clarno, who chose not to seek a full term in 2020. Fagan then won an open seat in 2020, once again giving Democrats all the major state elective offices, both U.S. Senate seats, and as of today, four of six U.S. House seats. The justices of the Oregon Supreme Court are all Democratic appointees.

Fagan was a lawyer when she was elected in 2012 to the first of two terms in the Oregon House from a district straddling Multnomah and Clackamas counties. She left in 2016, but returned two years later, when she unseated Democratic Sen. Rod Monroe, an opponent of rent control legislation. The Legislature approved a cap on annual rent increases in 2019.

Fagan jumped into the race for the open secretary of state position in 2020 after Jennifer Williamson, a former majority leader of the Oregon House backed by public employee unions, bowed out before the primary. Fagan won the nomination over Haas and McLeod-Skinner. With her political winning streak and relatively young age, Fagan has been frequently touted as a future candidate for governor, U.S. Senate or U.S. House.