Gov. Brown recall effort falls short
The Oregon Republican Party didn't gather enough signatures by Monday’s deadline to recall Gov. Kate Brown.
It's the its second time an effort to recall the governor has failed in less than a year, the Statesman Journal reported.
“It’s gut-wrenching to deliver this news,” Oregon GOP Chair Bill Currier said over a Facebook livestream to supporters. “But we will prevail. I am confident that the people’s will will be upheld in the end.”
Republicans have accused Brown of abusing her power and runing the state’s economy through shutdowns imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The governor has said shutdowns were in keeping with the advice of public health experts and were intended to save lives.
For the recall to continue, the state GOP needed to gather and submit 280,050 valid signatures to the Secretary of State’s office by Aug. 31. That's 90 days from when the recall effort was initiated.
Currier said their campaign gathered 277,254 signatures, which would be about 2,800 short of the required number. They would not submit any signatures to the Secretary of State’s office.
Most signature-gathering efforts turn in many thousands more signatures than required to ensure they’ve gathered enough that can be verified by elections officials.
Thomas Wheatley, an advisor to Brown, said after the announcement that the governor won her election two years ago by more than 100,000 votes and that the recall attempt was a distraction.
Republicans constitute about 25 percent of registered voters in the state, while Democrats make up 35 percent and nonaffiliated voters make up 33 percent.
Comments
montag
“It’s gut-wrenching to deliver this news,” Oregon GOP Chair Bill Currier said.
It may be gut-wrenching for you Bill, but not for the rest of us.
Hibb
"I am confident that the people’s will will be upheld in the end.”
So far the political process has been fairly reliable and predictable, as the "people's will" has been expressed clearly and succinctly in the fact that their recall efforts once again have failed. And when I say failed, I mean that they could not even get their recall petition to the floor for action of the yea or nay kind.
Once again the Oregon Republicans look like the stooges they really are, chasing around trying to gather signatures for a recall effort that even they do not believe in or they would of easily ascertained the desired amount of signatures and then some...
And you cannot really blame them, given that although the nation has historically operated on a two-party political system, while here in the Western half of Oregon we have become a bastion of liberal politics and the Republicans are the sad minority. So much so that they have not been able to sustain any kind of foothold in and or around the Portland Metro-Salem-Eugene Democrat enclaves nor mount any credible campaign for the various offices, especially for the govern-ship of Oregon.
Is it any wonder that the conservatives to the south and the east of the State are trying desperately to float the idea of reorganizing and joining Idaho - A historic conservative community. If you cannot ever win then you either join them or take your ball and go play somewhere else....