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In addiction recovery, “hitting bottom” does not mean things cannot get worse. It means the consequences have become painful enough that staying the course is harder to justify than changing it.
Oregon may be nearing that point.
Last month, I examined a dispute over whether homelessness is primarily a housing problem or is also driven by addiction and serious mental illness. A similar tension now runs through the Oregon gubernatorial race between Tina Kotek and Christine Drazan.
Oregon’s unemployment rate is tied for the highest of any U.S. state. More than 27,000 people are unhoused across the state. Oregon’s 2024 fourth grade reading and eighth grade math scores were well below national averages and among the nation’s lowest. Federal estimates also rank Oregon highest among the states for adult mental-illness prevalence and among the highest for substance-use disorder.
No governor caused all of this, and no party controls every force behind it. But governing is ultimately judged by results as well as intentions. When failures accumulate across housing, schools, behavioral health and the economy, voters are entitled to ask what those in power prioritized, what they tried — and what they are prepared to change.
Every Oregon governor since 1987 has been a Democrat, and Democrats have controlled both legislative chambers since 2013. Tina Kotek spent nine years as House speaker — the longest tenure in state history — and helped enact major policies on housing, education, labor and taxes before becoming governor.
That makes November’s election a referendum not just on Kotek’s four years as governor, but on the record of a central figure in Oregon’s Democratic governing establishment.
Her own Prosperity Council sets a useful standard. It says Oregon is at an “inflection point,” cites weak employment growth and above-average unemployment, and says Oregonians want “bold action, not incremental change.” Its recommendations span taxes, permitting, regulation, site readiness and workforce policy.
Kotek has responded with housing and permitting reforms, infrastructure financing and new school-accountability measures. The question is whether those changes match the scale her own council says Oregon needs.
Housing makes that question concrete.
ProPublica reported this summer that Oregon has given affordable-housing developers $1.4 billion since 2021, while the average cost of developing a subsidized apartment nearly doubled, to about $540,000. Yet state law shields key project financial records from disclosure, making those costs harder to scrutinize.
California offers one clue to a possible cost driver. Research there has associated prevailing-wage requirements with higher affordable-housing development costs. Oregon lawmakers this year considered exempting some affordable-housing projects from prevailing-wage requirements, but the proposal died in committee.
That dispute gives context to what the Oregon Journalism Project called a $10 million “mystery check” from a California-based carpenters union to an Oregon political committee that has already supported Kotek. The union says the money is for multiple candidates and measures. But union official Ron Rowlett explicitly linked its political support to policy: the carpenters back officials who support their priorities on “jobs, wages and benefits.” Carpentry groups have given Kotek $650,000 this year.
That does not establish a quid pro quo, but it does highlight the political conflict: If lowering subsidized-housing costs eventually requires changing labor rules important to one of Kotek’s significant allies, how far would she go?
Portland shows why the cost question matters. After years of construction and softer demand, market rents have stagnated or fallen while allowable rents at some income-restricted properties have continued to rise. The Portland-based Housing Development Center reports that some units priced for households at 60% of median income now compete directly with market-rate apartments.
Construction costs do not directly determine those rents. But higher development costs require more subsidies or put greater pressure on operating revenue, leaving less room to cut rents when the private market gets cheaper. If labor requirements materially add to those costs, they can produce a strange result: government spending heavily on “affordable” units that compete with market-rate apartments, while the poorest households still lack enough housing options that are truly affordable to them.
This is where Kotek and Drazan’s housing policies really diverge. Kotek is pursuing reform within a governing coalition where organized labor remains influential and prevailing-wage protections remain a significant priority. Drazan’s plan emphasizes cost, speed and production: 120-day decisions for qualifying housing projects, concurrent agency review, fewer regulatory barriers and stronger measurement of units built rather than money spent. Her broader plan includes a recurring $200 million site-readiness fund and annual reporting on state-government costs and performance.
A Democratic Legislature could block or reshape major pieces of her program. Kotek can also argue that reforms already underway need time to work and that changing administrations could disrupt their implementation. Drazan’s proposals, meanwhile, remain proposals rather than demonstrated results.
The choice, then, is not between a governor doing nothing and a challenger offering reform. It is between continued reform within the governing arrangements Kotek helped build, or a more aggressive attempt to rebalance state policy toward lower costs, faster construction and greater pressure on government performance.
A bottom matters only if it changes behavior. Kotek’s own Prosperity Council says Oregon needs “bold action, not incremental change.” The question for voters is whether Oregon’s warning signs warrant more time for Kotek’s course correction — or the sharper change Drazan proposes.
