In an auditorium on his alma mater’s Salem campus on Monday, Jan. 6, Tobias Read took his oath of office as secretary of state with a promise to spend the next four years working to make Oregon better.
From a historic election to record wildfires to drug recriminalization, 2024 was a big year for state government and political news in Oregon. Here’s a roundup of the most notable stories and trends the Capital Chronicle covered this year.
The amount of reporting produced in Oregon has been declining for decades — a fact that is likely unsurprising to Oregonians who have seen their newspapers thin and local coverage shrink. It’s a trend that has been playing out across the country as the business of producing journalism has faltered alongside the rise of the internet.
Oregon Democrats appear to have eked out a supermajority in both the state House and Senate, with a narrow win confirmed in a rural Woodburn-based House seat late Tuesday. Lesly Muñoz’s victory doesn’t just mean Democrats regain the seat they lost two years ago — it gives House Democrats the three-fifths majority needed to increase taxes or pass new taxes without Republican support.
Oregon Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, has secured a leadership role for the 2025 legislative session that is already racking up a long list of pressing issues. Marsh will be sworn in to her fifth term on Jan. 13 and has been appointed as one of the three assistant majority leaders. She is the only representative selected for a leadership role in the House who lives south of Eugene.
A standing-room-only crowd filled 160-seat Carpenter Hall in Ashland on Tuesday, Nov. 12, one week after Election Day, as community members joined The Ashland Sunrise Project for a discussion on “Building Post-Election Common Ground,” intended to highlight how to build a common ground of understanding.
With a potential Democratic supermajority on the line, a Republican state representative losing by fewer than three dozen votes said Friday evening that she has hired a lawyer in her fight to stay in office. The race is of critical importance statewide: A Lesly Muñoz victory would give House Democrats the three-fifths supermajority needed to pass revenue-raising bills without GOP support.
Republican Randy Sparacino notched an apparent landslide victory Tuesday night in the race for Jackson County commissioner against Democrat Denise Krause of Ashland. The unofficial results posted on the Oregon Secretary of State’s website on Thursday show Sparacino received 56.84%, or 62,603 votes, against Krause’s 43.04%, or 47,403 votes in the race for the position 2 commissioner seat.
A bad election for Democrats nationally had few reverberations in Oregon, where Democratic candidates are expected to keep or expand legislative majorities, swept statewide offices and lead in three competitive congressional races.
Three Ashlanders – all Democrats – were represented in county, state, and congressional elections on Tuesday, Nov. 5, with state Rep. Pam Marsh the sole winner among them. She was handily re-elected to her fifth term serving the district.
Residents from across Southern Oregon made the trip to Oak Knoll Golf Course in Ashland on Saturday, Jan. 18, for a “benefit concert for vulnerable communities” co-sponsored by Women’s March Southern Oregon and ORD2 Indivisible.
A group of about 40, mostly women, gathered in near-freezing weather Saturday morning on the East Main Street side of Ashland Plaza to show their support for women’s rights, from reproductive autonomy to equality across the board.
Ashland’s 37th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration is set for noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday at the Historic Ashland Armory in downtown Ashland. The event is free and open to the public.
At its first meeting of the new year Tuesday, the Ashland City Council is expected to sew up loose threads from last year with votes to approve the 2200 Ashland St. Master Plan, formally create an Ashland Parks & Recreation Department and the first reading of an ordinance to mitigate carbon pollution for new residential structures, according to meeting materials.
Ask Strider: Our advice columnist turns to the problems of making friends and keeping them. As usual, he counsels restraint in troubled friendships, and asks the Old Cedar Tree what to do about making friends in the first place. The Old Cedar Tree has interesting thoughts on the subject.
A vandalism incident that left damage from large tire marks in Railroad and Lithia parks will cost thousands to repair and is part of a larger trend of vandalism in the city’s parks, according to Ashland Parks Superintendent Kevin Caldwell.
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