How the U.S. House could reject election results

Happy Saturday, Oregon!

Lawmakers descended on Salem this week for one last set of meetings before the November election, and sticker shock was a common theme.

They heard that changes to Medicaid funding and eligibility requirements championed by President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress will cost the state $1.3 billion over the next few years. Oregon, now the only state that provides full Medicaid-like health coverage to low-income adults and children regardless of immigration status, will have to decide whether and how it continues to pay for that program.

Around 200,000 of the more than 1.3 million Oregonians who now receive Medicaid are expected to lose coverage over the next few years as the federal program institutes stricter eligibility requirements. Lawmakers offered few indications of how they’ll approach the issue during the six-month session that begins in January, Shaanth Nanguneri reported.

They dug up $123 million to pay for the uncovered cost of 2026 wildfires, so far, as blazes have scorched across 2.5 million acres and cost the state $236.2 million. Costs are expected to reach $350 million by the end of the wildfire season — putting 2026 on track to surpass the state’s previous $318 million record when wildfires scorched 1.9 million acres in 2024, as Mia Maldonado and Alex Baumhardt reported.

Mia also dug into workplace safety complaint records to find that Oregonians filed more during the record-breaking fire season. The state requires employers to provide accommodations for heat and fire, including more frequent breaks, drinking water and high-quality respirators. But in many of the 44 complaints, employees alleged they were forced to work outside or in poorly ventilated buildings during extremely dangerous air quality without access to masks to protect their airways.

Gov. Tina Kotek joined anti-data-center protesters outside the Capitol on Tuesday, pledging to pause any efforts to develop data centers on state land. Kotek said she supports a statewide moratorium on data center development, but that she lacks power under state law to declare one. Meanwhile, her Republican opponent and state Sen. Christine Drazan is hammering Kotek on the issue and her past support for business tax breaks with an ad that played eight times during my watch of the original “Practical Magic” last night.

Kotek also joined Secretary of State Tobias Read and Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden on Tuesday to pledge their support for mail voting and urge Oregonians to use official drop boxes to return ballots. The Legislature gave Read’s office $1.25 million for more drop boxes and other election needs.

We’re still waiting for clarity from the U.S. Supreme Court on a U.S. Postal Service rule that would stop states including Oregon from sending ballots through the mail unless they redesign their ballot envelopes and turn over lists of voters for review. Regardless of the high Court’s decision, though, Postal Service changes that require all of our mail be taken to a processing facility in Portland, postmarked there and then sent to its intended recipient mean that voters returning their ballots close to Election Day cannot trust their mail will be postmarked and received by deadlines. If you can’t use a drop box, election officials say to make sure to mail your ballot by Oct. 27 or go in person to a post office and ask at the counter for a manual postmark.

Friday marked 25 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Our colleagues in Washington, D.C., and New Jersey were on hand for memorial events and shared stories and photos as the country reflected. Stateline’s Amanda Watford looked at the state of surveillance, while Shaanth reports that at least one state representative is considering whether the anti-terrorism center Oregon established after the tragedy is still working as intended.

While we’re all thinking about the 2026 election, campaign finance reform advocates are looking ahead to 2028. This week, they filed the first of three planned constitutional amendments to limit money in politics, starting by following Hawaii in an end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that cleared the way for unlimited corporate spending. Future proposals would rewrite a legislatively approved campaign finance law and create a campaign contribution voucher system like one now used in Seattle.

Our Saturday story this week, via the D.C. Bureau’s Jennifer Shutt, looks into how the U.S. House could reject midterm election results. Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll be back Monday.