Beaver State mystery

I am on the mailing list of an organization known as Lift Every Voice Oregon, which has been trying for a few years to get sensible gun control laws enacted in this state. This week I got a message from them that sounds mildly promising:

Things are moving along very well with Initiative Petitions 17 and 18 moving to the Oregon Supreme Court.... Now we are eager to have the language approved by the Court, so we can print Signature Sheets, which must have the approved Ballot Title printed on the back. We are eager to start the major effort to collect 150,000 signatures by July 8, 2022, so our IPs will appear on the November 2022 Ballot... [W]e are really gearing up, with hundreds of volunteers statewide and a large group of High School and Junior High youth preparing for trainings to help lead the signature gathering efforts. If you know of young leaders who want to help, please have them contact the LEVO office, and our High School student leaders will bring them on board.  

But as I read this, I got more than a little annoyed. Here we are in a state with a Democratic governor, and a legislature utterly controled by the Democratic Party, and yet we have to hold bake sales to get reasonable gun control laws.

What's up with that?

When the House speaker, Tina Kotek, comes around in her new grandma hairdo to ask for your vote for governor, ask her.