By DIRK VANDERHART/Oregon Capital Chronicle

SALEM — After failing in the Capitol to stop Democrats from changing the date of a contentious gas tax vote, Republican lawmakers are looking to the courthouse.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Secretary of State Tobias Read, two GOP legislators joined dozens of others in asking a county judge to block Senate Bill 1599. The bill, signed by Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday, moves the tax decision from the high-stakes November general election to the May primary ballot.

The lawsuit was still being filed late Tuesday afternoon, but a copy obtained by OPB showed plaintiffs making a couple of basic arguments.

First the plaintiffs say Democrats are illegally subverting the will of voters, roughly 250,000 of whom signed a petition last year to send the gas tax vote to the November ballot. Once those petitions were approved, they say, the Legislature lost its legal right to change the date of the vote.

The suit also argues that the rushed process to move that vote to May will shortchange citizens’ rights to place arguments in the state’s voters’ pamphlet.

“This is not simply a policy dispute about transportation funding,” said state Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Scio, who both helped lead the campaign to refer the gas tax to voters and is acting as a plaintiff in the new lawsuit. “This is about constitutional rights.”

If a Marion County judge agrees, the lawsuit could upend Democrats’ plans to bump up the election. Top legislative Democrats, Kotek and Read, either didn’t respond to inquiries about the lawsuit on Tuesday or declined to comment.

Republicans and Democrats have been warring over transportation funding for more than a year.

Majority Democrats have proposed hiking taxes and fees to address structural budget issues and avoid layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation. Republicans insist the state should shuffle money away from priorities they disagree with – including public transit and vehicle electrification – to fund road upkeep.

In September, Democrats prevailed. The party passed a bill hiking the state’s 40-cent-per-gallon gas tax by six cents, raising vehicle registration and titling fees, and temporarily doubling a payroll tax that funds public transit.

Both parties agree that voters are overwhelmingly likely to reject the tax hikes, but they differ on approach.

Democrats say moving up the election will allow the state to move on from the limbo of awaiting a vote. Republicans say they are simply playing politics.

“The absolute last thing they want is to share the November ballot with their unpopular gas tax registration fee bill,” Starr said Tuesday. “That’s what this is really about.”

Oregon’s Constitution says referendum votes are to be held during general elections “unless otherwise ordered by the Legislative Assembly.”

It’s relatively routine for lawmakers to schedule referrals of proposed taxes for dates prior to the November election. Often that happens preemptively, with the Legislature setting a date for a referendum within the bill they expect could be referred.

It’s rarer, but not unheard of, for lawmakers to set a new election date after a referendum campaign has succeeded in forcing a November vote. Diehl, who is now running for governor, Starr and the other co-plaintiffs believe that move is illegal.

“The Oregon Legislature may regulate procedure but may not eliminate, materially burden, or evade the People’s reserved power under the Constitution,” the 68-page lawsuit says.

The suit also touches on a matter that has been a concern for Read, the Democratic secretary of state. He sent lawmakers notice last week that they risked shortchanging the public’s ability to submit statements to the May voters’ pamphlet.

Under state law, citizens can submit voters’ pamphlet statements for free if they collect 500 voter signatures. Otherwise they have to pay $1,200. Starr, Diehl and their co-plaintiffs say they planned to collect signatures, but now don’t have time by the March 12 deadline.

“By having no access to the petition in lieu of paying a $1,200 filing fee for their measure argument statement…Plaintiffs individually must come up with $46,800 collectively in order to each submit individually a measure argument,” the lawsuit says. “This puts a significant burden on Plaintiffs’ free speech rights.”

The lawsuit asks for a judge to rule SB 1599 unconstitutional, to block Read from moving the vote as directed by the bill, and to block the Legislature from trying a similar tactic in the future.

If they succeed, a gas tax vote would occur in November – not the current May 19 date.