Oregon Supreme Court rules former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof cannot run for governor

Kristof, who had vowed to challenge the secretary of state’s decision last month, said he accepted the court’s decision Thursday and would not pursue the matter further, ending his campaign.

“The Supreme Court has spoken. And while we are disappointed in the decision, we respect its ruling and thank the justices for their thoughtful consideration on this matter,” Kristof said in a statement.

“But let me be clear: I’m not going anywhere,” he added. “As I’ve said many times, I’ve been an Oregonian since I was a kid helping out on my family’s farm. And I’ll be an Oregonian until the moment I draw my last breath.”

The court’s decision comes a month after Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced her office was rejecting Kristof’s filing to run for governor, noting a gubernatorial candidate must have been a “resident within this state” for three years before the election.

Among their reasons, officials noted that Kristof had voted as a New York resident and held a New York driver’s license from 2000 to 2020, state elections director Deborah Scroggin wrote in a letter to Kristof last month. Though Kristof owned and maintained homes in New York and Oregon, officials said he spent most of his time away from Oregon, Scroggin added.

“The rules are the rules and they apply equally to all candidates for office in Oregon,” Fagan, a fellow Democrat, said in January. “I stand by the determination of the experts in the Oregon Elections Division that Mr. Kristof does not currently meet the Constitutional requirements to run or serve as Oregon Governor.”

Kristof appealed the decision to the Oregon Supreme Court and accused the “establishment” and the “political class” of grounding their decision in politics.

“My willingness to challenge the status quo is the reason state officials are trying to toss me from the ballot,” Kristof said last month.

In their decision, the Oregon Supreme Court justices noted that their role “was not to evaluate the depth of [Kristof’s] emotional connection to Oregon or whether he was sufficiently ‘Oregonian’; rather, the case required the Court to decide two legal questions.”

One of those legal questions was the meaning of being a “resident within this State,” according to the Oregon Constitution. The second was whether the Oregon secretary of state was required to conclude Kristof met that legal standard.

“The Court explained that uses of the term ‘residence’ to set a residency requirement for voting in Article II of the Oregon Constitution linked the meaning of that term to domicile,” the justices wrote, adding that in the mid-19th century, laws that included residency requirements for voting or holding public office were not only common, they were “overwhelmingly interpreted to require domicile.”

In launching his campaign, Kristof spoke of his roots in Yamhill, Ore., the opportunities he felt his Oregon upbringing had given him and the decline in prospects for those with whom he grew up. He repeatedly referred to Oregon as his home state. In his filing to organize a candidate committee, Kristof listed his occupation as “Journalist, Author, Farmer.” On his campaign website, Kristof wrote that he and his wife, writer Sheryl WuDunn, have been revitalizing their family apple and grape farm.

Kristof, who had no political experience before launching his campaign, leaned heavily on his 37-year career at the New York Times — where he was a foreign correspondent and a columnist who won the Pulitzer Prize — saying he “spent a lifetime shining a light in the darkest corners of the globe.” He resigned from the newspaper in October, just before announcing his run.

On Thursday, Kristof said that the news was still “fresh for all of us” and that he would be talking with his family about his next steps. He added that he was committed to fighting for “families who were left behind by their government” in Oregon.

“The desire to serve my state led me to enter this race and I’m not going to stop addressing the problems around us, whether my name is on the ballot or not,” Kristof said. “Oregon is in a moment of crisis, and it affects all of us. And far too many of our families and friends are left to struggle with the impact of those choices on their own because our political system believes their problems are too difficult to take on. I believe they’re too difficult not to take on.”

Kristof’s departure from the race will upend the contest to replace Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D). Other Democrats running in the May primary include former Oregon house speaker Tina Kotek and State Treasurer Tobias Read.

Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.