Almost two years ago I sat down with a couple of folks from a group I'd never heard of before. They wanted to talk about starting a chapter of their organization - which advocated for limited government and wanted to motivate and train people at the grassroots level - here in Oregon. Given our state's reputation as among the nuttiest of left-wing breeding grounds, I figured they had already organized the other 49 states and were just "filling up the corners" in Tolkien's phrase.

However, this national organization had noticed something about Oregon, a state whose voters had elected nothing but liberal Democrats to statewide office for 25 years. When it came to fiscal policy, Oregonians seemed to have a conservative streak. After all, voters had gone to the polls and approved measures limiting property taxes three times since 1990. They had voted 88 percent against a Legislative plan to increase gas taxes and vehicle registration fees. They had absolutely obliterated two efforts by the Legislature to increase personal and business taxes earlier this decade. They had approved limits on the Legislature's ability to raise taxes, the "double majority" for property tax elections, put the Kicker in the constitution and much more. And all this in the face of opposition from the strongest group of government employee unions in the country and billions of dollars of union dues spent against these ideas.

Now Oregon faces another "budget crisis" and another effort by the Legislature to raise income and other taxes in a recession. If you own a business, work for a business, drive a car, have health insurance, the 2009 Legislature wants to raise your taxes so government can hire more employees and pay them outsized salary and benefit packages. And once again, a coalition is coming together to refer these ideas to the ballot to give Oregon's fiscally conservative voters their innings.

But some people believe Oregon has changed, that it is no longer the state that limited property taxes, enshrined the Kicker, crushed the Legislature's previous efforts to increase taxes. These folks believe Oregonians have done a 180 on taxes and government spending and are now anxious to put their stamp of approval on the Legislature's big-spending, big-taxing ways.

Much of this big government optimism is rooted in the election of Barack Obama. There are many people on the American Left who see 2008 as a watershed, the kind of "realignment" that was signaled for conservatives with Barry Goldwater's Presidential election loss in 1964 and led to Republicans holding the White House for 28 years out of the 40 between 1968 and 2008. They think that Americans - and Oregonians - are finally ready to really embrace European-style Socialism.

We're going to find out in the next 3 months or so whether Oregon has changed for the worse, or whether voters here still bring a common-sense approach to funding government. AFP-Oregon is going to be working with our coalition partners to collect about 55,000 valid signatures from registered voters to refer the Legislature's tax increases to the ballot. We'll be holding training events in every town where we have a Chapter, giving our members and the public the skills they need to successfully circulate a petition.

We believe the signature gathering effort will be successful and that voters will reject these tax increases at a special election that will likely be held in January.

Has Oregon changed? We're going to find out.