The governor race drama in Oregon has added a new bizarre chapter. Tina Kotek's reelection campaign has released a list of progress on issues during her term as governor that she says are why she deserves to be given a second term. Kotek was clearly counting on nobody actually looking up the claims of progress because her list is pure fantasy. She claims positive progress on homelessness, affordability, education, public safety, environmental protection, and behavioral health, plus fighting back against Trump. Let's break that down. (All changes in ranking reflect the the 3 1/2+ years that Tina Kotek has been the governor) Affordability: Oregon has dropped a spot to 45th Education: Oregon has fallen a spot to 46th (high school graduation numbers have artificially increased due to Kotek dropping the competency tests as a graduation requirement because she claimed that minorities were being held back by holding them to the same standards as white students). Public safety: Oregon has fallen from 41st to 48th and the department of corrections is currently at a $55 million dollar budget deficit. Environmental protection: This is an area of contradiction. Rankings on environmental protection policies are ranked high (10th-14th), but Oregon is 46th in natural environment destruction. For Oregon, that translates as destruction by wildfires. That is actually a direct result of those same policies that were ranked well. The yearly average of the quantity of wildfire occurrence hasn't fluctuated much, but the amount of destroyed acreage has increased dramatically as environmentalist advocacy groups (All of whom endorsed Kotek due to her support for their proposals while Speaker) have successfully achieved legislation goals and legal challenges to stop proactive wildfire prevention/containment efforts. I can't give you comparative numbers on ranking, but 4.7 million acres of pristine forests burned during Kotek's stewardship compared to 1.7 million acres burned during the same amount of time before Kotek took office. Behavioral health: Even though access to care has significantly improved from 21st to 7th, the overall ranking of behavioral health has remained consistently very poor (49th-51st among all ranking sources). So, I guess she can take credit for increasing access to care, but it's clearly not quality care if Oregon is still pretty much the worst in the country. Homeless: I saved this for last because it's perhaps the most egregious lie Kotek put out. The day Tina Kotek took office, she declared a state of emergency on homelessness. 3 and a half years later, homeless numbers have INCREASED almost 19%. Despite being the first openly lesbian governor, I have to say that she's got some seriously big balls to put out such an epically disingenuous list of supposed achievements that are so easily refuted.