A group of Grants Pass voters have dropped their lawsuit seeking to keep State Representative Christine Goodwin off the May Republican primary ballot for Senate District 2.
The Oregonian reports four voters and Josephine County Commissioner John West still contend that Goodwin is not eligible to represent the district because they allege she lives at a home just north of the district's boundaries — a claim Goodwin rejects.
But it's too late to keep Goodwin off the ballot, the plaintiffs said in a filing to voluntarily dismiss the case, which was to have its first hearing in Josephine County Circuit Court this Friday. The group will pick up their legal challenge again if Goodwin wins the primary, attorney Steve Joncus wrote in his motion to dismiss the case.
In a press release, Goodwin celebrated the development. She is running in the Republican state senate primary against Noah Robinson, the son of State Senator Art Robinson, who represents District 2 but is barred from running for reelection because he was among the Republican senators who boycotted work in 2023.
Late last week, Joncus told The Oregonian that his clients had dropped the part of their lawsuit that sought to remove Goodwin from her House seat representing District 4 over their residency allegations. Attorneys from the Oregon Department of Justice argued in court filings that Oregon's Secretary of State can't disqualify a sitting lawmaker.
The group of Grants Pass voters alleges that Goodwin lives at a house in Myrtle Creek just north of the district boundary shared by her current House district and the Senate district she hopes to represent. Goodwin says she lives in Canyonville, which is within those district boundaries. She switched her voter registration from the Myrtle Creek home she has owned for decades to the Canyonville property just days before the January 2022 deadline to be eligible to run for Senate District 2.
