Oregon Supreme Court expected to issue ruling Thursday morning on Nicholas Kristof's eligibility to run for governor

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision Thursday morning on whether Nicholas Kristof is eligible to run for governor in Oregon.

Todd Sprague, a spokesperson for the Oregon Judicial Department, told KGW that the opinion will be posted by 8:30 a.m. Thursday and a short summary of the opinion will be included in a news release around the same time.

Kristof is scheduled to speak about the court’s ruling during a press conference in Portland on Thursday at 10 a.m. KGW will stream the press conference live at kgw.com, on the KGW News app and on KGW’s YouTube channel.

Kristof announced his candidacy in October, a couple weeks after ending his long career at The New York Times. But the campaign hit a speed bump in January when Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced that her office had rejected Kristof’s formal declaration of candidacy.

Oregon law requires candidates for governor to have been a resident of the state for at least three years before the election and Fagan’s office concluded that although Kristof grew up in Oregon and owns property in Yamhill County, he was a New York resident until at least the end of 2020.

Kristof immediately vowed to appeal his case and Fagan pledged to work to secure an expedited Supreme Court decision to resolve the issue ahead of the state’s March 17 deadline to begin printing ballots for the May primary.

Kristof’s attorneys filed a petition asking that the court require Fagan to accept his candidate filing and add his name to the primary ballot. Kristof’s petition reiterates his position that he never stopped being an Oregon resident while working in New York and that, for the purposes of ballot access, “resident” has never been defined by an Oregon court.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum responded to Kristof’s petition. The response, filed on behalf of Fagan, said that Kristof was disqualified as part of a routine review process that applies to all candidates.

A person must be domiciled in Oregon to be a resident under the Oregon Constitution, the response argues, and a person legally has only one domicile at a time even if they own multiple homes. Kristof was domiciled in New York, the response states, as evidenced by his New York driver’s license and voter registration (both of which he maintained through late 2020) and his payment of New York taxes.