For us Californians, the most important election of the month wasn’t the Massachusetts Senate election. Instead it’s tomorrow’s special election in Oregon, where two tax proposals, Measures 66 and 67, will be decided by voters. Earlier this month I explained the background behind these proposals, which would raise nearly $800 million in revenue by taxing high income earners and large corporations. If the measures are approved, it will not only help save some of Oregon’s critical services such as schools and health care – it will show that West Coast voters really will support taxing the wealthy, rejecting the misleading right-wing claims that taxing the wealthy is somehow bad for everyone else.

Yesterday’s New York Times took a look at the election and what it might mean for the state. Unfortunately, they chose to do so from the perspective of Jackson County in southern Oregon, home to the cities of Medford and Ashland. Voters there are extremely rabid about their anti-tax politics, voting against proposals to keep libraries open, schools funded, and cops on the beat. Much of this is hypocrisy, since they expected ongoing federal timber payments to local governments would take care of funding these programs. “Welfare for me, none for thee” is the guiding fiscal principle in the region.

And yet it’s no longer working. Southern Oregon’s growth in the last decade was largely driven by its own housing boom, fueled to some degree by Californians taking their equity, settling down along the Rogue River, and joining locals in trying to keep taxes low. With the housing bust and the timber bust, southern Oregon’s economic fortunes don’t seem particularly strong.

Yet Jackson County only makes up a small part of Oregon’s population, most of which is concentrated in the Willamette Valley from Eugene to Portland. Measures 66 and 67 will be decided there, particularly in the Portland suburbs. Recent polls showed the measures with a healthy lead, but like any special election this will be decided by who returns ballots in the state’s all-mail election – and so far turnout isn’t great. Multnomah County, home to Portland, had an 86% turnout rate in November 2008, but has had only 36% of its ballots returned as of late last week.

This is worrying, especially as the editorial pages of the state’s leading paper, the Oregonian, has been taken over by the former publisher of the Orange County Register. As we Californians know well, the OC Register is a breeding ground for wackjobs, and they’ve brought their game to Portland, editorializing against taxes and for cuts to school spending. Local progressives have taken to calling the paper the Orangeonian as a result. Meanwhile, the opposition has been caught making illegal robocalls.

We’ll find out tomorrow whether the all-out GOTV effort has succeeded, or whether the lawbreaking and misleading anti-taxers prevail in a low-turnout election. In either case, there will be much for California to learn from this election, as we hopefully begin preparing to craft our own similar package.