Oregon's Push to Lock Down Hunting and Fishing Rights in the State Constitution
In a state better known for its Portland craft breweries and progressive ballot initiatives, a quieter but consequential fight is now unfolding in Salem and across Oregon's rural counties — one that could permanently reshape the legal landscape for hunters, anglers, ranchers, and farmers for generations to come. Two separate but related efforts are advancing simultaneously, both aimed at embedding the right to hunt, fish, trap, and farm directly into the Oregon Constitution, and both have gained meaningful momentum in recent weeks.
The Threat That Started It All: Initiative Petition 28 and the PEACE Act
To understand why Oregonians on both sides of this debate are now scrambling to the ballot box, you have to go back to the proposal that lit the fuse. Initiative Petition 28, known as the PEACE Act, aimed to criminalize hunting, fishing, and ranching in Oregon. It was not a modest regulatory tweak — it was a sweeping proposal that would have fundamentally altered the state's relationship with wildlife, land, and food production. The resolution came on the heels of the now-failed Initiative Petition 28, which sought to outright ban the killing of animals in all cases except for self-defense.
For a time, the PEACE Act looked like it had real momentum. Early signature counts suggested the initiative had the support to make it onto the ballot. That sent a chill through Oregon's hunting and ranching communities, who had long assumed that such activities were too ingrained in Oregon's culture to face any serious political threat. They were wrong to be complacent. Later, the state elections division determined that IP 28 failed to qualify for the ballot because it failed the signature verification process. But the near-miss was enough to galvanize the opposition. In late July, the Oregon Secretary of State's Office announced the petitioners had submitted less than 75% of the valid signatures needed from Oregon voters to make it onto the November ballot.
The failure of IP 28 to qualify did not end the conversation. On the contrary, it opened a new front. David Michelson, an animal rights activist from Portland who led the campaign for Initiative Petition 28, said even if the Republicans' ballot referral is successful, he and other petitioners could still try to put forth a ballot initiative in the future that would ban the killing of animals. That declaration — that the campaign to restrict hunting and ranching would continue — is precisely what accelerated the push for constitutional protection.
Two Paths Forward: IP 25 and the Legislative Route
What makes this story particularly layered is that there are now two parallel efforts moving forward, each taking a different institutional route to the same destination: a constitutional amendment on the November 2028 ballot.
Initiative Petition 25: The Oregon Freedom Amendment
An initiative seeking to add constitutional protections for hunting, fishing, farming, and other activities in Oregon has cleared an initial procedural hurdle in its effort to reach the November 2028 ballot. Opponents of IP 28 filed the new petition, which they are calling IP 25 — "The Freedom Amendment" — with the goal of adding text to the Oregon Constitution that would specifically protect hunting, fishing, and ranching as a "fundamental human right."
Chief petitioner Kari Goodheart of Irrigon filed IP 25 on June 23. Sponsorship signatures were submitted August 5, and the Oregon Secretary of State determined August 19 that 1,557 valid signatures had been collected, exceeding the 1,000 required to advance the petition. The Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division has referred Initiative Petition 25, known by its backers as the "Oregon Freedom Amendment," to the state attorney general to begin the process of drafting the measure's official ballot title and summary, according to the initiative's chief petitioner.
Goodheart has been direct about her motivations. "This is about protecting the people's ability to continue the practices that have helped sustain Oregon communities for generations," she said. "Hunting, fishing, farming, ranching, trapping, growing food, caring for animals and managing wildlife are deeply connected to Oregon's land, culture, food supply and way of life." For Goodheart, this is not an abstract political fight — the chief IP 25 petitioner said the PEACE Act could have threatened her family's ability to eat and she wants to make sure that won't happen in the future.
It is important to note what passing IP 25 would actually mean in practice. The attorney general's ballot-title process is an early step in the initiative process, and supporters would still need to complete additional requirements, including gathering the required number of valid voter signatures, before the measure could appear before voters in 2028. In other words, the petition has cleared its first real test, but the road ahead remains long.
If it advances to the November 2028 election, Initiative Petition 25 would amend the Oregon Constitution to guarantee all Oregonians the right "to hunt, fish, trap, farm, ranch, raise livestock, cultivate crops" and carry out related activities. The proposed constitutional amendment would protect the rights of Oregonians to hunt, fish, farm, trap, ranch, grow food, practice what supporters call "diligent animal husbandry," and participate in wildlife management.
Critically, the Secretary of State's initiative records identify Petition 2028-025 as an "Amendment to protect rights to hunt, fish, farm, trap, ranch, grow food, and wildlife management." If ultimately ratified by voters, the amendment would add a new Section 44 to Article I of the Oregon Constitution, with protections encompassing hunting, fishing, farming, ranching, trapping, raising livestock, growing food, and certain wildlife and natural-resource management activities.
What the Amendment Would — and Would Not — Do
One of the most common misunderstandings about constitutional right-to-hunt amendments is that they would strip the government of all regulatory authority over wildlife. That's not what IP 25 proposes. The amendment would not turn those activities into an unrestricted constitutional license. Oregon could continue establishing hunting and fishing seasons, bag limits, and conservation requirements. Wildlife managers could continue using science-based regulations intended to manage populations and protect species. Property rights would also remain intact. Existing property boundaries would remain enforceable, meaning a constitutional right to hunt would not create a right to enter another person's land.
Trapping has its own requirements, while state animal-cruelty laws establish another set of legal boundaries involving the treatment of animals. IP 25 attempts to place constitutional protection around activities within each of those areas while retaining government authority to regulate them under specified circumstances. This is the amendment's central balancing act — enshrining rights without eliminating the regulatory framework that keeps wildlife populations healthy and sportsmen accountable.
The Legislative Track: Drazan's Senate Joint Resolution
Running alongside the citizen-driven IP 25 effort is a parallel push through Oregon's state legislature. State Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, and the Republican nominee for governor, is leading the campaign to enshrine the right to "hunt, fish, gather wild foods and raise animals or crops" in the Oregon Constitution. She announced the proposed amendment Tuesday at White's Country Meats in Gresham, along with Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, and House Minority Leader Lucetta Elmer.
The resolution would be introduced during the 2027 legislative session and recognizes hunting, fishing, gathering, farming, ranching, and raising livestock and crops as long-standing and essential activities for Oregonians. That proposed amendment, however, would only land before voters in 2028 if state lawmakers introduce and approve a referral next year. This makes the legislative route more procedurally complicated than the citizen initiative, since it requires the Republican minority to build enough bipartisan coalition to push the referral through a legislature where Democrats hold the majority.
This is not the first time Oregon lawmakers have tried to clear this legal ground. Drazan's draft bill is more expansive than one prefiled for the 2025 legislative session by Senator David Brock Smith (R-Port Orford), who was also on hand at her announcement. Senate Joint Resolution 13 was introduced and referred to committee but didn't go anywhere. The newer proposal is designed to be broader and to generate more political momentum than its predecessor.
The Bipartisan Pitch — and Its Limits
Both Drazan and her Republican allies have been deliberate in framing the constitutional amendment as something that cuts across party lines. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr was blunt about it: "This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democrat issue. It's an Oregon issue. I've served with Democrats who are passionate hunters, I know Democrats who spend their weekends fishing Oregon's rivers, and across our state families of every political persuasion make their living farming and ranching. They may vote differently, but they share the same deep respect for the outdoors, for conservation, and for the freedom to pass these traditions onto their children, and that's why I believe this constitutional amendment has the ability to unite Oregonians, not divide them."
The bipartisan framing has a sound political logic. Rural Oregon, regardless of party registration, tends to skew heavily toward hunting and fishing culture. The state has a deep tradition of river fishing — from Chinook salmon runs on the Columbia to steelhead on the Rogue and Deschutes — and tens of thousands of hunting licenses are sold every year. But the framing has also run into some friction. Drazan said she invited Democratic state lawmakers from the Clackamas County area to the event but they did not respond. "I think that that is not a big deal because the reality is all of them opposed IP 28. Nobody supported it, and the chief petitioner said: 'We're going to do this again and again and again,' and so I think that we will continue to establish alignment," she said.
Drazan also used the announcement to draw a broader economic frame around the issue. "Oregon should not be the testing ground for extreme measures that threaten affordability, local food production, consumer choice and thousands of jobs that connect us with putting food on the table with our farms and ranches," she said. That message carries particular weight at a moment when food prices remain elevated and rural communities are closely watching any policy that could affect agricultural livelihoods.
Oregon in National Context: 24 States Have Already Done This
Oregon would not be breaking new ground if it ultimately passes a right-to-hunt amendment. Two dozen other states guarantee the right to hunt and fish in their constitutions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The movement toward constitutional protection for hunting and fishing has been building for decades, accelerating particularly in states that have seen organized animal rights campaigns target hunting at the ballot box.
States like Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have all enshrined some version of hunting and fishing rights in their constitutions. The specific language varies considerably — some are broad, some are narrow, and some include trapping explicitly while others do not. What they share is the recognition that sportsmen's traditions are vulnerable to majoritarian political pressure in an era of urbanization, where voters concentrated in cities can outvote rural populations on lifestyle issues that they rarely engage with personally.
Oregon's urban-rural split is particularly acute. The state's congressional delegation and governorship have been dominated by politicians from the Portland metropolitan area for years. The Willamette Valley, home to most of the state's population, is culturally very different from the vast ranching, timber, and agricultural regions east of the Cascades. This demographic reality is precisely why constitutional protection holds such appeal for outdoorsmen and ranchers — ordinary legislation can be reversed by a legislature that doesn't reflect rural values, while a constitutional amendment requires a much more demanding process to undo.
The Animal Rights Counter-Argument
Not everyone views the Freedom Amendment favorably. The animal rights movement, which drove IP 28, has made clear it does not intend to retreat. "With respect to IP25, our campaign is grateful that in 2028, without us even needing to petition ourselves, Oregonians might still be asked whether they either want to protect slaughterhouses or protect animals," the IP 28 side said in a statement, reframing the constitutional amendment as a vote for industrial animal agriculture rather than backcountry hunting. It is a messaging strategy designed to shift the terrain of the debate from tradition and rights to ethics and industrial food systems — a far more comfortable frame for urban voters.
The tension here is real and unlikely to go away regardless of what happens at the ballot box. Animal rights activists have demonstrated over the past two election cycles that they have the organizational capacity to mount serious petition drives in Oregon, and Michelson's public statements confirm that the IP 28 campaign views any constitutional protection for hunting as a provocation rather than a settlement.
What's Actually in the Amendment: A Closer Look at the Language
If it advances to the November 2028 election, Initiative Petition 25 would amend the Oregon Constitution to guarantee all Oregonians the right "to hunt, fish, trap, farm, ranch, raise livestock, cultivate crops" and carry out related activities. These activities are already legal in Oregon. But the petitioners launched the campaign to enshrine them in the state constitution in response to a different proposed measure that would have banned or restricted these same practices.
The scope of the proposed amendment is notably comprehensive. The measure's backers say the amendment is intended to recognize the role hunting, fishing, agriculture, ranching, trapping, food production, animal husbandry, and wildlife management play in Oregon communities, the economy, and the state's natural-resource heritage. That framing is intentional — by tying hunting and fishing to food production and the broader rural economy, supporters are making an argument that goes well beyond sentiment and tradition. They are saying that constitutionally unprotected hunting and farming creates real economic risk in a state where the agricultural sector supports tens of thousands of livelihoods.
The amendment's careful preservation of state regulatory authority is also worth examining. By explicitly allowing Oregon to continue managing seasons, bag limits, and conservation requirements, the drafters are trying to neutralize one of the most common objections to right-to-hunt amendments — the argument that they could be used in court to challenge science-based wildlife management regulations. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages one of the most complex and contested fish and wildlife portfolios in the American West, would retain all of its core authorities under the proposed language.
The Road to 2028: What Needs to Happen
Both tracks — the citizen initiative and the legislative referral — are now running concurrently, and both face significant procedural hurdles before either one reaches voters.
For IP 25, the referral means supporters have met the initial sponsorship signature requirement under Oregon election law. But that is only the first threshold. The campaign must now go through the attorney general's ballot title process, receive a certified ballot title, and then collect the far larger number of voter signatures required to actually qualify for the 2028 ballot. Oregon requires a substantial number of valid signatures from registered voters — a process that takes serious organizational capacity and, typically, significant financial resources.
For the legislative track, Drazan announced plans to introduce a Senate Joint Resolution to refer a constitutional amendment to Oregon voters that would protect hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of crops and livestock. That resolution would need to be introduced and passed during the 2027 legislative session. Republicans would need Democratic support to move it through a chamber where they do not hold the majority — which is why the bipartisan framing is not merely rhetorical, but a political necessity.
The development comes about two weeks after Sen. Christine Drazan, this year's Republican nominee for Oregon governor, rolled out a similar proposal to enshrine most of these same activities in the state Constitution. A spokesperson for Drazan declined to say whether the candidate is supportive of IP 25, suggesting that the two camps, while aligned on the general goal, may be carefully managing their political positioning ahead of the governor's race and the 2027 legislative session.
Why This Matters Beyond Oregon's Borders
Oregon is not an isolated case. Across the country, animal rights organizations have been increasingly sophisticated in targeting hunting and trapping at the ballot box, particularly in states with large urban populations that can outvote rural sportsmen. California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington have all seen successful ballot initiatives that restricted trapping, hunting seasons, or specific methods of take over the past three decades. Oregon very nearly joined that list in 2026.
The strategic response — using constitutional amendments to place hunting and fishing beyond the reach of ordinary majority votes — is now a recognized playbook in the sportsmen's advocacy world. Organizations like the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have tracked and in many cases supported these state-level constitutional campaigns as a bulwark against the gradual legislative erosion of hunting access and tradition.
What makes the Oregon situation distinctive is the speed and directness of the response. Within weeks of IP 28 failing to qualify, two separate protective measures were already in motion. That reflects both the organizational strength of Oregon's hunting and ranching communities and the genuine fear that a better-funded or better-organized animal rights campaign could succeed in a future election cycle. The PEACE Act activists have said openly that they intend to try again. Oregon's hunters, farmers, and anglers are trying to make sure that next attempt runs into a constitutional wall.
The Bigger Picture: Tradition, Identity, and the Constitution
At its core, the push to constitutionally protect hunting and fishing in Oregon is about more than legal strategy. It is about identity — about who Oregonians are and what relationship they have with the land, the rivers, and the wildlife that define the state's geography and character. "Activities like farming, ranching, hunting, and fishing are part of our heritage, our economy, and our everyday lives." That sentiment, repeated in various forms by every supporter of both IP 25 and the Drazan legislative proposal, reflects a genuine conviction that these traditions are not merely hobbies but foundational elements of Oregon's cultural fabric.
For the men who spend their autumns in tree stands along the John Day River, their weekends drifting for steelhead on the Deschutes, or their summers running cattle across the high desert east of the Cascades, the constitutional fight in Salem is intensely personal. The legal language of "Section 44 of Article I" may sound distant from the actual experience of field and stream, but the stakes could not be more immediate. A successful ban on hunting — even one that took years of repeated ballot campaigns to achieve — would end a way of life that has been passed from generation to generation across much of the state.
"We have a responsibility to be proactive and give voters the opportunity to say, once and for all, that these activities deserve constitutional protection," Drazan said. Whether Oregon voters ultimately agree will be decided at the ballot box in November 2028 — assuming one or both of these measures can navigate the long procedural road between now and then. For now, the movement has momentum. And for the first time in a long time, Oregon's hunting and fishing communities are playing offense.
