macOS Tahoe Safari downloads list visually distorted

Check with Safari running under the Safari menu "Safari Extensions." Are there any Extensions installed. Consider removing them all and then reinstalling them one by one to see which might be causing this.

If that does not help, try following Old Toad's instructions here to download and post an Etrecheck report:

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

racheleman wrote:

No extensions installed. I don’t really want to download a third party app to (maybe) fix this. Anything native in Apple to check/fix this issue?

No, because this is an issue that we haven't seen before. It is almost certainly due to some third party stuff that is running in your machine, and modifies Safari behavior.

Seeing that Etrecheck report might help us find the cause (and by the way Etrecheck does not change anything; it simply provides a report so others here who are trying to help may hopefully notice something that might causing it).

racheleman wrote:

With macOS Tahoe, when I download something from Safari, the downloads list is visually distorted (usually stretched). This happens every time I open the downloads tab.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f3f5356e-2997-4011-ba3f-1da935c3e906

Quit the Safari.app and relaunch it holding the Shift key down and compare your results...

racheleman wrote:

No extensions installed. I don’t really want to download a third party app to (maybe) fix this. Anything native in Apple to check/fix this issue?

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your feedback here:

Feedback - Safari - Apple

"I don’t want to be continually closing and opening safari."

use a different browser to side step your issue.