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WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2021
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Closure of Capitol had ripple effects
Connor Radnovich
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
During a typical session of the Ore-
gon Legislature, the hallways are filled
with a cross-section of Oregonians not
seen anywhere else in the state.
Professional lobbyists angling for a
five-minute conversation with a law-
maker sit in every nook as schoolchil-
dren tour the historic building and resi-
dents pack hearing rooms for the
chance to testify on a bill.
Different interest groups take over
the main lobby area on different days
with booths, displays or free samples,
more than willing to talk at length about
the virtues of the bills they are backing.
Up in the offices, legislative aides
field dozens of phone calls and in-per-
son meetings per day from constituents
and activists trying to sway a vote one
way or another.
These are the sights and sounds of
democracy in action at the Oregon Leg-
islature, of regular people intersecting
with the legislative process, with the
bills that are going to impact their lives
and with lawmakers sent to Salem to
represent them.
But this year, the legislative session
was unique in state history — closing its
doors to in-person public participation.
As with almost everything the past 16
months, the session needed to adapt to
the coronavirus pandemic.
It was still legislative democracy, but
not how the state has known it.
Lawmakers and staff were required
to wear masks whenever they were in
the building. Committee testimony on
bills went fully virtual, with Microsoft
Teams and phone calls replacing
packed hearing rooms.
Raucous rallies and lobby days were
replaced with virtual lobby weeks
where organizers planned video confer-
ence meetings with as many lawmakers
as possible. Lobbyists — absent a lobby
to wait in — weren’t as involved in the
process.
On the other hand, for people who
previously were unable to comment on
legislation because they couldn’t take
the day off to travel to Salem or the dis-
tance to the Capitol was too great, virtu-
al testimony offered new access.
“The issue of closing the building
really was a headache, the mask issue
was a problem, we had people who were
mostly angry the entire session,” Senate
President Peter Courtney, D-Salem,
said. “We somehow or another fought
through it, and I think that’s quite an ac-
complishment.”
Lawmakers, lobbyists and activists
said the pandemic-related restrictions
changed how front-of-mind those out-
side the Capitol were and, perhaps, the
outcome of one of the session’s most
noteworthy bills.
Tamanawas
Continued from Page 1B
right, once you return to the trailhead,
you can keep walking to your campsite
at Sherwood Campground instead of
jumping back in the car. It’s a far better
thing to celebrate a successful hike with
a nap in a hammock than a long drive
back to Salem.
Tamanawas Falls and
Sherwood Campground
In a nutshell: Moderately challeng-
ing and mostly kid-friendly hike to a
powerful and misty 110-foot waterfall
with basic campground next to trail-
head.
Location: East side of Mount Hood,
south of Hood River.
Hike Length: 3.8 miles
Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, clacks the gavel during the
legislative session in the Senate at Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Oregon on
Wednesday, June 23, 2021. BRIAN HAYES / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Republicans argued early and often
that keeping the building closed to the
public was harming the legislative proc-
ess and was a violation of the Oregon
Constitution.
“Transparency suffered as public
policy was rushed through behind
closed doors,” House Republican Leader
Christine Drazan, R-Canby, said in her
end-of-session statement. “As the Ore-
gon economy recovers, businesses re-
open and students return to school, we
must ensure the policymaking process
also returns to normal, which must in-
clude reopening Capitol to the voices of
Oregonians.”
Impact of absent lobbyists
While the Constitution does state
that deliberations of the Legislature
“shall be open,” it gives lawmakers the
authority to set rules to comply with
that requirement.
The building was first closed to the
public in March 2020 by the presiding
officers of the Legislature — Courtney
and House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Port-
land — on the advice of public health ex-
perts.
The building remained closed when
the legislative session began in January
and stayed that way through the end of
the session — four days before Gov. Kate
Brown dropped the COVID-19 restric-
tions and opened the state. The Capitol
officially reopens to the public July 12.
The only people allowed in the build-
ing were staff members, legislative
aides, lawmakers and journalists.
Committee hearings and floor ses-
sions were all streamed live and, as in
prior years, available to re-watch on the
Oregon Legislative Information System.
Information technology staff set up new
systems allowing the public the ability
to testify via video or phone.
“Our going to virtual allowed people
who had never participated in this proc-
ess to participate,” Kotek said. “For the
folks who do this more on a regular basis
… we had to work extra time to make
sure we could communicate.
“You had to do it multiple ways:
emails, phone calls, text messages,
Teams calls, Zoom calls, trying to make
sure people could hear what needed to
be heard. It happened. I think we crafted
good legislation, and we’re back in ses-
sion in six months if there is a mistake or
two here or there.”
Paid lobbyists and lawmakers ac-
knowledged that access was signifi-
cantly reduced during session.
Much of the interactions lawmakers
have with lobbyists are during five- to
15-minute conversations that happen
organically throughout the day. This
session, all of those meetings were
scheduled via video conference or held
over a phone call or through text — an
insufficient substitute for some.
Lawmakers also fretted about not be-
ing able to read the body language of
people while they were testifying or
meeting with them.
“It’s great that we have this technol-
ogy as a substitute, not just in the Legis-
lature but in life,” House Democratic
Leader Barbara Smith Warner said. “It’s
a substitute, but it’s not the same thing.”
Senate Republican Leader Fred Gi-
rod, R-Stayton, said lobbyists are criti-
cal to the legislative process because
more often than not they understand
the impacts a bill will have more than
the lawmakers do.
“A good lobbyist … will tell you both
sides of the argument, and people don’t
realize that,” Girod said.
Quiet without the people
The power of having crowds of peo-
ple in the building was also absent this
year.
Lawmakers said this was particularly
notable surrounding the debate over
Senate Bill 554, the session’s major
piece of gun control legislation. The bill,
which was signed by Gov. Kate Brown
on June 1, bans guns from the Capitol,
allows public schools to adopt policies
to ban guns and sets certain firearms
storage requirements.
In previous sessions, attempts at
passing legislation on guns were met
with rallies in and around the Capitol,
with opponents often bringing their
See CAPITOL, Page 3B
Hike Climb: 500 feet
Hike Difficulty: Moderate
Campsite and hike Information:
Hood River Ranger Station, (541) 352-
6002
Where to reserve campsite:https://
www.recreation.gov/camping/camp
grounds/272093
Best bet for scoring a campsite: Al-
ways smart to reserve a site ahead of
time if possible. If you go midweek,
there are typically first-come, first-
served sites available, including ones
along the East Fork Hood River.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter, photographer and videographer
in Oregon for 13 years. Urness is the au-
thor of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon”
and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can
be reached at zurness@StatesmanJour
nal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on
Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.
Tamanawas Falls Trail, located on the east side of Mount Hood and south of
Hood River, features old-growth forest and travels along Cold Spring Creek to
110-foot Tamanawas Falls. ZACH URNESS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Miller
Continued from Page 1B
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Because of their absence, Girod ex-
pects lawmakers made far more mis-
takes in legislation this year than in pre-
vious sessions. He said lawmakers
didn’t spend nearly enough time “clean-
ing up” bills to avoid unintended conse-
quences, a process particularly helped
by lobbyists.
House Democratic Leader Barbara
Smith Warner, D-Portland, said the ab-
sence of lobbyists meant lawmakers
spent more time talking amongst them-
selves about legislation.
In the early months, widespread in-
person conversations were not happen-
ing with any regularity due to strict dis-
tancing requirements and fear of CO-
VID-19 before vaccinations.
But in the final month, Smith Warner
said, the lobby outside the House cham-
ber would often be dotted with small
groups of lawmakers talking about leg-
islation in a space where they would in
previous sessions be hounded by lobby-
ists.
“Now you have this ability for mem-
bers to interact with each other … in a
way you don’t have when the building is
swarming with lobbyists,” Smith War-
ner said before the session adjourned.
“It has let us really focus on the essen-
tials.”
Morgan Gratz-Weiser, legislative di-
rector for Oregon Environmental Coun-
cil, said lobbyists had to focus more on
building collaborative relationships
within the lobby and with activists
tracking the same bills to make up for
the lack of traditional access.
Lobbyists also needed to be more in-
tentional with their outreach, focusing
on text messages and phone calls.
“For folks who are paid lobbyists who
are accustomed to being in the building
all the time, there was certainly frustra-
tion,” Gratz-Weiser said.
However, she added that the expan-
sion of virtual testimony was an “impor-
tant success” for the Legislature and
something that should be expanded in
future sessions.
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to roughly 8 pounds of bun.
So now we’re up to 15 pounds, in one
sitting, in 10 minutes.
As mentioned earlier, no condiments;
but professional eaters by and large, em-
phasis on that last word, soak each bun
and wiener in water to make them easier
to swallow.
At this point, I was too flagged to soak
a bun and weigh it.
But Chestnut said in a 2019 interview
that he usually gains about 24 pounds
during the Nathan’s competition, again
in 10 minutes.
So about those “quarantine 15” pan-
demic pounds that we’re all whining
about, there’s only one word that applies.
Slackers!
Give a ‘hoot’
So-called hoot-owl restrictions are in
effect for anglers pursuing hatchery Chi-
nook salmon and steelhead and sturgeon
on a lot of popular Salem-area waters.
Because of low, warming water and
continuing hot weather, fishing is al-
lowed for those species from the start of
legal fishing hours an hour before sunrise
until 2 p.m. daily.
Affected waters include the Willam-
ette River from the mouth at the Colum-
bia, including Scappoose Bay, upriver to
the mouth of the McKenzie.
Those restrictive fishing hours also are
in effect for hatchery Chinook, hatchery
steelhead and sturgeon on the Santiam
rivers North and South, as well as the
Clackamas up to River Mill Dam, the Mol-
alla, Sandy, Middle Santiam, Yamhill,
Breitenbush, Calapooia, Clatskanie, Tua-
latin, Mary’s, Long Tom and Scappoose
rivers as well as Quartzville and Rickreall
creeks.
Along with the Willamette Zone, a
host of rule changes are in effect on other
bodies of water statewide.
Current updates are available online
by clicking on links for each zone in the
weekly recreation report at Fishing Re-
port - Columbia Zone | Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish & Wildlife (myodfw.com)
Thought for the week: If you are what
you eat, and fish eat bugs and worms;
what does that make an angler who eats
what they catch?
Contact Henry via email at HenryMil-
lerSJ@gmail.com