OREGON
A6 — THE OBSERVER
TuESday, dEcEmBER 28, 2021
Many new Oregon laws take effect Jan. 1
with race.” The law speci-
fies hair style and hair tex-
ture are among those newly
protected traits. It passed
the House 58-0 and the
Senate 28-1.
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon law-
makers adopted a range of
reforms, policy changes
and civil rights protec-
tions during this year’s
five-month legislative ses-
sion, including new laws
designed to promote afford-
able housing, improve
police oversight and make
it explicitly illegal to intim-
idate others by displaying a
noose.
Those new laws, and
many others, take effect
Saturday, Jan. 1. While
some were contentious,
many passed with over-
whelming, bipartisan
support.
Police reform
George Floyd’s murder
by a Minneapolis police
officer triggered a national
reckoning on civil rights.
Oregon lawmakers
responded with several bills
aimed at improving police
conduct and oversight. Here
are some of those that take
effect Jan. 1:
• Senate Bill 204 gives
civilian oversight board
access to a database of
police encounters and
arrests. The bill passed the
House 34-22, and the House
18-11.
• Senate Bill 621 gives
local jurisdictions the
ability to set law for com-
munity oversight boards
that oversee police disci-
pline. Lawmakers took
up this bill at Portland’s
request. It passed the Senate
20-7 and the House 37-19.
• House Bill 2513
requires CPR training for
police certification and
requires police to call for
emergency medical aid if
a restrained person suffers
respiratory or cardiac crisis.
The bill passed the House
58-2 and the Senate 24-4.
• House Bill 2929
requires police officers to
report misconduct or fitness
standards and mandates
investigation into such a
report with 72 hours. Inves-
tigators must report mis-
conduct findings to a state
board. The House voted
58-2 for the bill; the Senate
approved it 27-2.
• House Bill 2936 cre-
ates a background check-
list and standardized per-
sonal history questionnaire
for aspiring police officers
and exempts law enforce-
ment from a prohibition on
employer access to personal
social media accounts.
While the law takes effect
on Jan. 1, it cannot be used
to hire corrections officers
until July 1, 2023. It passed
the House 54-4 and the
Senate 20-8.
• House Bill 3145
requires police departments
to report officer discipline
to the state within 10 days.
The state will publish those
reports in an online pub-
licly accessible database. It
passed the House 58-1 and
the Senate 26-2.
• House Bill 2932
requires Oregon law
enforcement to participate
in the FBI’s national use-of-
force database and directs
a state commission to ana-
lyze the data and report its
findings to the Legislature
every year. The bill passed
the House 58-1 and the
Juvenile suspects
EO media Group, File
Oregon lawmakers adopted a range of reforms, policy changes and
civil rights protections during this year’s five-month legislative ses-
sion, including new laws designed to promote affordable housing,
improve police oversight and make it explicitly illegal to intimidate
others by displaying a noose.
Senate 20-7.
• House Bill 2986
requires police officers be
trained to investigate and
report bias crimes. It passed
both the House and the
Senate unanimously.
• House Bill 3059
requires any arrests asso-
ciated with “unlawful
assemblies” to be based on
crimes other than a failure
to disperse. It also passed
the House and Senate
unanimously.
• House Bill 3273 limits
the circumstances in which
law enforcement offi-
cers may release booking
photos, commonly known
as mugshots. Supporters
said online publication of
mugshots were impinging
on people’s privacy and pre-
venting them from moving
on with their lives, whether
or not they were ultimately
convicted of crimes. It
passed the House 54-4 and
the Senate 17-13.
Public meetings
House Bill 2560 makes
permanent a pandemic-era
change. It requires govern-
ment agencies, whenever
possible, to stream their
meetings online and give
the public the opportunity
to testify remotely. The bill
passed the House 42-5 and
the Senate 25-2.
Cold medicine
Oregon was one of just
two states (Mississippi was
the other) that required a
prescription for cold med-
icines containing pseudo-
ephedrine, a restriction
established to limit peo-
ple’s ability to buy large
quantities and use it to
make methamphetamine.
But lawmakers concluded
that a multistate system for
tracking purchases, and
meth production shifting
to labs outside the country,
made Oregon’s law obso-
lete. So House Bill 2648
House Bill 3291 requires
Oregon to count ballots
mailed the day of the elec-
tion. Previously, coun-
ties would count only bal-
lots actually received on
or before Election Day. It
passed the House 39-21 and
the Senate 16-13. This will
delay how quickly elec-
tion results can be deter-
mined but is likely to lead
to higher election turnout.
Affordable housing
Senate Bill 8 requires
local governments to allow
development of afford-
able housing even on land
not zoned for residential
use, with some exceptions
for lands designated for
heavy industry and pub-
licly owned properties next
to sites zoned for school
or residential use. It also
lowers the duration for
which such housing must
be classified as affordable,
from 40 years to 30. The
bill won overwhelming leg-
islative support, passing the
Senate 25-5 and the House
46-3.
Hate crimes
Senate Bill 398 makes it
a crime to intimidate people
by displaying a noose. Vio-
lators face up to 364 days in
prison and a fine of $6,250.
The bill passed the Senate
27-1 and the House 54-0.
Racial equity
House Bill 2935, known
as the Crown Act, bans dis-
crimination in schools or
the workplace “based on
physical characteristics that
are historically associated
Teacher unions
Senate Bill 580 requires
school districts bargain
with teacher unions over
class sizes at schools with
high concentrations of
low-income students. The
bill’s original version would
have applied more broadly,
potentially requiring
schools to lower class sizes
in high-income schools and
raise them in schools with
a concentration of low-in-
come students, who have
greater learning needs.
The Legislature narrowed
the bill’s scope after The
Oregonian/OregonLive
reported that it could under-
mine the state’s efforts to
provide more equitable out-
comes for students of all
backgrounds. The House
approved the bill 36-21; the
Senate voted 18-11 in favor.
Homelessness
Senate Bill 850 requires
that death reports for home-
less people list the per-
son’s residence as “domicile
unknown.” Supporters hope
the bill will help track the
number of people who die
while experiencing home-
lessness, something that
already happens in Mult-
nomah County. The bill
passed 22-5 in the Senate
and 52-0 in the House.
Marijuana
House Bill 3369 allows
nurses to discuss possible
medical use of marijuana
with their patients. It passed
the House 47-5 and passed
the Senate 21-6.
By ROB DAVIS
The Oregonian
SALEM — After pri-
vate negotiations to control
political donations broke
down, labor unions have
filed three dueling cam-
paign finance initiative peti-
tions for the 2022 ballot that
are far looser than mea-
sures already proposed by
good government groups.
While the two camps
agree that political money
needs to be controlled in
Oregon, one of five states
with no caps on campaign
donations, they have unre-
solved differences.
The union proposals,
submitted to Oregon Secre-
tary of State Shemia Fagan
last week, would still allow
unions and other mem-
ber-based organizations to
make large donations to
political campaigns. OPB
first reported the proposals’
submission.
A one-page initiative
proposed by the United
Food and Commercial
Workers Local 555, which
represents more than
28,000 grocery store and
non-food retail workers,
would allow massive dona-
tions to state leaders.
How? The UFCW plan,
Initiative Petition 48, would
permit member-based orga-
nizations to donate $100
per member. A group like
AARP, which has 38 mil-
lion members nationwide,
could in theory make a $3.8
billion donation under the
UFCW plan.
The other two proposals
from the American Fed-
eration of State, County
and Municipal Employees,
which represents more than
30,000 public employees
in Oregon, are similar to
the plans from good gov-
ernment groups. But they
would allow labor unions,
which give more to Dem-
ocratic candidates than
Republicans, to make larger
donations than the good
government groups pro-
pose. The labor groups
didn’t respond to requests
for comment.
The AFSCME pro-
posals, initiative petitions
46 and 47, would allow
unions to give more than $1
million apiece to candidates
through so-called small
donor committees. They
would permit donations of
$50 per member living or
working in Oregon; some
Oregon labor groups have
as many as 40,000 mem-
bers. Donations from indi-
viduals would be capped at
$2,000 for statewide offices,
like governor, and $1,000
for legislators, judges and
district attorneys.
Good government
groups, including Honest
Elections Oregon and the
League of Women Voters,
have proposed lower limits
on small donor commit-
tees, with restrictions on
both how much they could
collect from members and
how much they could give
to any candidate.
The fight is shaping up
a year after voters over-
whelmingly approved Mea-
sure 107, which amended
the state constitution to
explicitly make donation
limits legal. Lawmakers
referred the measure to
the ballot in the wake of
The Oregonian/Oregon-
Live’s award-winning 2019
series “Polluted by Money,”
which showed that on a
per capita basis, corporate
interests gave more money
to Oregon lawmakers over
a decade than in any state
in the country.
Oregon’s state elec-
tions have become some of
the nation’s costliest. The
2018 governor’s race broke
records, with Democrat
Kate Brown and Repub-
lican Knute Buehler raising
nearly $40 million. But
even competitive races for
two-year House seats can
cost $1 million.
The petitions could form
the basis for continued
negotiations with the good
government groups or for
dueling proposals on the
ballot next year.
To qualify for the ballot,
each petition needs 112,020
signatures.
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repealed Oregon’s restric-
tion. Now, people can buy
cold medicines by asking
a pharmacist, who regis-
ters the transaction with the
database. The bill passed
the House 54-4, and the
House 27-2.
Senate Bill 418 estab-
lishes that if a police officer
intentionally uses false
information to elicit a state-
ment from someone under
age 18, that statement will
be presumed to be invol-
untary. The bill passed the
Senate 24-4, and the House
53-2.
Labor unions propose
campaign finance limits
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