The BulleTin • Sunday, May 30, 2021 A5
Legislature
Continued from A1
Kotek had estimated in early
January that about 4,000 “leg-
islative concepts” — ideas for
laws — were percolating in the
halls of the Legislature as the
2021 session neared its start
date.
When the session began,
about 2,500 bills were intro-
duced. Kotek said this past
week that a little over 400 had
made it through one chamber
(the House or Senate) and were
awaiting action in the other.
Gov. Kate Brown has re-
ceived just over 100 bills. She’s
vetoed one — to allow motor-
cycle riders to “lane split” be-
tween lanes of traffic during
heavy congestion.
The carcasses of the dead
or defeated bills can be found
throughout the electronic bat-
tlefield displayed on the Or-
egon Legislative Information
Service website.
The webpages of each
House or Senate panel that
have to call it quits Friday were
filled at times with dozens of
bills whose status was listed as
“in committee.” With no com-
mittee left, they have no future.
There are a small number
of “safe harbors,” committees
exempt from the clock. The
House and Senate committees
on rules, revenue, and redis-
tricting can work up until the
Legislature adjourns.
Most of the action now
moves to the Joint Committee
on Ways and Means, which
puts the dollar figures next to
each project and program in
the state budget.
Though the Legislature’s pri-
mary remaining job is to gen-
erate a balanced budget, Kotek
said there were still several ini-
tiatives on environment, house,
racial equity and other issues
she wants to bring up for votes
before calling it quits. She ad-
mits it is a challenge with time
running down.
“How can the legislature
take on multiple crises at the
same time when there is a
month left and a lot of work to
do,” Kotek said.
With Democrats holding a
37-22 majority in the House
and controlling 18 of 30 seats
in the Senate, the party’s
agenda should theoretically be
on a fast track to Brown, also a
Democrat.
Oregon is one of a tiny
number of states in which the
legislative quorum to meet
and do business is not a sim-
ple majority. Oregon requires
two-thirds of members to at-
tend a session for any work to
be done at all.
Republicans have walked out
to deny the Legislature a min-
imum quorum of members
for long periods in 2019 and
to kill the session in 2020. The
move was made primarily to
stop consideration of a carbon
cap bill.
During the 2021 session, Re-
publicans switched tactics from
stopping to slowing. An ar-
chaic part of the Oregon Con-
stitution requires bills be read
in full before final passage. In
the internet era, the text of bills
can be accessed anywhere in
the world.
In more peaceful times, law-
makers have agreed to waive
the reading of bills in full and
just announce the bill title. Like
the quorum rule, an objection
to waiving the reading requires
two-thirds of lawmakers to
override the objection.
Democrats have countered
by scheduling double and tri-
ple sessions each day, some-
times on Saturdays. They have
also used a high-speed digital
device to read the bills.
GOP leaders say the cal-
endar shows the success of
their effort to use parliamen-
tary rules to slow debate, at
times leaving large chunks of
the Democrats’ agenda still
clogged in the legislative pipe-
line.
For House Minority Leader
Christine Drazan, R-Canby,
the three-day Memorial Day
weekend signaled that the time
left for dealing with legislation
was shrinking rapidly.
“With only four weeks left
in the session, our time in the
Capitol is coming to a close,”
Drazan said.
Along with legislation, the
Legislature will continue to
deal with internal issues.
The session started with the
resignation of Rep. Diego Her-
nandez, D-Portland, on sexual
JUNE 27: The date the Oregon Legislature
must adjourn this year, according to the
state constitution
123RF
harassment allegations.
Now attention is on Rep.
Mike Nearman, R-Indepen-
dence. After an investigation
by the Oregon State Police,
Nearman has been charged
with official misconduct and
criminal trespass for intention-
ally opening a side door to the
Capitol that allowed right-wing
activists to charge into the
Capitol and clash with police.
Kotek has already stripped
Nearman of all his commit-
tee assignments. Nearman is
scheduled to appear in circuit
court in Marion County on
June 29, after the Legislature is
expected to adjourn.
Currently, Nearman can
come to the Capitol if he gives
Oregon State Police and House
administrators advance notice.
Kotek said the House could
move to censure or expel Ne-
arman.
Republicans want a review
of allegations against Rep. Brad
Witt, D-Clatskanie. Rep. Vikki
Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville,
made an official complaint
that Witt had made unwanted
sexual comments to her in the
Capitol.
The House hired an inde-
pendent investigator whose
report said that while Witt did
not believe his comments were
sexually intimidating, he had
made Breese-Iverson feel un-
safe while at work at the Cap-
itol.
Oregon is one of a tiny
number of states in which
the legislative quorum to
meet and do business is not
a simple majority. Oregon
requires two-thirds of
members to attend a session
for any work to be done at all.
Republicans challenged the
investigator’s conclusions, say-
ing the report did not include
interviews with two GOP law-
makers who said Witt had a
pattern of inappropriate be-
havior.
Fraught relationship
Brown has had a fraught re-
lationship with Republicans
in the Legislature this session,
which will likely continue un-
til adjournment — and be-
yond.
When COVID-19 first ap-
peared in Oregon in early
2020, the governor issued an
emergency decree that gave her
wide power over decisions that
affected public health.
Brown used the emergency
powers to issue executive or-
ders mandating public health
rules, limit business activity,
regulate school closures, re-
quire masks and social distanc-
ing, and other restrictions.
Senate Republicans held a
one-day walkout at the begin-
ning of the session to protest
what they said was Brown and
Democratic leaders’ strangle-
hold on power. But Brown has
extended the emergency order
into June.
Republicans attempted to
introduce legislation to end
or limit Brown’s emergency
powers, saying she had crip-
pled the economy with over
a year of restrictions on busi-
nesses and gathering sizes.
Their effort was rebuffed by
the majority Democrats who
backed Brown’s decisions amid
a worldwide pandemic that has
killed over 591,000 people in
the United States, while Ore-
gon has had one of the lowest
transmission and death rates in
the nation.
One of the biggest — and
most controversial — events of
the session will come just be-
fore it ends.
In what House Republicans
said was a deal to get them
to stop using parliamentary
rules to slow the consideration
of bills, Democratic leaders
agreed to divvy up $240 mil-
lion in American Rescue Plan
Act aid among all the lawmak-
ers — Democrats and Repub-
licans.
Senators would get $4 mil-
lion and House members $2
million for projects of their
own choosing. The projects
will be included in what’s tra-
ditionally called “The Christ-
mas Tree Bill” — often the final
spending legislation voted on
before adjournment.
In late June, the Legislature
will vote to “sine die” — a Latin
term used in politics to mean
adjourning without a future
date to meet.
The Legislature is officially
scheduled to next meet in
February for the 35-day “short
session” to fine-tune the bud-
get. In recent sessions, there
have been attempts to add
many additional bills onto the
agenda.
But the House and Sen-
ate will actually make its next
appearance in Salem in Sep-
tember for a Special Session
to draw redistricting maps for
congressional and legislative
seats.
Because of COVID-19,
the U.S. Census was not able
to provide states with the in-
formation needed for the
once-every-decade redistrict-
ing of congressional and legis-
lative seats. Materials due April
1 are not expected to arrive in
Salem until mid-August at the
earliest.
The Oregon Supreme Court
ruled this spring that despite
missing official deadlines for
redistricting, the intent of state
law is that the Legislature get
the first shot at creating the
boundaries. The two legislative
redistricting committees will
likely work on the data prior
to the special session, which
is unofficially set to begin on
Sept. 20. The court mandated
that the Legislature must ap-
prove and submit its maps by
Sept. 27.
In an echo of the partisan
battles of the current session,
the make-up of the two com-
mittees will be different — for
now. The five-member Senate
committee will be chaired by
a Democrat and the party will
have a 3-2 majority vote on the
maps. In the House, part of the
reported agreement between
Kotek and Drazan included a
revision of the House commit-
tee that added Drazan and will
feature an equal 3-3 split on
votes and have a co-chair from
each party.
e e
gwarner@eomediagroup.com