A8
STATE
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Oregon House panel fi nishes 10 bills to overhaul policing
Legislation receives
bipartisan support
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
Ten bills to overhaul Ore-
gon policing practices got a
bipartisan seal of approval
from Democratic Gov. Kate
Brown, Attorney General Ellen
Rosenblum and House Repub-
lican Leader Christine Drazan.
All of them spoke before
the House Judiciary Com-
mittee voted unanimously to
approve amended versions of
the bills, half of which go to
a vote of the full House and
half to the Legislature’s joint
budget panel because of their
price-tag implications for state
agencies. A few bills are pend-
ing, although they may not
reach a committee vote.
Though none of the bills
goes as far as some advocates
of change want — for instance,
there is no outright ban on
tear gas or rubber bullets to
disperse violence — they build
on the work that lawmakers did
in a 2020 special session called
a month after the death of
George Floyd triggered nation-
wide protests about police con-
duct toward racial and ethnic
minorities.
Brown set up a task force
to examine public safety stan-
dards and training, and a
Racial Justice Council to look
at broader aspects of racism in
Oregon.
“During this past year, we
have heard urban and rural Ore-
gonians standing up to make
their voices heard and call-
ing for racial justice and police
accountability, even in the
midst of a pandemic, because
the need for change is so press-
ing,” she said before the House
committee voted April 6.
“We have responded with
action… We are here to get
these bills one step closer to the
fi nish line.”
Most of the task force’s rec-
ommendations are incorpo-
rated in House Bill 3162, but
PMG fi le photo
A Portland Police vehicle. The Oregon House Judiciary Commit-
tee has approved 10 bills to amend policing practices.
the 10 bills cover a range of
issues.
“Oregon is doing the work
to reimagine how police inter-
act with the communities they
serve and how we hold offi cers
and departments accountable,”
Rosenblum said. “It will help
our communities build faith
in law enforcement and in our
justice system.”
Rosenblum gave credit to
the Oregon Association Chiefs
of Police and the Oregon State
Sheriff s Association for com-
ing up with suggestions to
advance the process.
Three of the current Judi-
ciary Committee members
also were involved in the 2020
bills. They are Democratic
Chairwoman Janelle Bynum of
Clackamas, a Black business-
woman who had an encoun-
ter with police in 2018 when
someone reported her as a “sus-
picious person” while canvass-
ing her district, and Republican
Reps. Ron Noble of McMin-
nville and Rick Lewis of Sil-
verton, retired police chiefs in
their communities.
Justices say lawmakers can have fi rst crack at redistricting
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
A decision by the Oregon Supreme
Court will enable lawmakers, not Secretary
of State Shemia Fagan, to get fi rst crack at
redrawing legislative district boundaries
despite a pandemic-caused delay in federal
census data.
The court, in an opinion issued Friday,
gives legislators until Sept. 27 to come up
with a plan — even though the Oregon Con-
stitution sets a deadline of July 1. After Sept.
27, if legislators do not come up with a plan,
the Constitution gives the task to the secre-
tary of state.
The Census Bureau says it will be late
summer before it will release census-block
data, which Oregon and other states rely
on to redraw their political maps after each
10-year census. Nothing in state law bars
Oregon from using other sources of data.
Senate President Peter Courtney and
House Speaker Tina Kotek, joined by
Republican minority leaders, asked the court
for an extension beyond July 1. Fagan said
the court lacked the authority to order an
extension, and that any delay would inter-
fere with the timetables for the 2022 primary
election. The fi ling deadline for the May 17,
2022, election is March 8.
The justices decided the matter based
entirely on written arguments and did not
conduct a hearing.
The court’s order takes eff ect April 19,
unless Fagan requests a reconsideration
from the court — a request that the court
rarely takes up.
The court, in the opinion written by
Chief Justice Martha Walters, said the dead-
lines specifi ed in the Oregon Constitution
are less important than the process laid out
in amendments that voters approved in 1952
and updated in 1986.
Walters wrote:
“We have been presented with no rea-
son why the voters who adopted the 1952
amendments would have been concerned
with the exact date by which the Legislative
Assembly or secretary (of state) are required
to enact or make a plan, except as part of a
larger framework calculated to result in the
adoption of a timely fi nal plan.
“Nor is there any indication that the vot-
ers would have intended to require the Leg-
islative Assembly to adhere to the July 1
deadline for legislative action in the unfore-
seen event that federal census data — the
impetus for drawing new district lines in the
fi rst place — was not available by that date.
“Instead, the voters’ paramount inter-
ests seem to have been to direct the Legis-
lative Assembly to enact a reapportionment
plan based on census data in advance of the
next general election cycle and to provide
an alternative means by which a plan would
still be made if the Legislative Assembly
fails to act.”
Democrats react
Courtney, a Democrat from Salem, and
Kotek, a Democrat from Portland, issued
this statement after the court announced its
decision:
“The Supreme Court has done its job.
Now it’s time for the Legislature to do its
constitutional duty: to redraw the district
boundaries for the state of Oregon in a way
that’s fair and accurate. We have full faith
in the legislative redistricting committees to
lead this work.”
The court said that lawmakers can adopt
a plan in a special session, rather than the
2021 regular session, which is scheduled to
end June 28. If lawmakers do not meet the
new deadline of Sept. 27, the court said that
Fagan will have until Oct. 18 to come up
with her own plan.
The court also set timelines for legal
challenges to either plan. It said a plan must
be fi nal by Feb. 1 or Feb. 8, depending on
whether lawmakers or the secretary of state
draws up a plan.
The timelines do not change the fi ling
deadline for the 2022 primary or the actual
date of the election.
Fagan said in a statement afterward:
“Our agency’s core objectives were to
prevent moving the 2022 election dates and
to preserve robust public input by starting
the process with available population data.
We appreciate that the Oregon Supreme
Court thoughtfully adopted both of our
objectives. Representation matters and that
is what redistricting is all about. That is why
we will continue to engage Oregonians in
the Legislature’s public hearings from all
corners of the state.... Every Oregonian has a
stake in this process, which is why we must
continue to work together to ensure all Ore-
gonians have the fair, equitable representa-
tion they deserve.”
Republicans comment
Senate Republican Leader Fred Girod of
Lyons said he was satisfi ed that the court
left the initial stage of redistricting to the
Legislature.
“Oregonians expect their district to be
fairly drawn,” he said in a statement. “The
most important principles for Republicans
are ‘One-Person-One-Vote’ and uphold-
ing the Voting Rights Act. Gerrymandering
is unacceptable and by keeping this pro-
cess in the Legislature, we have a chance
to come to a bipartisan agreement to draw
fair lines.”
House Republican Leader Christine
Drazan of Canby restated her support for
an independent commission to redraw both
legislative and congressional district lines.
A proposed initiative failed to qualify for
the 2020 general election ballot, although
its advocates went to federal court in an
attempt to reduce the signature require-
ments because of the coronavirus pan-
demic. A measure to create such a com-
mission is pending, but even if lawmakers
referred it to voters, it would not come to a
statewide election until 2022.
“Oregon needs to commit to a nonpar-
tisan and transparent redistricting process,”
Drazan said. “Shockingly, we are the only
state on the West Coast that does not cur-
rently have an independent redistricting
commission. In fact, we’re behind 26 other
states in the country that have or are moving
to an independent system this year. Orego-
nians deserve better, and they overwhelm-
ingly support independent redistricting.”
Congress excluded
The court’s decision does not apply
directly to congressional redistricting.
Although the court is the fi nal arbiter of
such a plan if lawmakers do not come up
with one — the court appoints a special
panel under a law passed in 2013 — the
rules governing congressional redistrict-
ing are in state law and not the Oregon
Constitution.
Oregon expects to gain a sixth U.S.
House seat as a result of the 2020 Census.
Lawmakers approved both legisla-
tive and congressional redistricting plans
in 2011, and neither was challenged in
court. For legislative redistricting, it was
the fi rst time since 1911 that lawmak-
ers completed the task themselves with-
out intervention by the secretary of state or
the court. For congressional redistricting, it
was the fi rst time since 1981, when Ore-
gon gained a fi fth U.S. House seat after the
1980 Census.
enforcing a higher standard
of conduct for law enforce-
ment offi cers and ensuring an
accountable, fair and just disci-
plinary process.”
But it does so in the con-
text of setting up a 15-member
commission that will recom-
mend statewide standards for
conduct and discipline — and
those issues will no longer be
subject to collective bargaining
between police agencies and
unions.
Noble said the current bills
set in motion other processes
by agencies and commissions
that lawmakers will have to
review over the next year or
two, just as the half-dozen bills
passed in 2020 set the stage for
committee work this session.
“In some ways, they are
more signifi cant because we
have improved on those,”
he said. “However, we have
more work to do. But I appre-
ciate the opportunity to come
together in a time when our
society is pretty split and torn
apart.”
They and two other law-
makers were on a subcom-
mittee focused on the policing
bills.
“These folks have estab-
lished an ability to work across
the aisle in a way that few oth-
ers could have conceived or
predicted,” Drazan said. “I
could not be more proud that
we can come together tonight
in mutual support of a package
of bipartisan amendments that
will allow us to work together a
more fair, equitable and trans-
parent policing across our
state.”
One bill, in its amended ver-
sion, sidesteps a controversy
involving arbitrators asked to
review police agency decisions
to discipline or fi re offi cers
over alleged misconduct. If an
arbitrator fi nds for the offi cer,
the discipline is set aside.
The bill imposes a new
legal test for arbitrators, who
cannot overturn agency deci-
sions if doing so “is inconsis-
tent with the public interest in
maintaining community trust,
Offi cial: Feeling we’re at
pandemic ‘fi nish line’ driving
increase in COVID-19 cases
By Gary A. Warner
Oregon Capital Bureau
COVID-19
infection
rates are rising again in
Oregon, but the growing
number of vaccinated res-
idents will likely blunt the
severity far short of last
year’s spikes, state health
offi cials said April 7.
The forecast came
during an appearance by
Oregon Health Author-
ity Director Pat Allen and
State Health Director Dean
Sidelinger on a virtual
hearing of the House Sub-
committee on COVID-19.
Much of the nation is
seeing a sharp rise in cases
of the more contagious and
virulent B.1.1.7 mutation
of the COVID-19 fi rst seen
in Britain. But in Oregon,
two less harmful forms of
COVID-19 are “crowding
out” the U.K. variant for
now.
The UK variant — 50%
more contagious and likely
more lethal — now makes
up about 32% of new infec-
tions in the U.S.
The two variants from
California are more dom-
inant in Oregon. The Cal-
ifornia variants are about
20% more contagious than
the original virus, but so far
have not been shown to be
signifi cantly more harmful.
Sidelinger said the vari-
ants are “in competition,”
and the dominance of the
California variants gives
Oregon “a little more time”
to vaccinate residents
than states in the east and
Midwest.
“We are a diff erent pan-
demic than the rest of the
country,” said Sidelinger,
A Smarter
Way to Power
Your Home.
the state’s top infectious dis-
ease expert.
Sidelinger said the spread
of even the slightly more
contagious variants mixed
with people getting out
more and seeing others was
fueling the upswing.
“Travel is up, people
are moving about more,”
Sidelinger said. “The feel-
ing that we are at the fi n-
ish line is driving the
increase.”
Gov. Kate Brown said
last week that a “fourth
wave” of infections was hit-
ting Oregon.
“This virus is at our
doorstep — our numbers
are rising and we are back
on alert,” Brown said during
an April 2 press conference.
After falling steadily
since January, new cases
bottomed out in late Febru-
ary at 249 per day on aver-
age. The case count rose to
an average of 419 cases per
day at the end of March.
During the winter spike,
daily average cases in early
December topped 1,500.
If residents stop wear-
ing masks, practicing
social distancing and limit-
ing their contacts, the num-
ber of cases could double
by next month, according to
OHA forecasts.
“These are still concern-
ing numbers in their height
and obviously the direction
they are going,” Allen said.
The virus reproduction
is up above 1:1 — mean-
ing one COVID-19 positive
person infects one additional
person — for the fi rst time
since January. It is getting
close to the levels that led to
the two-week lockdown in
December.
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