By GARY A. WARNER/Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Republicans on Wednesday locked up the brakes on the Oregon Legislature as Democrats added pressure to the accelerator with House Republicans joining their Senate counterparts in adopting the parliamentary stall tactic of requiring that bills be read in full before final passage
On Tuesday, the House had met for six hours and 54 minutes to pass just five bills. The time stretched with the recitation of the text of each bill.
“We’re moving about as fast as molasses in December,” said freshman Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend.
A bill she co-sponsored that would allow large counties to repurpose funds for special projects such as homelessness prevention was on the agenda. Like most bills on the daily calendar it was “carried over” to the next day.
Adding to the long day was the propensity of lawmakers to rise to add comments to bills, even those that had no known opposition.
House Bill 3426, which would require 9-8-8 crisis hotline centers to have policies and trained staff to serve firefighters and other first responders, drew a dozen speakers over 50 minutes of “debate.” It then passed unanimously and was sent to the Senate.
Late on Wednesday, Democratic and Republican leaders in the House had struck a deal. GOP lawmakers would allow swifter consideration of bills. Democrats are delaying consideration of a key gun control bill on Wednesday’s calendar until early next month.
The Senate will continue to cope with the slow pace that kept lawmakers in the Capitol for nine hours in the Tuesday session.
As the last of 21 bills was voted on with the clock approaching 9 p.m., Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, was the final senator to speak. He rose to remind colleagues on both sides of the political aisle of a key meeting on Wednesday.
“Tomorrow evening is the mid session capitol karaoke,” he said. “We all need a little stress relief and that is when to do it.”
Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, has used the slowdown tactic since the session began in January. He set a combative tone since last November when Sen. Rob Wagner was named as the Democrat’s choice for Senate President in 2023.
“Senator Wagner has shown he is untrustworthy, deeply partisan, and doesn’t have the necessary skills to run the Senate in a bipartisan fashion,” Knopp said.
But Knopp and Senate Republicans largely cooperated on swiftly passing bills sending more than $200 million to counties as emergency homeless aid requested by Gov. Tina Kotek.
The two parties also worked together on bills for over $200 million in aid for the state’s semiconductor industry and a bill barring public employees who lived outside of the state from being reimbursed for travel to and from Oregon.
House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville, for most of the session has opted to avoid the requirement that bills be read in full on final passage.
She maintained a cordial relationship with House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis. The speaker even made a trip to Central Oregon prior to the session to tour regional businesses with the minority leader. But the debate sharpened as gun control and abortion access bills moved out of House committees and toward floor votes.
Breese-Iverson tried to bring several stalled school security bills onto the House floor for a vote. Democratic leaders argued the bills were an attempt to take the focus off gun control legislation that would come up for votes in the second half of the session.
The slowdown in the House was already delaying House Bill 2005, which Rayfield said last week would come up for a vote on Wednesday.
The bill would allow local governments to bar people with permits to carry concealed firearms from bringing their weapons into public buildings and nearby grounds. The legislation would also increase the minimum age to purchase many firearms from 18 to 21, and ban “ghost guns” that are built without a serial number that can be traced.
The Republican delaying tactics required the bill be carried over on Wednesday. Rayfield said he would schedule floor sessions Friday and Saturday to make up for the extra hours spent on reading bills.
Late Wednesday, House GOP leaders started allowing bills to be read by title only. The move came after Democrats reportedly said they would hold off on bringing the bill up until May 2.
The battle between “slower” backed by Republicans and “longer” of Democratic leaders could be the tone for the rest of the session.
The Senate has its own political hot button debate coming up — legislation to limit rent increases by landlords to less than the amount set by the Legislature in the last session.
Biggest of all, lawmakers must still approve a balanced state budget for the two-year fiscal cycle beginning July 1. How much money lawmakers will have to allocate will be clearer when the next official state revenue forecast is released May 17.
Democratic leaders have circled June 15 as the “target” date to adjourn the session. Under the Oregon constitution, they must complete their work no later than June 25.
- The Oregon Capital Bureau is a collaboration of EO Media and Pamplin Media Group and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com