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Hello
Friends,
The
session is almost half way over! April 10th
marks the deadline for when a bill must have had a public hearing and have a
work session scheduled in its chamber of origin or it will not move out of
committee. There has been a lot of hard work put into ensuring important
legislation continues to move through the legislature.
Before I
dive into what has been happening, I want to highlight an important
opportunity. The Ways and Means Committee will be hosting several public
hearings on the state budget across Oregon for people who want to voice their
concerns but do not have the time or means to visit the Capitol. On Tuesday,
April 21st there will be a public
hearing at PCC Rock Creek from 7-8:30 pm. All hearings are open to the public
and I encourage you to voice your opinion.
Education
has been a subject on everyone’s mind recently, and I am happy to say I have
had some exciting events happen in that regard. My bill, HB 2680,
relating to statewide summative assessments, passed on the House Floor. This
bill prohibits the use of statewide summative assessment results to be used
when establishing the ratings of schools or to make summative evaluations of
teachers and administrators for a year. I was interviewed by OPB
on the impacts of this bill.
A week
later, my second education bill to reach the House Floor, HB 2927 passed, headed to the Senate and is now in the Senate Committee on Education.
This bill relates to the High Cost Disabilities Account. The High Cost
Disabilities Account was established in 2003, and is a grant program designed
to reimburse school districts with a resident student for whom the eligible
service costs are above $30,000. The Legislature appropriates funds to the High
Cost Disability Account each biennium. The Account has held steady per year
since the 2007-2008 school year, whereas the claims against the grant have
climbed much higher than that allotment. This resulted in schools with large
populations of high-need students having to take money out of their general
funds to cover the extra costs of these students. This bill would almost double
the amount of money appropriated to the High Cost Disabilities Account from $18
million to $35 million each fiscal year for the next biennium. This will put
more money back in the classroom by freeing up general education dollars.
I hope you
are doing well as we speed into spring. If you celebrate Easter or Passover, I
hope your weekend was full of fun festivities and good company!
HB 2596- Passed in the House on
April 2nd, 59-1 (excused), Referred to Senate Committee on Judiciary.
Currently
Oregon law does not allow for punishment of taking a photo up a woman’s skirt
or down a woman’s shirt if the woman is wearing undergarments because the
images taken are not specifically nude photos. This type of behavior can do a
lot of damage to a woman’s personal and professional reputation before she is
even aware the photo exists. This behavior impacts everyone from young girls to
women and is especially prevalent in schools.
The act of
“upskirting” is defined as taking a secret picture up a woman’s skirt without
her consent. These photos often get distributed to friends, put on “upskirting”
websites, and uploaded to social media.
HB 2596
provides that a person who records another person's intimate areas commits
crime of invasion of personal privacy. It also creates a crime of unlawful
dissemination of an intimate image. Punishable by maximum of one year's
imprisonment, $6,250 fine, or both for first offense, and five years'
imprisonment, $125,000 fine, or both for subsequent offense.
As a
former teacher, a woman and mother of young women I am appalled that this type
of behavior has occurred. I am equally appalled that there are no existing laws
to bring justice to the women who have had to deal with this horrible invasion
of privacy. I am happy to report that this bill passed through the House
unanimously.
SB 611
B- Passed the House on March 30th 52-8, signed into law on April 7th, effective 90 days upon adjournment.
Companies that provide
communications services such as telephone, internet, or cable TV in Oregon must
pay property tax under a system called “central assessment”. Property tax is
levied on these companies based not just on their real property and equipment,
but also on the value of their brand, networks, licenses, intellectual property,
and other “intangible” assets. When the central assessment system was designed
over 100 years ago there was no such thing as a company like Google or
Facebook, whose brands alone are worth millions. If one of these companies were
to build a communications network in Oregon, their Oregon property tax bill would
be absurdly high. This would have discouraged many well-known and respected
companies from making investments in Oregon.
SB 611 B is a bipartisan
bill that clears up longstanding concerns about how data centers and other
communications infrastructure investments are taxed. By updating our property
tax system, we are paving the way for new investments by large tech businesses,
like Apple and Amazon, that will create and expand projects that lead to new
jobs. Additionally, this bill creates incentives for companies that build
extremely high-speed internet networks (like Google’s high-speed fiber project)
to deliver highest in the nation internet speeds to Oregonians, which could
help small businesses provide cutting edge services and cement Oregon’s place
as a hotbed of technology innovation.
Freeing up businesses to
make these investments will allow us to begin collecting property taxes from the
new facilities- taxes that flow to Oregon schools and other services. Additionally,
Comcast, which has been challenging its property tax bill in court, has
indicated passage of this bill may enable them to settle their case, which could
mean millions in disputed tax payments would be available to help fund schools
and other essential services.
This bill has a lot of stakeholders and has received
attention from companies, counties, cities, business minded organizations, and
people across party lines. I think this is a step in the right direction to
rebuild Oregon’s economy, draw large companies to our state, and develop new
living-wage jobs.
HB
2628- Passed the House on March 25th,
59-1 (excused), Referred to Senate Committee on Judiciary.
This bill
aims to aid victims of stalking. Under current law, most stalking orders are
exempt from court filing fees, service fees, and hearing fees. However, if the
petitioner of a Stalking Protective Order (SPO) is also seeking a claim for
damages in the request for relief fees do apply. While these cases are rare, it
impacts the overall treatment that Oregon can provide victims of domestic
violence.
One of the
conditions for states to be eligible for Federal Violence Against Women Office
grant dollars is that stalking orders, like other protection orders, are
available without filing or service fees. In order to ensure that Oregon
continues to receive this funding, this statute must be amended. This grant
money is used to fund important projects such as supporting law enforcement,
prosecution, court, and community-based programs focusing on domestic violence,
sexual assault, and stalking.
This bill
also provides the court the authority to tailor individualized relief to meet
the needs of the victim and children. While current law provides the court a
list of specific types of contact that may be prohibited under the terms of the
stalking protective order, it doesn’t provide flexibility for specific cases. A
one-size-fits-all solution is rarely the most effective form of relief for
victims involved in domestic violence and sexual assault cases, or stalking.
This is an
important bill for the safety of Oregon residents, particularly women and
children. I am honored to have had the opportunity to vote on a bill that
allows for better treatment of victims and overall public safety.
HB 2307-
Prohibits mental health care professionals and social health professionals from
providing any discouraging or conversion therapy type service to a person under
18 years of age based on their sexual orientation or an attempt to change their
gender identity. This is exciting legislation because President Obama just announced that
he is calling for an end to psychiatric therapy treatments aimed at changing
the sexual orientation or gender identity of gay, lesbian, and transgender
youth. Oregon is leading the way on this type of legislation!
HB 2300- Also known as the "Right to Try" Act, this bill creates a method by which health care practitioner may offer to treat a patient
who has a terminal disease with investigational products not yet approved by
United States Food and Drug Administration.
April is Sexual Assault
Awareness Month. Last week several organizations were in the building
advocating for the rights of people who have faced sexual assault and domestic
violence. Throughout this past year media attention has been highlighting the
often-overlooked issue of sexual assault and rape on college campuses. HB 3476
is bill that attempts to maintain the safety and privacy of women who have
experienced rape or sexual assault on a school campus, focusing specifically on
colleges and universities. This bill prohibits the disclosure without
permission of confidential communications between survivors and victim
advocates at non-profit community-based or campus-based programs.
The Fair Shot Coalition agenda will be
coming up in the next couple of weeks. They are focused on issues that would help
families, seniors, and communities of color deal with the lingering
impacts of the Great Recession, addressing subjects such as living wages, paid
sick leave, profiling, retirement, and finding employment for people with
criminal records. Stay tuned for further updates about these bills!
Above I
explained a few of the bills I've been working on in my education committee
recently. Right now we are also addressing the opt-out legislation that will allow
for parents to opt their children out of standardized testing. Soon I will be carrying HB 3044 on the floor. This bill requires
public charter schools to obtain written permission from the district school
board of other school districts if the public charter school uses real property
in other school districts for the school or for a facility to provide
instruction.
In
transportation, we have been hearing about a lot of different issues. I have
been working hard on HB 3232, which creates a breast cancer awareness license
plate. The proceeds of this program would be appropriated to the Oregon Health
Authority for use for early detection of breast and cervical cancers. Each year
approximately 5,000 low income, uninsured, and medically-underserved
individuals receive services through the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment
Program the OHA administers. I am hopeful this bill will continue to work its
way through committee!
The
agriculture committee has been receiving a lot of attention recently because of
the pesticide bills that had public hearings last week. Many people and
organizations from both sides of the issue came to share their opinions about
how to handle pesticides moving forward, highlighting issues related to
agricultural, public health, and environmental concerns.
Finally,
in my fourth committee, Consumer Protection, we have been working on several
issues related to public contracting. They are to make contracts better managed
and to make sure the products of contracts are high quality.
March 30th was the Friends of Family Farmer’s Lobby
day! Lots of Oregon farmers were in the building representing the strong
agricultural roots across Oregon. I was visited by some farmers from my
district who talked to me about several issues they are facing and their
legislative priorities for this session. Some important priorities include:
Protecting the viability of Oregon’s farms and agricultural markets, supporting
new marketing opportunities for Oregon farmers, supporting new and beginning
farmers, reducing the harm from factory farms and increasing transparency in
government decision-making that affects family farmers.
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On March
27th I
met with small and local business owners and representatives from the City of
Forest Grove in my district. I was able to tour Summit Foods, a dried
fruit company in Forest Grove. Mark, the owner of Summit Foods, and his team
showed me around their incredible facility. This company is the image of
sustainability. They distill all of the extra fruit juice from their fruit
drying facility to create a form of clean and pure ethanol, which they sell to
racecar drivers at Portland International Raceway. The drivers report that not
only does their car have more horsepower, the exhaust smells like berries!
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I
am currently still coaching Speech and Debate at Glencoe High School. While it
is sometimes hard to juggle both jobs, I get so much joy out of getting to
continue working with my team. They make me so proud!
Last weekend was a District Speech
and Debate Tournament at Century High School and we were lucky enough to be
visited by Tasha Lane, an alumna of the team, who came to help judge the
debates.
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Until next time!
Yours Truly,
Representative Susan McLain
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