|
Hello Friends,
As I sat in my seat preparing for the Joint Ways and Means Committee, preparing for a work session on SB 1530 on Monday this week, I knew my priorities. I had read my emails from so many constituents and knew I needed to keep the commitment I made to you when I ran for office- to put your needs first. Time spent over the past several months listening to your concerns, reading our emails, and meeting with various groups guided my determination to act on your behalf and keep my promise to put working families above politics. Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about my job, but about keeping yours. Protecting your ability to make a living, to take care of your family and have a strong community. It was clear that cap and trade is an Oregon conversation that needed to engage all of Oregon.
Sometimes getting things done looks more like preventing bad policy from becoming law and denying procedural rules. While I love to build consensus, my effort to do this was met by roadblocks from Oregon's supermajority party, and the game played by this majority with SB1530 left me and many Republicans with no option except denying quorum. While it’s easy to simplify and frame this decision negatively, it’s harder to keep up with the nuances of the Senate Rules played regularly by the career politicians running the plays and refereeing their game in Oregon’s State Capitol.
Before my final vote on SB1530 in the Joint Ways and Means Committee on Monday, I voted three times supporting amendments and introduced the final minority amendment which would have removed the emergency clause and sent the bill to voters, you, this November. Each of the amendments introduced failed. Senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose SD 16) sided with Republicans and voted on the amendments because she knows the impact this sweeping legislation has on Oregon taxpayers and working families. She also sided with me and fellow Republicans on the final vote that would have stopped cap and trade from moving to the Senate Floor. Interestingly, the bill would have failed to move if Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) hadn’t added himself to the committee that morning. By invoking Senate Rule 8.054 Senator Courtney, who has struggled to engage in most of the session, made his way into the hearing room to place himself into the committee and cast his vote. This rule is rarely used- so rare Senator Thomsen (R-Hood River D 26) questioned it’s use.
While I am not in the building, I am reading my emails, watching the hearings, and hopeful we can renew Oregon's spirit of collaboration that has fallen prey to technical moves by Senate Leadership. This legislation is so contentious and sweeping we need to have an Oregon conversation about what we want our Oregon to look like.
email: Sen.DenycBoles@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1710
address: 900 Court St NE, S-301, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/boles
| 
