Coronavirus Update: Special Session, Unemployment Update and Resources

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House Speaker Tina Kotek

Coronavirus Update: Special Session, Unemployment Update and Resources

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Happy Friday! – and it’s good to be back with you at the end of a very busy week.
The Legislature wrapped up a historic three-day emergency special session today. We were able to pass 24 bills with a focus on helping people in the pandemic and taking some important first steps on police accountability, all while following social distancing and other safety measures in the Capitol. There are more details below on what we accomplished for Oregonians.

The rising coronavirus infection numbers continue to concern me, although we all knew there would be risks from reopening. All of this is a balance of personal responsibility (face coverings) and managing acceptable risk so we can rejuvenate the economy and our lives.

The hard truth is that the risk isn’t borne equally. Low-wage essential workers and their families, many of whom are people of color, need to be protected better. I plan to spend the next few weeks focusing on what workers need right now, while some of my colleagues will be taking up the challenge of providing some limited legal protections for businesses as they strive to operate in a public health emergency.

I will also be putting my energies into the next special session that is needed to rebalance the state’s budget. With a $1 billion hole to fix, I want to be sure we put early childhood and K-12 education first in line by maintaining our State School Fund and strengthening investments through the Student Success Act for the upcoming year. Our children and youth deserve support and stability in these difficult times.


Special Session Wraps Up

This evening, the Oregon Legislative Assembly adjourned its first special session of 2020. Governor Brown called on us to respond to the public health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and enact police accountability reforms.
Here are some highlights of the bills approved in the three-day special session:

Housing Protections:

  • Extending the moratorium on both commercial and residential no-cause evictions through September 30th and creating a six-month repayment grace period after the moratorium ends for tenants to repay their back rent accrued during the moratorium.
  • Protecting residential and commercial mortgage payers from foreclosure by deferring payments until September 30th if a borrower is unable to pay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Deferred payments would be due at the end of the loan, unless the borrower and lenders determine alternate, agreeable terms.

Police Accountability:

  • Choke Holds - Declaring that a police officer is not justified or reasonable in any circumstance to use physical force that impedes “the normal breathing or circulation of the blood of another person by applying pressure on the throat or neck of the other person” unless it is a circumstance in which an officer may use deadly force. Rules will be adopted prohibiting the training of this force, except as a defensive maneuver.
  • Duty to Report and Intervene - Requiring police officers to intervene to prevent or stop another officer from engaging in an act they know, or should reasonably know is misconduct. The bill requires the officer to report the misconduct as soon as possible, but no later than 72 hours after the misconduct. Failure to report is grounds for discipline.
  • Transparency of Discipline Records - Requiring the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) to establish a statewide online public database of records for officers whose certification has been revoked or suspended and specifies the information to be provided as well as timeline for posting. Law enforcement agencies are required to request and review an applicant's personnel files if the applicant currently or previously worked at another law enforcement agency.
  • Tear Gas - Prohibiting law enforcement agencies from using tear gas for crowd control, except for circumstances that meet the definition of a riot. Before using tear gas in the event of a riot, law enforcement must announce their intent to use tear gas, allow enough time for individuals to evacuate the area, and announce for a second time that they intend to use tear gas.
  • Upholding Discipline - Under current processes, when an internal investigation finds misconduct of a police officer, a department applies a discipline guide. In response, the officer has the option to grieve the decision all the way to arbitration. The arbitrator has the power to either disagree with the finding, agree with the finding and uphold the discipline, or agree with the decision but substitute a different discipline. Under this bill, if the arbitrator agrees misconduct occurred, they must impose the discipline required by the matrix.
  • More Reforms - Creating a Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform to continue making progress on police reform, with recommendations due by December 31st. The committee is directed to do the following: examine policies to improve transparency in investigations and complaints regarding use of force by police officers; increase transparency in police protocols and process to build public trust; examine policies that reduce the prevalence of serious physical injury or death caused by use of force, the authorization of use of force under state law, and the disparate impact on communities of color; and determine most appropriate policy for independent review of deadly force.

Other Urgent Needs:

  • Drivers’ License Immunity: Because of the backlog at the DMV, preventing citations from being issued for expired driver licenses, permits, and vehicle registrations and further directs courts to dismiss any citation for specified offenses between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
  • Debt-based Drivers’ License Suspension Reform: Removing the authority of courts to suspend someone’s driver license for failure to pay traffic-related fines or comply with requirements ordered in lieu of fines.

Unemployment Updates from the Department

We received these updates from the Oregon Employment Department this week:

  • Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). The department intends to address the backlog of approximately 70,000 PUA claims in the next 7 weeks, by August 8.
  • Phone lines. The department recently added 138 phone lines and commits to add 150 more over the next two weeks.
  • Staffing. The department now has more than 750 staff processing claims. There are 70 temporary employees in the division, and 400 employees from other parts of the agency have shifted from their usual work to help get benefits to Oregonians.

While these are certainly positive steps, I think additional solutions are still needed. We can no longer expect the department’s standard procedure, even with efforts to expand workforce capacity, to meet the current challenges. My office will continue to push until every Oregonian receives all of the benefits they are due.

Please continue to reach out to my office with any unemployment issues.


Phone and Internet Assistance Coming!

Earlier this month, the Legislative Emergency Board allocated $3.5 million in federal CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund dollars to the Oregon Telephone Assistance Program, also known as Oregon Lifeline, to temporarily increase the discount on telephone or high-speed internet service for low-income households in Oregon.

Pending Public Utility Commission (PUC) action next week, companies participating in the program will be ready to deliver this additional assistance in July.

Visit www.lifeline.oregon.gov or call the PUC at 1-800-848-4442, M-F 9 am to 4 pm, for more information, including eligibility requirements.


The Latest News

  • The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported 250 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 7,521. Sadly, five more individuals have died, meaning 202 Oregonians have now died of the coronavirus.
  • In Multnomah County, data from the most recent 7-day period shows there has been a total of 1,893 confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases, which make up 26% of the state’s total. The chart below shows cases from June 17 to June 23.

June 26 OHA Information-250 new cases, 5 new deaths

June 26 Hospital Capacity

June 25 Mult Co cases

Scam Alert!

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a text scam warning related to public health contact tracing efforts. Contact tracers in Oregon are affiliated with local and state public health departments, and will never ask you for money, your social security number, or that you click on a link via text.

Don’t take the bait! Clicking on the link will download software onto your device, giving scammers access to your personal and financial information. Ignore and delete these scam messages.

Learn how to report scams here!


Contact Tracing Spam

To read past newsletters, you can go to this link. For up to date information, please check this link to the Oregon Health Authority where regular updates are posted: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ERD/Pages/News-Releases.aspx

Please email me at Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov if you have specific concerns that have not been addressed by the OHA. Our office will do all we can to help and protect all Oregonians.

Thank you for reading! We will get through this together

Best,

Tina

Tina Kotek

State Representative
House District 44
Speaker of the House

email: Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1200
address: 900 Court St NE, H-269, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/kotek