 * “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
—Helen Keller
 Photo from ODOT
Surprisingly smooth, that is. D and R legislators alike showed up in Salem last Monday ready to work on a package that leaders worked out in advance—the few things they felt couldn’t wait until our regular session in February. Not only were there no walk-outs or requirements to spend hours speed-reading the bills out loud before voting, but most bills passed with big bipartisan majorities.
I’ll cautiously call that a good sign. We’re not going to hear Kumbaya burst out in the halls of the Capitol any time soon; big differences still separate us. But aside from one five-minute COVID drama on the Senate floor, we did what legislators are expected to do. I’m sure the sharp swords will come back out as 2022 election campaigns get rolling, but it was heartening to see we’re still able to do our jobs in an unexciting responsible way.
 Photo from JPR
The session’s high point for me was unanimous approval (28-0 in the Senate, 55-0 in the House) of the $25 million package we’ve been seeking to get a head start on fighting the huge illegal cannabis grows that have plagued our valley. I was asked to give the closing floor speech on SB 893; the Associated Press followed up with this national story.
It was a pivotal moment. Over the past few months a number of key Rogue Valley folks came together to help state leadership understand how brutal this crisis has been, and the expedited action it calls for. That worked. Sometimes, still, this process can work.
And...we have a lot left to do on cannabis in the 2022 regular session.
We passed a related measure to bring relief, mostly in the form of forgivable loans, to farmers and others reeling from the impacts of drought. Unless you have a connection to our ag sector, it’s easy to miss how much damage our Valley and much of the rest of Oregon has suffered. Family-scale farming is economically vulnerable at best, and years of meager rainfall have left farmers in circumstances that are far from the best. I’m hoping the programs we approved will get some of these amazingly hardworking folks back on their feet; as one Portland legislator said in the floor debate, “My folks care deeply about this because they kind of like to eat.” As with the cannabis, the drought package we passed stops the bleeding and leaves us with plenty of longer-term work to do.
The highest price tag and lion’s share of debate on Monday centered on SB 891, designed to reduce the number of residential evictions as the COVID-related “safe harbor” protections run out. This was a complex package that both extended key deadlines until federal relief dollars arrive and poured more Oregon tax dollars into the program.
We passed the bill with the day’s most extended debate and divided vote (22-6 in the Senate, 37-18 in the House). Some opponents laid the blame for the painfully slow processing of rental assistance applications squarely in the lap of the responsible agency, Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS), and demanded a change at the top. The Governor pushed back hard on that.
My own take on OHCS is positive. It’s taken bold and creative approaches to solving our chronic housing problems, and has one of the state’s most talented directors. It’s been overwhelmed by this unprecedented challenge, and I don’t know the inside details well enough to grade its performance. I fully back the push for an independent audit to figure out exactly what happened, because this won’t be the last crisis of its kind. Spoiler alert: 10-1 that a deficient Information System will be near the top of audit findings.
The broader challenge to the eviction relief package came from legislators (and some of you who’ve written me) who say many Oregonians have learned they don’t have to pay their rent anymore because the government (and therefore taxpayers) will pay it for them. There may well be people like that among the tens of thousands who are close to losing their homes. But it’s lazy and baseless generalizing to conclude that they’re typical. Plenty of Oregonians working full time or more, at jobs few of us would want to do, find themselves choosing between putting enough food on their family table or scraping together rent. The systemic problem shows up in the gap between these lines
 and the current “Help Wanted” moment is barely narrowing the gap.
The bill we just passed deals yet again with symptoms rather than causes. I voted ‘yes’ just the same; I’m not ready to see thousands of Oregon families dumped out onto cold streets when we have the power to stop it, and this bill is the surest path to getting landlords reimbursed for lost rents. But we didn’t solve the problem. We get closer to its roots when we increase the inventory of affordable housing, and we’re working on that. But until lines like the two above come closer together, which won’t happen without politically difficult changes in economic and tax policy, this is pretty much what we’re doing:
The movement’s growing. Every month more institutions—governments, businesses, universities, churches, other nonprofits—announce that they’re withdrawing their investments in fossil fuel-centered companies. According to Bill McKibben, who more or less founded this movement, “Endowments, portfolios and investment funds worth just shy of $40 trillion have now committed to full or partial abstinence from coal, gas and oil stocks.”
I believe it’s time for Oregon to join them, and, along with Representatives Khanh Pham and Paul Holvey, said so in an Oregonian opinion column last week. A few days later they published the letter of a Southern Oregonian who agreed.
 Safe to say not everyone does. The State Treasurer managing Oregon’s more than $100 billion in government and pension fund investments sees his fiduciary duty as investing as “productively”—i.e, profitably—as possible, without adjustments for social, environmental, humanitarian or moral values. He worries that breaching that rule for climate considerations will trigger a succession of movements to bar investments—in guns, tobacco, alcohol, pesticides—that would demolish the principle of securing the highest possible returns for Oregon’s local governments and pensioners.
This argument works people up. Some agree with the Treasurer: investment is investment, activism is activism, and the two shouldn’t mix. I see that principle, along with the mandate in corporate charters to focus on maximizing shareholder’s return on investment to the exclusion of everything else, as a driver of our fiercest crises. Something’s gone seriously wrong when public dollars finance the exploration, extraction and processing of the product most responsible for making our planet unlivable.
This coming session Representatives Pham and Holvey and I will sponsor a bill to make the Treasury’s investments fully transparent, because at this point we don’t even know what and how much fossil fuel equity these portfolios hold. It will also call for a careful independent study of the prospective risks of those investments. Once that information’s on the table, a proposal to divest could come to the long session in 2023.
I want to know what you think about all this. If you haven’t given it much thought, I strongly recommend watching Bill McKibben’s powerful 45-minute film Do the Math, here. You won’t be bored. I hope you’ll weigh in on the issue, or anything else on your mind that state government touches, at sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislature.gov.
As a rough 2021 comes to the close, let me say thanks for all that many of you heroes do to strengthen this community. I say “heroes” in the same sense that former Governor Tom McCall did (I’ve shared this before, but we have to remember it): “Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say ‘This is my community and it’s my responsibility to make it better.’”
I’ll do all I can for a brighter 2022, and know you will, too. Take good care of yourself and those around you. Stay safe.
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
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Warming Shelters in Jackson County:
OHRA Ashland Emergency Winter Shelter
611 Siskiyou Boulevard #4, Ashland 97520
Intake: Call 541-631-2355
Hours: Open November 1, 2021-March 31, 2022. Intake: Call between 9am and 2pm. Shelter: 7 days per week 6pm-9am.
Serves: Single adults and families with children. Well-behaved pets allowed.
Navigation Center Winter Shelter
685 Market Street, Medford, 97504
Intake: Walk in
Hours: Open 5:30pm-8:30am on nights when temperature is below 25 degrees or below 32 degrees with additional factors such as wind or precipitation.
Serves: Single adults age 18 and older and families with children
First Methodist Church Temporary Warming Shelter
175 N Main Street, Ashland, 97520
Intake: Walk in
Hours: Monday, December 13, 2021 - Wednesday, December 15, 2021 from 7pm-7:30am
Serves: Adults age 18 and older
The Grove Temporary Warming Shelter
1195 E Main Street, Ashland, 97520
Intake: Walk in
Hours: Thursday, December 16, 2021 - Friday, December 17, 2021 from 7pm-7:30am
Serves: Adults age 18 and older
Food resources:
- If you are experiencing food insecurity, there is a network of food pantries across Jackson County with shelf stable and fresh food. Visit Access' page to locate a food pantry near you. Before visiting one of these pantries, call Access to verify the hours of operation: (541) 779-6691
- For more information about food assistance programs in Oregon, visit this page.
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