 * “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
 Here's the Zoom link for this month's Town Hall: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82022309831?pwd=d2pHYnpFYURBTGREUmdUenlkUFdMdz09
#*%@!
If you follow Oregon news at all, you may be thinking (and not for the first time) “What the #*%@! is happening in Salem these days?” I’ll try to answer that and outline the issues underlying our struggles.
The unifying theme is the minority’s effort to stall the process so that we won’t have enough time to pass significant bills before the session’s deadline for adjournment, June 25. For the most part, minority leaders freely admit that, saying it’s the only way they can stop legislation they don’t like. People who agree with their political views tend to think that’s fine; in fact, we’re at the point where some Republicans face threats of recall or worse for not walking out to disable the legislative process. People who don’t agree with them say there’s a better way to stop our bills from passing: win enough elections to become the majority in one or both chambers, so that they have the authority to set the agenda.
Walkouts, beginning in 2019 and 2020, have been the most obvious tool of obstruction. This session they just began this week in the Senate. Our floor sessions last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and today, Tuesday, all failed to draw the required 2/3 quorum of twenty senators. We 16 Democrats are present (a 17th has been gone for quite a while for health reasons) along with two Republicans who come in on a rotating basis; that’s a tactical response to the measure Oregonians passed last fall that prevents any legislator with ten or more unexcused absences in a session from running for re-election. So after a half-hour of parliamentary procedure each day, the floor session is adjourned and legislators disperse to their homes or offices.
Before this year’s walkouts began, the primary tactic was insisting that all bills be read out loud in their tedious entirety before any floor vote could be taken. I’ve written about this one, as well as others we haven’t seen before: using the ceremonial “Courtesies of the Senate” portion of floor sessions to recognize pretty much every friend or acquaintance a Senator has ever known, motions and arguments to move from committee to the floor dozens of bills that didn’t make it out of committees, speeches to give vote explanations that repeat the very same argument they made before the vote was taken. All of this has peeled countless hours off the clock by now.
Last week brought a new tactic. Republicans are challenging every bill under discussion as failing a “readability” test laid out in a 1979 state law, which essentially says that every written summary of a bill (not the entire bill itself) has to be understandable to someone who reads at an eighth grade level. Sensible, right? In a representative democracy, moderately educated people should be able to understand most of the laws their representatives are passing. Except…well, for the details needed to untangle this snarl, let me introduce you to KGW reporter Pat Dooris, who did just that with flair in this video.
Since this complaint popped up, many of us have played with this Flesch Readability Test by entering bill summaries and other random text samples into its calculator for grading (it’s easy—click here). It doesn’t take much to lose points. I entered “The sky is blue,” which scored 100 points. But “The sky is sometimes blue” dropped it to 83.3. Try it yourself.
What’s a little startling is that no bill summary that any of us entered into the calculator, introduced by whichever party, reached that 60 point threshold. As a logical matter that means that if we followed the minority party’s call to rescind every bill that scores under 60, we’d be voiding pretty much every Oregon law passed in the last 44 years.
I’m sure some would say that’s not a bad idea. As a practical matter, state attorneys say we’re on solid ground maintaining laws from past sessions and continuing to move bills forward in this one. All the same, we’d definitely like to make our documents easier for Oregonians to understand. Given the complexity of the issues we’re trying to address, it’s not clear how far we can go in that direction; “the sky is blue” may get a perfect score for simplicity, but that’s not quite what our legislation’s dealing with. But there’s surely room for improvement, and this week’s experience will likely lead to some.
All that said, the Republican narrative that they’ve walked out to defend readability doesn’t pass the straight-face test. After declaring Friday morning’s quorum failed, Senate President Rob Wagner took five minutes on the dais to offer a reality check, here.
Real triggers of the walk-out
There’s no confusion or (when Republicans talk off the record) disagreement about what’s actually triggered the walk-outs. We’ve all known this was likely to happen when we got to legislation on two hard issues.
- Gun safety
Oregon’s been at an impasse since voters narrowly passed the package of gun safety measures in Measure 114 last fall. Courts have paused it on constitutional grounds, and the practical details of implementing it have posed other hurdles. Versions of some of 114’s elements became two bills this session.
HB 2005 would
- ban the use of home-made “ghost guns” that can’t be numbered and identified
- lift from 18 to 21 the minimum age of possessing firearms with the exception of a class of weapons traditionally used for hunting and
- give local governments the authority to limit or ban concealed weapons on property they own.
Here’s the flavor of debate in the House, which passed it 35-24. It should be on the Senate Floor shortly after the walkouts end.
SB 384, which hasn’t yet reached either floor, would require a permit beginning in 2024 for most firearms except that same class of non-automatic hunting guns (permit requirements for those would begin in 2026), raise permit fees, extend the maximum time for processing a permit application from 30 to 60 days, require a gun safety course or reliable equivalent to purchase a gun, allow an agent to deny a permit if there are reasonable grounds for believing the applicant to be a danger to public safety, and impose a 72-hour waiting period between purchase and transfer of a firearm.
I’ve received the same passionate emails on both sides of these bills that come with every gun safety proposal. I agree completely with opponents who point to our wildly inadequate mental health system as part of this problem. It’s a very big part. But that doesn’t mean that reasonable gun laws can’t save lives. On balance these two are reasonable, and don’t mangle constitutional rights the way some claim. I’m with the late Justice Antonin Scalia on this one. In the famous Heller decision he wrote that “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited…. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Republican legislators clearly don’t see eye-to-eye with Justice Scalia, and that’s part of what’s keeping them out of the building. But not the biggest part.
- Reproductive health and gender-affirming care
This is hands-down the hottest bill of the 2023 session, and the biggest single generator of the walk-outs. It has brought more mail this session than any other legislation, passionate arguments pro and con. Most of them—and this is unusual for bills like this—are personally written, rather than the copies of the same form letter that scores of other people sent.
HB 2002 was drafted in response to the reversal of Roe v. Wade by last summer’s Dobbs decision. It aims to fortify Oregon’s existing laws by protecting practitioners and those who help women access abortion, even if they come from other states, and to make sure services are available in rural parts of the state. With a unifying theme of unfettered access to standard practices of health care, it also recognizes the legitimacy of gender-affirming care and mandates the inclusion of certain treatments for insurance coverage.
The House passed the bill last Monday, just before the first Senate walkout. Here’s good coverage of the debate.
There are a lot of moving parts to this bill. Its molten core centers around a claim that we’re abandoning children to have abortions or gender-altering procedures without any parental or mature adult guidance. That would deeply trouble anyone…if it were true. So it’s become the opposition’s main theme. Their floor speeches are laced with shockingly graphic images, which likely fuels the distraught emails we’re getting. One, just yesterday mentioned the joy we Democrats must be feeling as we promote the mutilation of children by making sure no adults are involved. Right after that another informed me that “you want to sterilize kids at 10 yrs old.”
So a few facts. Access to abortion by minors under this bill is exactly the same as it was for the fifty years that Roe v. Wade was in place, fortified by the ballot measure that Oregonians passed in 2006. Voters understood that while nearly all children have loving and responsible parents, a handful could well suffer grave harm within their own families if they spoke out. In those few cases, health professionals and other trained community members step in with skilled guidance that puts the child’s health and safety above everything else. Anyone with concerns about how all this works might want to reach out to doctors, nurses or counselors who work in this field daily to discover how much they do to keep parents involved whenever that’s remotely possible. I’ve found the experiences they describe much more grounded in real life than the political rhetoric swirling around this issue. I thought Republican Representative Charlie Conrad spoke to this point well in the written explanation he filed after his ‘aye’ vote on HB 2002:
It became clear during the public hearings for this bill that my legislative colleagues share my concern about parental involvement in children's crucial healthcare decisions. However, as a police officer for 14 years, I also know that many children have irresponsible or absentee parents who sometimes leave children to fend for themselves. In these situations, children are left to rely on kind and caring adults such as parents of friends or other members of their extended family to help them. I want to ensure these teenagers are not forgotten and have the option to receive the health care they need with the help and support of other responsible adults. So, while it is possible that some bad actors may take advantage of this lack of parental notification requirement, it is also true that doctors and other medical providers continue to have mandatory reporting requirements and standards of care to adhere to which provide protections for minors in these situations.
In fact, let me share Rep. Conrad’s whole 2+ page vote explanation with you. He’s especially clear on the the bill’s other flashpoint, gender-affirming care. If you’ve been confused or upset by the coverage, I hope you’ll spend a few minutes considering what he has to say, here.
I understand why some of the folks writing me are so upset by this bill. When it comes to explosive issues that have Oregonians at one another’s throats, this one may have no match. And I’m not sure there’s one that’s harder when it comes to listening to the other side’s beliefs with an open mind. That’s especially true with the emerging set of trans issues that are genuinely difficult to grasp for so many people; to be honest, I’m one of them.
At the same time, the foundation of HB 2002 is assuring access to medically necessary care, especially for people who might not have the resources to do that. Determining what’s necessary is a task not for politicians or bureaucrats working off of personal faith-based beliefs, but rather for medical and mental health professionals guided by years of training and experience, almost always alongside parents guided by profound love and devotion to their children. That principle is core, and it’s endangered by both last summer’s Dobbs ruling, and the subsequent followed by the decisions of various state legislatures to violate intimate personal freedoms in ways few of us could have imagined.
Going forward I’m hoping that concerned folks will pay less attention to fiery political speeches and more to the bill’s actual content. That won’t get us to complete agreement, but it might reduce the sense that people on the other side are crazy or evil. That would be progress.
The bottom line
I began this newsletter imagining that you’re wondering exactly what’s going on up here. I hope some of what you’ve read helps answer that. But in a press statement released yesterday, the Senate Republican leader may have provided the answer with far fewer words than I’ve used. The press release says in part
[Minority Leader Tim] Knopp told the reporter that Republicans are willing to end the protest if staff rewrites bill summaries to comply with the law, and if Democrats set aside their most extreme bills whose summaries similarly don’t comply with the law. All session long, Republicans have criticized the extreme policy priorities pushed by the majority party. [emphasis added].
You’ve read enough already, so I’ll keep this brief:
- “Extreme.” We can have a very long conversation about that word. With climate chaos burning and battering and flooding the planet more intensely every year, I’d call the minority party’s hostility to every proposed climate bill “extreme.” Maybe we could go through the major issues sometime and talk about what is and isn’t extreme.
- There are gray areas, something less than 100% certainty, in much of what I’ve written today. But this much is black and white: there’s not a single Senator who has walked out on his or her duties because bill summaries—whichever party introduced them—aren’t scoring 60 on a test none of us had heard of a month ago. I doubt that a single legislator, if you could look them squarely in the eye, would make that claim.
- We’re now told they’ll end the protest “if Democrats set aside their most extreme bills.” Putting the “extreme” bit aside for now, let’s distill what they’re saying: If we will simply give up on the bills they don’t like—many of which we campaigned on, and brought us more voter support than they received—they’ll no longer stop the Legislature from functioning.
Whether or not you tend to agree with my views, I hope you’ll spend a minute thinking about where that kind of bargain would take us, and whether that’s where you want Oregon to go.
I also hope you’ll consider joining us for our online Town Hall next week, Tuesday, May 16, at 5:30pm. Use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82022309831?pwd=d2pHYnpFYURBTGREUmdUenlkUFdMdz09
Best to you until then—
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
Much of the current news and energy is related to the Republican walkout and the bills associated to the walkout. However, some other legislative actions are also receiving attention, highlighted below:
KGW: Opioid reversal drug access bill moves forward in Oregon legislature
Oregon Capital Chronicle: Legislative proposal aims to streamline virtual charter school process
KBOI: Oregon legislature passes bill that protects insured homeowners at risk of wildfire
The Oregonian: Oregon legislators cancel hearing on ‘right to rest’ homelessness bill after uproar
Oregon Public Broadcasting: Democrats advance bill that would automatically register unregistered voters applying for Oregon Health Plan
Oregon Capital Chronicle: Watered-down rent control bill clears Oregon Senate panel
An important part of SB 762 was grants to communities to reduce wildfire risk in all kinds of ways. Here are some that were just announced. Congratulations to these hard working communities.
If you would like to learn how to look up a bill, how to verify a legislator's vote, or how to testify, follow the links below.
If you would like to follow a specific bill and receive updates when it is scheduled for a committee hearing or floor vote, first search the bill number on OLIS. For a tutorial on how to search for a bill, click "how to find a bill or vote information" above. Once you are on the bill's page, click "e-subscribe" in the top right corner, as shown below circled in red.
- The Oregon State Fire Marshal's office is currently taking applications for the wildfire season staffing grant. Applications are open through May 19. Learn more here.
- You can find information about grants through the Oregon Department of Forestry here.
- Access hosts informative events throughout the year. You can see their upcoming events here.
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