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June 16, 2023
Dear Neighbors and Friends,
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends during this past week.
In Sunday’s newsletter I let you know that negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House over the walkout appeared close to resolution. I let you know that I was hopeful that things would be wrapped up in time for us to have a quorum on the floor by midweek. Well, we didn’t quite get there (I was thinking Wednesday), but I’m delighted to report that after a final round of negotiations last night and early yesterday morning, a final agreement was reached.
At 11:00 Thursday morning we were, after nearly six weeks of frustration, able to start doing work on the Senate floor. We needed 20 for a quorum. (In nearly every other state, 16 would have sufficed.) All seventeen Democratic senators were there. We were joined as we have been for the last few weeks by two Senate Republicans—Senators Dick Anderson and David Brock Smith—but this time they were joined by three more Republicans: Senators Bill Hansell (R-Athena), Lynn Findley (R-Vale), and Tim Knopp (R-Bend), the Senate Republican leader. Today they were joined by Senator Suzanne Weber (R-Tillamook). We’ve been told that a couple more may return next week.
It was the culmination of many, many hours of direct discussions involving Senate and House Democratic and Republican leadership, along with many hours of caucus discussions and deliberations. I was always hopeful that it would work out, but our experience has shown that it was by no means a certainty.
The broad framework of the agreement was in place by Monday, but there were a number of final wording details and process issues to be worked out, bit by bit. It took time. And a lot of patience.
As you all should be, I’m grateful to everyone involved in this difficult process. As the process rolls out over the coming 10 days (we have to finish this session by June 25th), I think you’ll see that where we have landed is a good, fair settlement.
Having said that, our Republican colleagues took us to the brink of a disaster for Oregonians, unnecessarily so, I believe. I’ve shared with you the many critically important bills and investments in housing, homelessness, education, climate action, mental/behavioral health, and more that were at risk if the session ended without the Republicans returning. Fortunately, reason prevailed.
There has of course been lots of press coverage of yesterday’s events and the settlement. Here’s a link to reporting by “The Dean” of the Oregon Legislative press corps, Peter Wong, one from the Capital Chronicle, another from the Chronicle, and one from OPB.
I’ll give you a catch-up now, with more coming in my next regular newsletter on Sunday. Tonight I’ll give you info on the bills that were central to the settlement, along with the bills that have passed over the last two days, an explanation of our new approach to “readability,” a couple of the other agreements coming out of the settlement, and a look forward.
I’ll give you a catch-up now, with more coming in my next regular newsletter on Sunday. Tonight I’ll give you info on the bills that were central to the settlement, along with the bills that have passed over the last two days, an explanation of our new approach to “readability,” a couple of the other agreements coming out of the settlement, and a look forward.
SB 2002 Passes with Modifications, Continues to Uphold Oregon’s Commitment to Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care
SB 2002—which confirmed Oregon’s commitment to access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, and to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender Oregonians--was the focus of much of the controversy that led to the walkout. It has been a priority for Senate and House Democrats since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. Its passage has also been particularly important, given the legislative attacks on reproductive rights and transgender rights that we’ve been seeing in many other states.
HB 2002 passed the House on a 36-23 vote on May 1, with one Republican joining all the Democrats in supporting it. (Here’s the story behind that Representative's decision to vote aye, and here again is his own written vote explanation.
Although it was always going to be opposed by the Republican caucuses in both chambers, as it was by Oregon Right to Life, opposition then focused on two issues: a demand that the bill to be sent back to committee to be amended to improve the “readability” of its summary to comply with an arcane law that had not been followed in fifty years (I’ve written about this before); and concern that the bill opened the door for children under the age of 15 to be able to access abortion or gender-affirming health services without their parents’ consent in a way that they previously could not.
In fact, it was never our intent to do anything other than clarify and secure current practice here in Oregon now that the Dobbs decision has put everything potentially in jeopardy. What we came to understand over the course of the disagreements was that many people really don't understand what current practice is.
It is (fortunately) rare for children under the age of 15 to need an abortion. If they do, a rape has been committed, since they are under the age of legal consent. Any “mandatory reporter” (which includes any healthcare provider, teacher, counselor, social worker, any many others) is required to report this fact to DHS. Providers have a practice of informing the child’s parents unless they have good reason not to do so—i.e., if there is good reason to believe that doing so would put the child at risk of harm. If that’s the case, there is generally a process for handling such exceptions.
Our Republican colleagues wanted to see this process clarified in law, and that became the point of agreement that helped lead to the settlement. Once the Republicans backed off on their initial demand to kill SB 2002 in its entirety, Democrats quickly signaled that we were quite willing negotiate thoughtfully, productively, and in good faith, we were able to make real progress (albeit slowly!).
You’ll see these clarifications in yesterday’s final, amended version of SB 2002.The key parts of the draft dealing with parental consent/notification are in Section 8. I encourage you to look at it. I believe that this clarification is actually an improvement on the original bill, while maintaining its core principle of insuring access to appropriate reproductive health decision-making.
The amended SB 2002 did eliminate new funding for clinics, including for clinics on college campuses. Speaking for myself, I wish that weren’t part of the agreement, but there’s of course nothing that precludes colleges and universities from continuing to offer needed services with their current dollars or other dollars that they may receive.
The amended bill does not make any changes to the sections on gender-affirming care. Although there had been a fair amount of misinformation around those sections, those parts of the bill simply clarified that certain necessary medical procedures are medically necessary and not to be considered simply “cosmetic” by insurers. Ultimately, there was no need to make any changes there, and I’m pleased to say that we didn’t.
At the end of the day, I think these changes to SB 2002 were a positive, productive compromise that clarifies, enshrines, and ensures the rights of Oregonians.
SB 2005: Some Difficult Compromises Around Gun-Violence Prevention
The biggest compromises required to get the Republicans back in to finish the session and pass all the bills that we’ll be able to pass involve our efforts to further prevent violence and death due to inappropriate use of firearms. It seems as if every session we are able to take one small step towards more sensible firearms policy, and that’s it. Whenever we try to do more, the threat of a walkout (thanks to our unusual quorum requirements) emerges, and we are obliged to pull back. That’s why I was so supportive of Ballot Measure 114 last year, which asked Oregon voters if they supported several measures that have been spotlighted as being able to make a real difference in gun violence reduction. Fortunately, a majority of the voters were with us last November. Unfortunately, it remains tied up in the courts.
The top priority for legislative action on gun-violence prevention this session was HB 2005, a long-time priority for our Attorney-General, Ellen Rosenblum. It banned untraceable “ghost guns,” homemade guns made via 3-D printers or other means, without traceable serial numbers, often made of plastic and so undetectable by metal detectors. The contents of two other bills were added to HB 2005 in the House: a bill that clarified that Oregonians 18-21 could purchase and possess traditional hunting-style rifles, but no others (including AR-15 semi-automatic rifles). Federal law already prohibits those younger than 21 from possessing handguns.
It also would have allowed cities and other local jurisdictions—if they so chose—to prohibit firearms in and in close proximity to their buildings—even if they had a concealed weapons permit. This provision would have mirrored a bill passed in 2021 with respect to state buildings, along with colleges, universities, and schools. Again, these are voluntary prohibitions, and will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The new HB 2005 (including all three of the provisions) passed the House on a party-line vote on May 2.
There were also bills that were in play in the Senate this session would have clarified implementation of the ballot measure, and would have created a 72-hour waiting period for purchase of firearms—a proven strategy for suicide avoidance.
At the end of the day, the only bill that we’re able to move forward with this session, as a result of the walkout, is the original version of SB 2005, with its focus on ghost guns. Here is the final form of the bill.
It's frustrating, but nevertheless, we are going to make significant progress on preventing gun violence this session thanks to HB 2005 and other action. Along with the banning untraceable ghost guns we will be establishing a taskforce to study steps we can take to reduce gun violence and suicides . Moreover, if Measure 114 is deemed constitutional, we are also committing $7 million to the Oregon State Police to help with the background checks required by the bill and got an agreement from Republicans that they will not walk out in 2024 over legislation to
implement Measure 114 if the courts rule that it is valid. For those of us who believe that implementation of BM 114 is both necessary and legal, this is a significant part of the agreement.
We know that a strong majority of Oregonians want us to take further action on gun violence prevention. The wishes of a minority of Oregonians have unfortunately prevailed again, thanks to the quorum loophole in our constitution. I would say that our experience on this issue is another reminder that we need to close that loophole (see more on that below) if the wishes of the majority are to be respected.
SJR 33: A Potential Constitutional Referral That Had to be Abandoned
As a result of the controversies around SB 2002 and the awful legislation that we were seeing coming out of other states abridging the rights of their residents, an effort began to draft an equal rights amendment to the Oregon Constitution that would be referred to the voters and ask them if they wanted it to be part of our state constitution. As a result of the uncertainties we face with the current Supreme Court, it would put our rights to same-sex marriage, access to medically-appropriate abortion, and gender-affirming care into the Oregon Constitution, where these values would be safe from outside interference.
It was drafted as SJR 33. The accompanying SB 27 showed what the ballot title would look like when it came before the voters in November 2024.
Republican leadership refused to end the walkout if SJR 33 and SB 27 were still in play, so we agreed to pull them back. Fortunately, there are several different ways to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. We will work towards finding a path for Oregon voters to have a say on the protections outlined in SJR 33 in the Fall of 2024, either through discussions during the 2024 session or through the initiative process.
On a positive note, one of the objections that we heard from our Republican colleagues was that SJR 33 was late in coming and didn’t have the opportunity to be discussed and debated at length by legislators. We will now have that opportunity.
Key Senate Education Bills Pass in Concurrence
As I wrote on Sunday, 32 Senate bills that had passed the House but generated an amendment of some sort while in their House committee were sitting in the stack of bills stuck on the Senate floor. They needed to come back to the Senate for “concurrence.” Such votes are nearly always formalities, and they are required to come up first on the day’s agenda.
One of the first things we were able to do yesterday once we had a quorum was vote to repass all those Senate bills. They included nine bills that I carried in my role as Senate Education Chair. These 8 included some of the most important bills coming out of the Education Committee this session. It was very gratifying to get them en route to the Governor’s desk for her to sign them into law.
Here they are:
SB 217 B: Moves oversight of private Cosmetology schools from the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to the Health Licensing Office.
SB 269 A: Creates a new partnership between the Department of Corrections and the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to improve delivery of prison education.
SB 273 B: Makes changes to university governing boards to make them more representative and responsive to their communities.
SB 275 B: Makes recommendations about combining the teacher’s licensing agency and the Department of Education.
SB 279 B: Allows Oregon to join the interstate compact on teacher licensure, allowing teachers who move to Oregon to get licensed more quickly and easily.
SB 424 A: Prohibits colleges and universities from withholding transcripts from students who owe fees.
SB 523 B: Allows community colleges to offer Bachelor’s degrees in Nursing.
All of the above concurrence measures were approved, so they’re now headed to the Governor’s desk. In addition, there was one bill with which I formally refused to concur: SB 473 A: Directs the State Board of Education to add information about the dangers of sex trafficking to sex education curriculum. The House turned that bill into a study. The bill’s chief sponsor, Senator Hansell, believes that further study is needed, and I agreed. So the next step is for us to convene a Conference Committee with House members to try to work out the differences.
And here are all the concurrence votes that happened yesterday.
Efforts to Improve Readability
As I mentioned above, one of the concerns around SB 2002 was provoked by the realization that we were not following the requirements of a 1979 law that had actually never been put into practiced. It required all bill summaries to be written at an 8th-grade level, as calculated by a standard at the time, the Flesch Readability Test (which looks at length of sentences and number of syllables in a word). Republican concerns around readability persisted as a sticking point in the negotiations. Finally, an agreement was reached that every bill on the floor for the remainder of the session will have two summaries: the original summary and a newly created summary that was simpler and met the Flesch 8th grade standard.
You’ll notice, if you’re listening to floor sessions, that those who introduce the bills to the Senate, are opening their speeches by saying that they are about to read from the “Third Reading Measure Digest” and then read the simplified summary. Doing so allows the simplified summary to be included as part of the official record.
Interested in reading the simplified summaries for the various bills? Here’s how you do it:
- Go to olis.oregonlegislature.gov.
- Click on More
- Click on Reports/Documents
- Click on Floor Letters
- Under Floor Letters you’ll find the “3rd (or 2nd and 3rd) Reading Measure Digest” for each day. Open that, and you’ll be able to read the simplified version for each bill on that day’s bill list.
In some cases (in my opinion) the summaries are a little too simple and don’t really explain the measure, but in other cases I believe they really are helpful for a lay reader. Our plan is to keep working on these during the interim after end of session and see if there’s a way to use them or some other devices to make the process more understandable for our constituents.
Setting aside the gamesmanship that led us to focus on this issue, I do believe that both parties are aligned on that goal and will work to improve the process.
Other Elements of the Agreement
Interestingly, the negotiations around the end to the walkout have resulted in surprising points of common interest for the two parties, which I believe are important steps forward in the cause of good government.
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SJR 34 represents an agreement between the two parties to send a constitutional amendment to the voters creating an Independent Public Service Compensation Commission. If it passes in the November 2024 election, legislators will no longer be responsible for setting their own pay, or the pay of other statewide elected officers or judges. Instead, the Commission will look at compensation levels in comparable states and professions and come up with appropriate compensation levels. This is something that’s long overdue. A bipartisan effort to create an objective, nonpartisan body to study and establish appropriate levels in an apolitical manner is a huge step forward.
- The two parties have also agreed to move forward HJR 16, which would send another constitutional referral to the voters in November 2024. This one would create a process whereby the Legislature could impeach and remove from office statewide elected Executive Branch officers (e.g., Governor, Secretary of State, etc.) for malfeasance. Oregon is currently the only state in the nation where the Legislature does not have this ability. I see this as an important improvement.
It's great to see the two parties agreeing to push these two good-government efforts forward together. That will help prevent these efforts from getting caught up in the vicissitudes of politics.
Not surprisingly, the original set of proposals from our Republican colleagues was quite expansive and had to be pared back significantly. One of their requests was to have their unexcused absences excused, so that they wouldn’t come under the penalties of Ballot Measure 113 (whose requirements could potentially prohibit ten of them from running again for their seats). As you can imagine, that was something we simply could not agree to. With 68% of the voters calling for these penalties, the clear requirements in BM 113 weren’t something we could simply dismiss.
On the other hand, we could agree to dismiss the financial penalties that had accrued for those members who returned, and we did. These penalties were equivalent to the daily pay for legislators. Those who continued to refuse to return would continue to be assessed at this rate. Those who returned will see their financial penalties rescinded.
HJR 30—Changing the Quorum Requirement—Introduced in the House
On Tuesday afternoon, just a couple of days before the end of this year’s version of quorum denial, Democratic legislators from both chambers introduced HJR 30–a referral to the voters on a constitutional amendment to change the quorum requirement for the Oregon Legislature, bringing us into line with the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of nearly every other state.
In the words of the proposed amendment, A majority of each house shall be necessary to do business.
That’s it. Plain and simple.
My House counterpart, Rep Khanh Pham (HD 46) is the moving force behind this effort. I’m the Senate Chief Sponsor and a very strong supporter. As you know from my newsletters, I believe that SB 113 had value in letting us know the will of the voters to end these walkouts, but it ultimately should have been simpler and more direct.
Will HJR 30 pass this session? No, of course not. It’s too late in the process, and it’s unclear that the Republicans would be interested in allowing this question to go before the voters. However, it’s not unusual to see measures introduced at this point in the session to initiate discussion and pave the way for further action in the upcoming February session. Absent action there, it can be sent to the voters through a signature-gathering process. Either way, I predict that the voters will be weighing in again in 2024. We cannot continue to play this game of brinksmanship session after session—too much is at stake.
Here’s reporting on the HJR 30 effort from OPB and from the Capital Chronicle. And here’s an opinion piece on the subject by veteran commentator Randy Stapilus.
So What Will Next Week Look Like?
As I write this (it’s evening now), we are entering a three-day weekend. Floor session ended at 12:30 today, so that the Capital Construction Subcommittee of Ways and Means and the Rules Committee could meet. We’ve been very productive in the last two days, getting 34 bills disposed of yesterday and 42 this morning. One of the side-benefits of the agreement is an ability to waive many of the rules that slow down the process. We no longer have to hear bills read in their entirety or way the requisite number of days for bills to come to a vote in either chamber. This helps dramatically.
I do believe that we will be able to dispose of all the bills that are out there. That’s a great thing, because as you’ll see in the coming days, the bills that we pass this session have the potential to improve the lives of Oregonians in a dramatic manner, whether we’re talking about housing and homelessness, education, environmental action, health care, and other improvements to people’s lives.
The decision was made to allow people to go home to their districts this weekend, including our new state holiday of Juneteenth this Monday, to prepare for the final big push that will allow us to complete our work by the end of June 25th. This is great news for me, since it so happens that my granddaughter is graduating from high school on Sunday, and it means that I can be there for her, which means so much to me and all of our family.
When we get back on Tuesday, we’ll be looking at 12-hour days on the Senate floor (and something like that in the House as well) in order to get through our work. It will be brutal, and our floor speeches will likely be less extensive than they otherwise would have been. But so it goes.
One of the questions that’s still out there for next week is how many Republicans will be on the floor. As I mentioned above, yesterday there were five, and today there were six. At this point we expect a couple more to return next week. The more that return, the easier it will obviously be for Republicans to see their priority bills pass this session. Remember, it takes six "aye" votes to pass a bill in the Senate. I suspect that the spirit of bipartisanship and support for the agreement will motivate some Democrats to vote for some bills that they normally might be reluctant to support. But those will likely be limited. It's something to keep an eye on.
Sometime on Tuesday we should be seeing the final meeting of the Capital Construction Subcommittee of Ways and Means. This will be the meeting where the final budget bills for the session are unveiled. These include the bonding bill where the selected infrastructure construction projects are revealed, along with the so-called “Christmas Tree” bill, with the final investments and budget notes, will be located. And others that I’ll describe once they appear. Stay tuned for them late Monday (perhaps not because it’s Juneteenth) or more likely Tuesday morning.
Until the next regular newsletter,
 Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23
email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
phone: 503-281-0608
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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