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June 30, 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.
What a difference a couple of weeks can make! If you look back at my newsletter from just two weeks ago , you’ll see that we still did not have a clear path to saving the session, but (as always) I remained optimistic and determined to see it through. Speaking of a press conference/rally that we held almost exactly two weeks ago, I said the following: In response to a reporter's question, I made it clear that despite the adversity, I have not given up on this session. The stakes are simply too high. Democrats made it clear at the rally that we are open to negotiations as long as they are serious and honest. It now appears that serious, honest negotiations are at last occurring and appear to be bearing fruit. Fingers crossed.
Fortunately, an agreement was reached, one that involved some small compromises but fortunately did not require any significant compromises of our Democratic caucus’s values or require us to give up necessary improvements that couldn’t be achieved in other ways. I’m thinking, for example, of our agreeing to pull back on SB 633, a constitutional referral to the voters confirming our commitment to equal rights for LGBTQ Oregonians and to the right of all Oregonians to access high-quality reproductive healthcare. This is an extremely important provision to get into the Constitution; it just means we’ll move forward on gathering signatures to get it on the 2024 ballot another way. It’s something that I’m confident a majority of Oregonians will support.
We always said that we were willing to consider their “wish list” but not their “kill list,” and fortunately our presiding officers held firm on that. Aside from SB 633 and some gun violence prevention legislation (more on that below), we were able to withstand Republican pressure to kill our priority bills in order to get them back to finish the session. Had they not, the results would have been tragic for Oregonians and bad behavior would have been rewarded.
Instead, we were able to get the work done. Three hundred bills—including many that were unexciting but crucial to the functioning of government, and others that were major steps forward and big investments to address needs all over the state—were passed by the Senate in the final ten days of the session. It was an exhausting process, but I’m proud of the work that we did.
I do want to point out a couple of surprising points of agreement that emerged from the negotiations. The presiding officers and minority leaders agreed that the parties would work together to pass two good-government referrals to the voters. One was SJR 34, which would change the Constitution to establish the Independent Public Service Compensation Commission. Compensation for statewide elected officers, judges, and legislators would no longer be determined by the politics of legislative decision-making. Instead, it will be the job of an independent group of compensation experts. If it passes, this will be a much-needed change that has been long in coming.
The second referral, HJR 16, will be another constitutional change, this one giving the Legislature the authority to impeach statewide elected officers “for malfeasance or corrupt conduct in office, willful neglect of statutory or constitutional duty or other felony or high crime.” Oregon is currently the only state in the nation that does not give its legislature this authority, and it’s time that we do. We’ve never had a need to use it in recent memory—statewide electeds whose conduct was questionable, including most recent our Secretary of State, have voluntarily stepped down. This will allow an alternative in case that doesn’t happen. I unfortunately didn’t get to sign onto this House resolution as a sponsor, but it’s something that I support and did support before it became part of the agreement. I’m very happy about both of these good-government improvements.
As I said in yesterday’s newsletter, I believe that at the end of the day this will reveal itself to have been a very positive and consequential session for the people of Oregon.
Further down in this newsletter, I’ll share with you some of the major achievements (and losses) of the session in Education and Climate/Environment. In future newsletters I'll provide information on some of the other issue areas that I worked on.
Just because I don’t call out a bill that was of interest to you, that doesn’t mean it didn’t pass. If you have any questions about any of the bills and issues of interest to you, please don’t hesitate to write in and ask us about them.
For a big picture overview of the big accomplishments, check out this Sine Die Overview from the Senate Majority Office.
And here are links to wrap-up stories from various news media:
Reminder: No Constituent Coffee in July
Normally, next Saturday would have been our next constituent coffee. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to meet with you and share my thoughts about the session that has just come to an end.
BUT I’m going to have to defer that pleasure till August. I’m currently away for a month-long time away with family. I’m under strict orders (OK, they’re self-imposed and voluntary) to stay away from legislative business for that time.
I do look forward to the August meeting and the opportunity to share thoughts with you on August 5th about the session that has just ended and on priorities for the interim and the session to come.
The Walkout Legacy
It was not easy, but thanks to skillful negotiating and ultimately a shared sense of the common good on both sides, the Legislature was able to step back from the brink. As I mentioned the other day to an Associated Press reporter in speaking of a proposal to change the quorum requirement to a simple majority, https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/oregon-lawmakers-rush-to-pass-bills-backlogged-by-18168044.php our archaic 2/3 quorum requirement brought us very close—far too close--to a failed session: “When it [the walkout tactic]'s out there as a tool, there's an expectation it's going to be used, and it just creates many difficulties,” he said of walkouts. “To be honest, we approached the cliff and were able to retreat from it. ...[But] We came very close to a disaster.” As the article mentions, I’m one of the chief sponsors of a bill that would ask the voters to change the Constitution to align the threshold needed to do business on the floor with the threshold needed to actually pass legislation: a majority. We need to get it done, either through a similar bill in the 2024 session or via an initiative petition.
Was It Worth It?
Although the Legislature itself was able to keep from going over a cliff, most of our Republican colleagues sadly did not. As a result, under the requirements created by M113, which the voters passed overwhelmingly just eight months ago, they are barred from seeking reelection. For those whose terms are up at the end of 2024, the potential impacts will be immediate—as soon as September, when filing for the next election opens.
At the end of the day, it's not really clear what the Republicans got out of this walkout—which will bar nearly all of them from seeking reelection as a result of BM 113--other than seriously disrupting the process. Four of them (Boquist, Hayden, Linthicum, and Thatcher) never came back. One (Robinson) eventually returned for the final two days. One (Hansell) left for the final three days to attend and officiate at his nephew’s wedding.
As a result, they never had more than 8 on the floor, which made it difficult to us to find enough Democratic votes to join them in getting their priorities passed. That was certainly the case for the final bill voted on in the Senate this session, HB 3414, a bill that would have allowed exceptions to our land-use laws. It failed by one vote in a dramatic finale to the session.
(I made my final floor speech of the session explaining the flaws in this bill and my hopes for us to work in the interim on an agreement that would really make a difference in housing supply. I’ll talk more about my thoughts on this bill and hopes for the future in the next newsletter.)
Back to the walkout, in the end it’s just not clear that the walkout was worth generating the penalties of BM 113. In that same AP article Senator Bonham is quoted as questioning the decision to do the walkout: “I am disappointed that I potentially sacrificed my Senate seat for this walkout when it did not ultimately stop these unconstitutional and unlawful bills from moving forward, but accept where we are,” Republican state Sen. Daniel Bonham said in a letter to constituents.
I obviously don’t believe that the bills he’s referencing (HB 2002 and HB 2005) are either unlawful nor unconstitutional. But I do share his doubts about its having been worth it. I hope that we do not get to this point ever again.
Part of the deal that brought them back was an agreement to waive the penalties that began to be assessed for days in which a quorum was denied. That was something nearly all legislators (including me) were comfortable with.
Not surprisingly, during the negotiations there were also requests to have the unexcused absences retroactively turned into excused absences, which would have freed them from the BM113 requirements. That was a no-go and never really went anywhere. Although comments were made about it during speeches on the floor, up to and including on the final day, no one ever actually made a formal motion calling for it. It was clear that most of the members would not have supported it, and the voters
I assume that going forward Senate and House Republicans will put their hopes in a court challenge to try to get Measure 113 overturned or modified as a way to keep their seats longer. We’ll see.
For a perceptive set of observations on the bottom line for Republicans this session, I’d recommend this opinion piece from veteran Capitol observer Randy Stapilus entitled “Republicans Staged Historic Walkout, but They Didn’t Get Much for It.”
Bipartisanship Gives Way to Partisanship
As I’ve mentioned in earlier newsletters (and as others have pointed out), up to the time of the walkout this session was actually marked by a high degree of bipartisanship. There were many cross-party partnerships, and well over 90% of votes on the Senate floor had at least one or two Republicans voting for them.
Things unfortunately changed after the walkout ended. We started seeing more bills pass on strictly party-line votes. This was even the case for bills that had passed out of committee unanimously during the walkout (remember, many Rs continued to come to committee meetings even as they were denying quorum on the floor) and where the Republicans had made very positive comments before casting their aye votes. (I’m thinking particularly about SB 85, the CAFO bill.) Obviously, the important thing was that the bills passed, even if it meant that the votes were partisan. Still, it’s always frustrating when you compromise and try to make a bill more amenable to the other party, and then they lock down and vote against it on the floor anyway. Frustrating, but in the long run it’s still the right thing to do.
So why the proliferation of partisan votes at the end? To some extent this is always the case—the tougher, more contentious and polarizing bills tend to come at the end, so it’s not strictly speaking unusual. But it feels as if it happened more this time.
I do recognize that some of the Rs who came back to finish the session were in a tough place with their some in their base, who did not want them to return. With those voters, being seen as bipartisan may have been perceived to hurt them rather than help them. It may have been a strictly political concern.
A Big, Big Year for Education
Not surprisingly, much if not most of my attention this session was devoted to education issues (as both Chair of Senate Education and member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education)..
We were able to accomplish some historic improvements this session, and pave the way for more. Some of this was the result of a lot of work that happened during the interim. That’s certainly the case for the massive work group that I convened on the educator workforce shortages. It’s also true of the new programs and investments in higher education that were generated by last year’s Student Voice Task Force (Joint Task Force on Student Success for Underrepresented Students in Higher Education). Some were the result of a historic amount of Senate/House partnership and collaboration. Some was due to our being given record revenues as a result of surprising improvements in our revenue forecast. And, for me, much was due to the serendipity of having a first-rate committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, nearly all of whom had strong backgrounds in education and education policy (including my Republican Vice-Chair).
As I mentioned in my floor presentations on most of the following bills, four areas of particular need rose to the surface this session: the needs of children with disabilities and those who teach them and care for them; the Classified staff who are the glue that holds our schools together; and in the realm of higher education those lower-income students who are the first in their families to attend college; and the part-time faculty who make their experience affordable and successful. I’m pleased to say that we achieved significant improvements for all of these groups during this past session.
Here's a Capital Chronicle article with a final overview of the education bills that passed.
For a list of all the bills assigned to the Education Committee and their fates, go to this page. If a bill is listed as still in committee, it failed to progress, either from the committee or from Ways and Means. (You can click on the bill number to see its particular History.) You’ll see if it is awaiting the Governor’s signature (which means it passed both chambers), awaiting the signature of one of the presiding officers (which means it has passed both chambers and will soon be on the Governor’s desk), or if it has been assigned a Chapter Number, which means that the Governor has signed it and it will soon be assigned its place in Oregon statute.
By the way, you can do the same thing for any of the House and Senate committees: go to the committee page, click on Assigned Measures, and you can see the fate of all the bills in that issue area. Or, you can of course search one bill at a time.
Here are descriptions of the major Education billsthat passed (or failed) this session.
An Outstanding Session for the Environment
Although it wasn’t clear early in the session that things were going to turn out this way, the 2023 legislative session turned out to achieve a number of noteworthy short-term and long-term gains for the environment.
Most noteworthy were three large packages of investments related to climate action, energy efficiency and resilience, and drought/water. They included items that had been passed out of their House and Senate policy committee and sent to Ways and Means. In a normal year these would have competed against one another, and many of them would have been lost in the process. This time Speaker Rayfield and President Wagner decided to package together many of the policy bills that were sent from Senate and House policy committees to Ways and Means, together with relevant parts of agency budgets. This was initially done at least in part due to the walkout—given the prospect of a special budget session or, even if the Republicans returned, the likelihood that we might not have many days left on the floor—it made sense to try to reduce the number of votes needed.
Another reason for this strategy was that we were already moving in that direction with the important bipartisan work to address Drought and Water Shortages being done this session by Reps Ken Helm and Mark Owens. They’d been working all session on a “Drought/Water” package. A parallel effort then began with the many bills addressing climate change that had moved from Senate and House policy committees to Ways and Means.
Whatever its origin, this strategy of bringing legislators from both chambers together to work within a set budget (which fortunately became greater after the May revenue forecast), set priorities, and create packages of bills that worked well together was a model that should be pursued in the future.
In the cases of HB 2010 (the Drought/Water package) and HB 4089/HB 3630 (the Climate Package) the Natural Resources co-chairs (i.e., Rep Pham and I) worked with the Policy Committee Chairs and the Legislative Fiscal Office to prioritize and fund the bills within the available budget resources for each.
In the end, for technical reasons, the Climate package was divided into two different bills: HB 3409 (Climate) and HB 3630 HB 3630 (Energy). I got to carry both of them to Ways and Means and to the Senate floor. The Water package (HB 2010) was carried on the Senate floor by Senator Jeff Golden.
Again, each package contained bills that had passed out of committee. In some case the packages included projects that were funded in the end-of-session funding bills (Capital Projects, Lottery Bonds, and others).
I’ve put together more detailed information about them here.
These were very significant wins for the environment, but they weren’t alone. Here are some other bills that passed that will make a real difference:
CAFO Regulation: I need to start with SB 85, the bill to strengthen the state’s oversight of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, the very large dairy, cattle, and poultry operations that put neighbors at risk if they are not properly regulated. As you probably know, working on this problem has been a priority for me since the near-catastrophic experience of Lost Valley Dairy back in 2018. Its passage this session was a triumph of public advocacy, hard work, and reasonable compromise. As a result, it wound up passing unanimously out of Senate Rules and comfortably from Ways and Means. You can read more about it in this press release and in this article in last week’s Statesman-Journal.
Funding for Oregon’s Title V Program: This one also consumed a lot of my time and attention this session, a problem that I inherited in my capacity as Natural Resources Co-Chair. Oregon DEQ has delegated authority from the federal EPA to manage its industrial Clean Air Act program. This program requires close monitoring of industrial emissions and approval of any new or expanding facilities, which require a Title V permit to operate. Fortunately, emissions have indeed been going down as a result of the program, but unfortunately, the funding that support DEQ’s work (which by federal law can only funded from fees paid by the facilities) is currently assessed by the level of emissions. As a result, funding has been inadequate and the fees have needed to be raised. (They have not been raised, other than by cost-of-living increases, for 13 years). DEQ came in with a request via HB 3229 for an immediate 83% increase, which is what is needed to restore the program to what EPA believes it needs to be. This was understandably difficult for industry to swallow. I was able to negotiate an amendment that phased in the increase over two years and required DEQ to change its methodology for assessing fees, as other states facing this same challenge have done. Without its passage, the program would have been in real jeopardy of not being able to process the permits that industry needs to function. Nevertheless, some lobbyists pushed hard to kill the increase up until the final day of session, but we were ultimately able to get it through.
Ending Single-Use Styrofoam Food Containers: The successful passage of SB 543 concludes a multi-year effort to reduce the use of this toxic material in single-use food-to-go containers. This product has already been banned in several Oregon cities, including in Portland for the last two decades. It also bans the use of highly carcinogenic PFAS chemicals in food packaging. Big thanks to Sen Sollman for her perseverance on this one.
Legalizing Reusable Containers: Another bill in our “Zero Waste” agenda, SB 545 will allow reusable containers to be used in the bulk section of the supermarket and for eating out. Again, thanks to Sen Sollman’s leadership here.
Further Work Addressing Wildfire: In 2021 the Legislature passed a landmark wildfire bill, SB 762. SB 80 updates those provisions. It revises the statewide wildfire hazard map to fix problems that had arisen. It creates a Prescribed Fire Liability Pilot Program, to help protect landowners who responsibly use prescribed fire as a preventative device to get rid of dangerous undergrowth. It creates a Landscape Resiliency Fund within the Department of Forestry and a $3 million Community Risk Reduction Fund within the Office of the State Fire Marshall. Here's a detailed summary. of what’s in the bill.
Toxic Free Kids Act Modernization: It was time to update Oregon’s Toxic Free Kids Act, a bill passed several years ago with leadership from my former colleague and friend, Rep Alissa Keny-Guyer. This is a program that works to limit the toxicity of the materials in products used by children. HB 3043 allows more chemicals to be added to the list of chemicals of concern to better protect our children from harmful toxins and better align us with our neighboring states. Thanks to Rep Neron for her leadership on this one.
Toxic Free Cosmetics: SB 546 requires personal care product companies to publish all the ingredients of their products on their websites. It will lead to the phasing out of the most toxic chemicals, such as formaldehyde).
Stricter Oversight of Medical Waste Extermination: SB 488 directs DEQ to initiate continual monitoring of potential harmful emissions from medical waste at the Covanta facility outside of Salem. Many thanks to Sen Patterson for this one (with an assist from me in shaping the final compromise that secured passage).
The Bike Bus Bill!: I wrote back some months ago about my experience joining the Bike Bus, an alternative way for kids to get to school—joining together to ride together to school. Related alternatives are “walking buses,” where kids walk together with chaperones. Up to now, the state school transportation fund has not been able to be used to fund such operations. With the passage of HB 3014, State Transportation Flexibility, it can. We owe thanks to Rep Pham for her work on this one.
Beavers Will No Longer Be Considered Predatory: HB 3464 removes the predatory status of beavers in our state. Up to now, beavers have been treated as any rodent, which can be exterminated without question and without reporting. They can still be killed if they are causing damage or imminently causing damage to a farm or small forest operation. But it recognizes for the first time the value that beavers can bring to a landscape, particularly in the arid eastern parts of the state. Many thanks to Rep Pam Marsh (and her late, dear husband) for this one.
AND OF COURSE THERE WERE THOSE THAT DIDN’T PASS:
I’ll mention two that were particularly painful (along with the removal of the climate goals from HB 3409 that you can read about in the attachment that I’ve included for that bill):
Right to Repair: The loss of SB 542 was a heartbreaker for Sen Janeen Sollman (and many of us). In its third attempt, this would have reduced electronic waste and saved people hundreds of dollars a year by allowing them to repair their own electronics, similar to how we get our cars repaired. It faced massive opposition from electronics products lobbyists because those companies rely on having a monopoly on repairing their products (as well as an interest in seeing them disposed of and replaced.) This is a crucial plank in our Zero Waste agenda. It will be a priority for the short session in 2024.
Toxic Free Schools: SB 426 would have funded the creation of a pesticide tracking system on school grounds and would have required transitioning to less or non-toxic alternatives. Our friends at Beyond Toxics worked their hearts out on this bill and were able to work closely with the Department of Education to bring its costs down. Nevertheless, it still did not make it out of Ways and Means. We’ll keep working on this one as well.
Sincerely,
 Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23
email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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