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With just 14 days remaining in Oregon’s 2024 legislative session, now is the time for accountability. According to Webster’s, accountability is the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.
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The majority Democrat party in Oregon knows they have a problem. The results of their failed policies are garnering national attention, giving Democrats a national black eye. Exploding rates of drug use, crime, and homelessness; last-place-in-the-nation schools; overregulated businesses and overtaxed families fleeing the state. Oregon matters, now more than ever.
Rather than clean up the mess, Oregon Democrats are trying to use the legislative session to quietly sweep Oregon’s problems under the carpet.
It doesn't have to be this way. My House Republican colleagues and I refuse to settle for the status quo. We know that you can’t solve a problem by ignoring a problem. The solution starts with accountability.
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Last Wednesday, at my invitation Justin Miller, a high school student from Chesterton Academy, recited a poem about accountability in the House chamber. The poem, entitled “If”, by Rudyard Kipling, contains timeless good advice for all as we work toward getting Oregon Back to Basics. Recording link [here].
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Our April 15 personal income tax filing deadline is just around the corner. Oregon’s tax burden is among the top-five highest in the nation.
The majority Democrat party says they want a statewide property tax, a sales tax, and more. They control every committee in the state legislature. Three weeks into the legislative session, they have now referred almost 100 bills to the legislature's Joint Committee On Ways and Means that has broad authority over our state’s budget.
These bills have the potential to break Oregon’s budget–which already averages about $37,000 a year per Oregon family–in the next biennium.
It doesn't have to be this way. House Republicans are committed to protecting families from all tax increases.
On Tuesday, Feb. 27, Governor Kotek’s expensive and counterproductive housing and homelessness bill Senate Bill 1537 is coming up for a vote in the Ways and Means committee. Link [here]. |
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Her plan will just make more state mandates and spread Portland’s homeless to every corner of the state.
At the same time, the governor’s Water Resources Department on March 1 will publish proposed new groundwater allocation rules which could severely limit new developments that rely on well water. What is the governor thinking?
Does it make sense that the same people who rode the Measure 110 wave into office in January 2021 have been put in charge of Measure 110 reform today?
Yet that is exactly what is happening in the majority Democrat party-controlled Joint Committee On Addiction and Community Safety Response. Link [here].
Every Democrat on the committee has taken money from far-left activist group Drug Policy Alliance, the major backer of Measure 110 back in 2020. Link [here].
True to their “never let a crisis go to waste” form, the committee’s latest amendment to House Bill 4002 is all about huge handouts with little accountability, a new Treatment Industrial Complex. It doesn't have to be this way.
The committee is holding a public hearing tomorrow, Monday, February 26. Please call your district attorneys, sheriffs, county commissioners, and mayors, and register to testify to the committee. Link [here].
 In a press release issued last Friday, I reaffirmed my commitment to real Measure 110 reform. Link [here] and [here]. The House Republican solution, House Bill 4036, aligns with the policy proposals put forth by the League of Oregon Cities, the Oregon District Attorneys Association, the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, and the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police. Link [here].
We need accountability from the Oregon Health Authority and their failed Oversight and Accountability Council for the $240 million they’ve already taken from schools, law enforcement, cities, and counties. Their so-called “harm reduction”—handing out needles and encouraging addicts to shoot up with friends—is a fraud.
We need accountability from street drug users. Our public safety officers and the people of Oregon in harms way deserve at least that much.
Accountability is the first step toward a safer, healthier Oregon.
In case you missed it, here is my letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal about how the majority Democrat party Measure 110 proposal is a fake “fix”, see link [here].
I came to Salem because I believe the citizens of Josephine County deserve fair and efficient state government. I am doing everything in my power to protect Josephine County from the authoritarians in Salem. Read more about my Reform Oregon priorities for 2024, link [here].
On Monday in committee I voted against House Bill 4011A, a health care bill that directs the Oregon Health Authority to cover the costs of professional board certification or licensure fees for “people of color” and “tribal members.” The bill is patently discriminatory, a gross violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Every Democrat on the committee voted for the bill and it was referred to Ways and Means.
This type of legislation could open up the State of Oregon to legal liability, which could be costly to Oregon taxpayers. Please call the committee members to share your concerns. Link [here]. |
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The majority Democrat party knows Oregon public education is a mess. But rather than clean it up, they continue to quietly sweep Oregon’s problems under the carpet.
In a January 31 article, the New York Times exposed Oregon’s worst-in-the-nation post-Covid academic achievement. Link [here]. Two weeks later, the Times quietly erased the embarrassing Oregon data point.
As House Republicans continue to say: When the majority Democrat party talks about the importance of education, these are the same people who voted no on ESAs, no on school choice, no on academic standards, and no on affirming parents constitutional rights. Actions speak louder than words. It doesn't have to be this way.
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Last Wednesday in a Ways and Means committee meeting, the majority Democrat party voted to trust the Oregon Department of Education with more than student achievement. They voted in favor of House Bill 4070: school-based health centers.
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School nurses are a national treasure. But in a post-House Bill 2002 Oregon that promotes gender transition without parental consent, giving schools access to kids’ bodies behind school gates, behind parents' backs doesn’t seem prudent.
Parents in my district are scared. An existing school-based health center at a middle school in Cave Junction advertises a full suite of sex "health care" services.
In her testimony to the committee, an Oregon Health Authority bureaucrat explained that schools would need to comply with requirements from the Admiral Rachel Levine-headed U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. School-based health centers would be funded by Oregon lottery proceeds earmarked for academics and would operate in partnership with the Oregon Department of Education. ODE's state board of education adopted new "health standards" last October. Link [here].
If parents aren't required to sign liability waivers, school-based health centers could open up the State of Oregon to legal liability, which could be costly to Oregon taxpayers. Please call the committee members to share your concerns. Link [here]. |
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Accountability is the first step toward a safer, healthier Oregon.
The short session is moving quickly. State government works best when citizens stay informed and engaged. Only then will you know if your elected officials are getting Back to Basics and getting Oregon back on track.
You can track and stay involved in the legislative process by using the Oregon Legislative Information System (OLIS), link [here]. Click on "Bills" on the upper right of the page to find links to submit testimony and learn which legislator is sponsoring the bill you are concerned about so you can contact them directly via email or phone.
Please make sure you are subscribed to this electronic newsletter to receive regular updates about the legislative session by entering your email in the "e-Subscribe" box on my website, link [here].
I am here to serve you and look forward to hearing your concerns and suggestions!
Please be in touch with me via email at Rep.DwayneYunker@oregonlegislature.gov, over the phone at 503.986.1403, or by stopping by my office in the Oregon Capitol Building, 900 Court St. NE, H-371, Salem, OR 97301.
Sincerely,
Capitol Phone: 503-986-1403
Capitol Address: 900 Court St NE, H-371, Salem, OR 97301
Email: rep.dwayneyunker@oregonlegislature.gov
Website: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/yunker
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