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To contact me, please click here: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov

December 24, 2024

Dear Neighbors and Friends,

I want to start off this last newsletter of 2024 (and probably the penultimate newsletter coming to you from me) with my very best wishes to you and your loved ones for very happy and healthy holidays and a bright future in the coming year. 

You’ll find a combination of information in this newsletter that’s both looking back and looking forward.  Looking forward, you’ll see the details of my final constituent coffee coming up soon after New Year’s.  You’ll see the just-announced details of who will be chairing legislative committees in 2025, who will be on those committees, and when they’ll be meeting. Looking back, you’ll find some information about the recently-concluded Legislative Days, and a long lookback from me on bills that I’ve been involved with over the last sixteen years.

You’ll also find a close-up of an important new program in one of our prisons, one that gives me hope for next year and the years ahead.

If you have any comments or questions about anything you read here, please do reach out (but remember that my legislative email will be turned off on January 13^th!).

Final (I Mean It This Time!) Constituent Coffee: January 4, 2025

Saturday, Saturday, January 4, is the first Saturday of the new year, and that means time for another constituent coffee. 

For this one we’ll be back (with coffee and cookies) at the Hollywood Senior Center, 1820 NE 40^th Avenue (from 9 am to 10:30 am). 

We’ll again have a zoom option for the meeting to accommodate those who cannot be there in person. (Register for Zoom access here​)​

And we’ll again have a special SD 23 constituent attending this one: Senator-Elect Khanh Pham (and probably a Rep or two as well!) As we preview the upcoming session for you, we look forward to hearing your priorities, concerns, and thoughts for the future.

Hope to see you there!

New Committee Chairs, Committee Membership, and Committee Schedules Announced for 2025

Legislators, agency people, advocates, and many in the general public have been waiting with bated breath to learn the composition of the committees that will be doing the bulk of the legislative work in 2025.  The makeup of the committees, particularly the choice of committee chairs, can really help determine the fate of individual bills.  As of Monday evening, we now know who the Senate chairs and committee members will be. And just a few minutes ago, the House members were announced.

Many of our committees are Joint committees, including both Senate and House members.  As you can imagine, the logistics of coordinating the membership and the schedules can be very daunting.  Many thanks to the hard-working staff in the Senate President’s and Speaker of the House’s offices.

I’m pleased to report that my successor as Education Committee Chair AND as Ways and Means Natural Resources Subcommittee Co-Chair will be my long-time friend (and near-neighbor), Senator Lew Frederick.  Lew and I sat next to each other on the State Board of Education back in the mid-2000s, and he came into the Legislature as a Representative just a year after I did, then followed me into the Senate.  He has been a member of the Senate Education Committee and Co-Chair of the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means.  He has also been a member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee for many years and its Co-Chair during the 2017-19 biennium.  In other words, he comes very well prepared for these roles.  (Perhaps most important, as a result of redistricting, Lew is now MY senator!!!)

Senator Janeen Sollman, who came into the Legislature after service on the Hillsboro School Board and served on the House Education Committee, is now coming back into the Education world as a member of Senate Education and Co-Chair of the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means. She too is well-positioned to help shape the decisions on education policy and funding.  She’ll remain as Chair of the Energy and Environment Committee. 

You'll see that Khanh Pham, my incoming replacement, has been given some very significant (and challenging) assignments, very much in line with her priorities: Chair of Housing and Development and a member of the Transportation, I-5 Bridge, and Energy and Environment Committees.

You’ll also notice that the Senate will have a new committee in 2025: Early Childhood and Behavioral Health.  It will be chaired by newly-appointed Senator Lisa Reynolds, who chaired Early Childhood and Human Services in the House, and (as a pediatrician when she’s not a legislator) has a strong interest in Children’s and Maternal health.

Here's the complete list of Senate assignments. complete list of Senate appointments.

And here are the House appointments.

And finally, just announced, is the 2025 Session committee schedule.

Looking Back at Leg Days: Education

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, December Legislative Days are noteworthy for the introduction of committee bills.  It allows us to get a first glimpse of many of the bills that will be in play during the upcoming session. (Many, but not all, and many of the most significant--and controversial--will be introduced as “personal” bills, with chief sponsors and co-sponsors signing on.)  

Here are the agendas for all the committee meetings that were held last week.  By clicking on Meeting Materials you can get to the committee bills that were introduced.

Here are summaries of those that were introduced in Senate Education. Notice that many of them are “placeholders,” generic bills that I had drafted to be vehicles for the Chair who succeeded me if needed. (At the time, I didn’t know who would be succeeding me.)

Here's the agenda for that meeting. Again, if you click on Meeting Materials, you’ll find links to the actual legislative concepts that will have bill numbers when they come out on January 13^th. (They’ll then be referred by the Senate President to a committee—nearly all of them to Senate Education.)

Here's the summary list for House Education and the agenda for that meeting.

Finally, here's the agenda for House Higher Education. They only introduced one committee bill during Leg Days: a bill allowing independent colleges and universities to choose to become part of the Direct Admission program that was created as part of our 2024 omnibus education bill (SB 1552). 

Coming the Week of January 20^th: QEM/School Funding Findings

Those of you with a particular interest in K-12 education will know that one of the elements in the 2024 Education Omnibus bill was funding for a study and report/recommendations on school funding in Oregon. This is part of an effort to analyze and update Oregon’s Quality Education Model (QEM), the target for fully funding K-12 education.  I provided some background on the QEM and the work being done by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in the September 10 newsletter.  They will be looking not only at the adequacy of funding but the extent to which education investments are going to the kids who need them most in a way that leads to student success.

We’ve just learned that AIR will have its work completed by the time committees begin to meet again (beginning January 21).  The Senate Education and House Education Chairs are hoping to schedule a joint committee hearing that week to receive the report and hear directly from AIR.  Stay tuned for that.  If possible, a Q&A town hall will also be held that week.

Celebrating the Women of U-PACT

During these days leading up to the next session, new and returning legislators are receiving many invitations to come and visit programs, infrastructure projects, and service centers—most of which are hoping for funding or other support during the 2025 session. It’s a great way to learn about the challenges that they’re facing and the potential that they hold.

Being neither new nor returning, I’ve not surprisingly become very selective in these last few months about my visits, since there’s not a lot of value added in their spending time with me.  However, I did receive one invitation that I simply could not resist and was part of a bipartisan group of legislators accepting the invitation.

That was to Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s women’s prison, located in Wilsonville. Normally when I’ve visited Coffee Creek, it was to meet with AICs (Adults in Custody) INSIDE of the facility.  This time, though, it was to visit with them OUTSIDE the buildings, though still on the facility grounds.  It was to see a relatively new and very successful program in action.  The Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (U-PACT) PROGRAM, a partnership between DOC and three construction trade unions, takes cohorts of women through a 12-week pre-apprenticeship program during their incarceration.

We got to see the latest cohort displaying their skills with determination, composure, comradery, and good humor.

You can read all about U-PACT in this blog from the Department of Corrections and in this article in the Northwest Labor Press.

The program is a partnership between three construction unions—the Ironworkers (Local 29), the Bricklayers (Local 1), and the Cement Masons (Local 555). Women who make it successfully through the pre-apprenticeship program have a great chance of moving directly into a regular apprenticeship program, earning good wages right away, following their release.  We heard from the union instructors that the women coming out of this particular program are much better prepared than most of those applying to enter an apprenticeship program.

Alongside the reestablishment of college education programs in our prisons, such professional/technical programs—especially when done with union partnership, are making a difference.  The initial funding for U-PACT came from Future Ready Oregon, the big workforce development investments created by the Legislature in 2022. (As one of the Future Ready designers, I made sure that currently- and formerly-incarcerated Oregonians were among the priority populations for Future Ready investments). Since then, along with support from the unions, the program has secured ongoing funding from PGE and from the U.S. Department of Labor.

We know that being on a direct pathway to a good job almost guarantees that an AIC will not be reoffending.  These women are managing to turn their lives around and becoming positive contributors. Reconnecting with their children, gaining stable housing and employment, will allow them to stay that way.

Getting to know these women and seeing them in action--what a great way to prepare for the holidays!

Students, Instructors, Legislators and their staff, DOC Director, the AFL-CIO President, and at least one former AIC posing after the demonstrations.  

Rep Grayber showing that she's as good with a trowel as she is with a fire hose.

Rep-Elect Willy Chotzen being congratulated for putting on the gloves and doing the work.

Looking Back: Sixteen Years of Bills

Now that I’m close to checking out of the Legislature, I’m often asked which of the bills that I’ve championed over the years have been my favorites. That is really hard to answer. 

There are those bills that I worked on for years that never made it.  There are those that did finally make it to the Governor’s desk after multiple efforts.  There are those where the stars seemed to align right away, despite their complexity and difficulty.  Others where there was agreement on the policy but the dollars were just not there to fund them. 

There are those that were natural and predictable outgrowths of my professional and activist background, but there were others that were efforts to solve problems that I never knew existed before I entered the Legislature.  There are those that came from a constituent’s passionate pleas, others where the inspiration came from something being done successfully in another state to promote pathways to prosperity, wellness, and justice. 

Some where most of the heavy lifting was done by supportive advocacy groups, and others where I was pretty much on my own. Some that were simple technical fixes needed to remove unnecessary barriers, others that were multi-part omnibus bills covering a number of issues.  Some where I was able to forge an unexpected partnership and find a reasonable compromise with someone from the other party, and others that had to pass on a party-line vote. 

And yes, many of them did come out of work groups and task forces that required many months of effort and many disagreements but that ultimately paid off.

If you look at all the bills year by year that I that I was able to shepherd to success (either as committee chair, or as the sole lead, or working with a close partner) all I can say is they’re all different and each was an experience.  I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work on each and every one.

Additional Links of Interest 

• Last week’s OHA newsletter summarized the most recent press conference from our State Epidemiologist, Dr. Dean Sidelinger. You’ll find the latest prognosis for respiratory diseases (COVID, flu, and RSV) for us here in Oregon.
• You can also stay up to date on how the U.S., Oregon, and even your county is doing on the diseases via the CDC’s Respiratory Illnesses Data Channel. It provides the most current numbers on emergency room visits and wastewater analyses.
• As we enter the holiday season, and respiratory disease appears to be on the rise again, you may be wondering what the latest advice is for those who have tested positive.  Here's the latest from CBS News. 
• On the good-news front, JAMA Open Network reports promising results for people with Long COVID who receive various forms of outpatient therapy.
• On the bad-news front, NPR reports that Louisiana is no longer allowing public health workers to promote vaccines for COVID, the flu, or mpoxopens despite their demonstrable benefits in preventing serious illness, including Long COVID.
• Those of us who are concerned about the challenges that our immigrant neighbors may well face with the coming of the new federal administration will appreciate that in her final days in office, our outgoing Attorney-General, Ellen Rosenblum, has rolled out a toolkit to help us and our neighbors know their rights under our first-in-the-nation state sanctuary law that has been in place since 1987. Here's the toolkit. and here's reporting from the Capital Chronicle.

Until next time,

Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23

email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301