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Oregon News
POLITICS
Oregon Democrats prepare to release major transportation funding bill
OPB | By Dirk VanderHart
Oregon lawmakers would hike the state’s gas tax by 15 cents and increase or institute nearly 10 new taxes or fees under a transportation funding proposal expected to be released in coming days.
The plan, laid out in a summary that has been circulating in Salem and beyond, amounts to Democrats’ best attempt to assemble a package that can mollify at least some tax-leery Republicans and satisfy other members of their own party who have pushed for a more ambitious — and expensive — package. Negotiations over the bill have been ongoing for months.
Lawmakers are expected to formally unveil the proposal next week, less than three weeks before the Legislature will adjourn. That will set off a sprint to determine whether Democrats can find the three-fifths majorities in each chamber to implement the package.
Also unclear is how the proposal will be received in the Capitol. Negotiations over the transportation bill have been kept quiet in recent weeks, with a small contingent of Republican lawmakers haggling with top Democrats over the particulars.
The majority of Republicans have signaled they favor a far less tax-heavy approach. A formal proposal released by House and Senate Republicans on Thursday would redirect hundreds of millions of dollars that currently goes toward climate investments, passenger rail service and transit operations in the states. Republicans want that money to go toward nuts-and-bolts road maintenance.
Capital Chatter: Legislature heading toward a bumpy ending
Oregon Capital Insider | By Dick Hughes
Decisions are lagging and legislation is stacking up, Owens said, because the presiding officers have been reluctant to tell their Democratic colleagues “no.” His comments came during an online town hall with Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville, and Sen. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte.
Congresswoman Bynum and Republican state legislators are in a similar position: They’re in the minority. They can make all the headlines-generating noise they want. But whatever success they achieve in lawmaking will arise from good working relationships with the opposing party.
“The key about being a Republican in the Oregon Legislature is choose your battle. Engage where you have expertise, add value and … a lot of it is building relationships,” McLane said. “A lot gets done here, I think, generally, to try to make bills better. And then there’s that 10% that is partisan. Of that kind, 5% is extremely partisan, and we’re not going to change that. “So, we can serve our constituents by fighting for appropriations for our district and make sure there’s a level playing field when it comes to services.” As of Tuesday, the Oregon Senate had voted on 435 pieces of legislation. The vast majority passed with overwhelming Republican support. Fifteen passed with no Republican votes in favor, and 17 more had only one Republican vote.
There is speculation House Speaker Julie Fahey, of Eugene, and the Democrats are using Republican-backed bills as bargaining chips. “The negotiation we currently have is, ‘Give us a kicker or none of the stuff moves,’” McLane said of Democrats. Republican concern centers on Senate Bill 83, which repeals the controversial wildfire hazard map. The bill unanimously passed the Senate in April but now sits idle in a House committee. Owens and McLane said Republicans see no reason to capitulate. Because the state is on the hook for the costs of fighting wildfires, that money eventually will come from the general fund without touching the kicker.
Oregon House Republicans fail to force vote on limiting transgender girls to boys sports teams
Oregon Live | By Sami Edge
A fight over whether transgender girls should be allowed to participate on girls sports teams boiled over in the Oregon House Thursday, despite the fact that a bill to limit transgender students’ participation in Oregon sports was dead on arrival at the Legislature.
Republicans attempted to force a vote on a bill that would have required Oregon schools to segregate sports, bathrooms and locker rooms according to students’ sex assigned at birth.
Several Republicans brought female athletes to the House chamber Thursday. During the daily opportunity for House members to introduce guests, they heralded the girls’ accomplishments while making a point that they shouldn’t have to compete against athletes assigned male at birth. A few House Republicans applauded young women who boycotted events or medal ceremonies that included transgender athletes.
But House Republicans’ attempt to enact legislation on the matter fell flat on a resounding party-line vote: 32 Democrats voted against the effort to even consider the bill while 22 Republicans voted yes.
Oregon House votes down bill that would ban transgender women from women's sports
KATU | By Vasili Varlomos
The Oregon House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have required Oregon schools and colleges to separate sports teams by biological sex.
The vote was split along party lines. House Republicans forced the bill to the House floor for a vote after months of the bill not receiving a hearing.
Oregon lawmakers pass bill to ensure data centers cover their own energy costs
Oregon Live | By Mike Rogoway
Oregon lawmakers approved legislation Thursday designed to ensure data centers bear the full burden of their electricity demands, insulating consumers and other industries from potential impacts on rates.
House Bill 3546 puts server farms and cryptocurrency miners in a new class of electricity customer under state law and gives Oregon regulators explicit authority to ensure these big energy users cover the cost of new generating plants and transmission lines to meet their growing power demands.
Data centers consume 11% of all Oregon’s electricity, according to industry estimates, more than double the power used by all of Portland’s homes combined. With the artificial intelligence market booming, power forecasters expect Oregon data centers will use at least twice as much electricity by the end of the decade.
Industry advocates and some Republican lawmakers suggested the legislation should apply to other large industries, too.
“We’re picking one class of power user, not large energy users, but specifically it targets bitcoin mining and things like that, and specifically the data centers,” Sen. Noah Robinson, R-Cave Junction, said Tuesday.
Bill to protect residential electricity customers from subsidizing data center demand moves forward
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Alex Baumhardt
Oregon is close to ensuring data center owners pay what they owe for their growth following several years of painful residential electricity hikes driven in part by rising energy demand from the facilities.
House Bill 3546, also called the POWER Act, passed the Senate on a party-line vote Tuesday and with bipartisan support in the House on Thursday. Five Republican representatives voted with Democrats to pass it, and Gov. Tina Kotek is expected to sign it.
Oregon’s governor and medical board proposed a bill with a controversial word in it. BIPOC legislators objected
Oregon Live | By Noelle Crombie
Senate Bill 874 unanimously passed the Senate this session and appeared poised to cruise to approval in the House until it met a wall of opposition from four members of the Legislature’s BIPOC Caucus, who were adamant that the term should be removed. Even though the bill used the term to describe a branch of medicine, not a person or group of people, the representatives said the hurtful historical connotations that the term carries meant it must be removed from state law.
Oregon Gov. Kotek signed 23 bills into law this week: What they mean for you
KGW | By Jared Cowley, Amy-Xiaoshi DePaola
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed 23 bills into law this week, covering key issues from infrastructure to public health.
The bills signed into law this week make procedural updates to the I-5 bridge project and tighten rules on how companies use personal data. Other bills make changes to foster care payments and expand health insurance coverage for prosthetic and orthotic devices. Lawmakers also approved allowing preschools to operate on church property.
Portland Metro Chamber to City Council: You Don’t Have Authority to Raise Taxes
Willamette Week | By Sophie Peel
The Portland Metro Chamber added pressure Thursday afternoon to a volatile budget season by sending a research paper it funded to the Portland City Council and Mayor Keith Wilson, claiming that the council does not possess the authority to raise taxes without voter approval.
The chamber’s email—which serves as a thinly veiled threat to the council not to attempt to raise taxes—comes as some of the council’s more progressive members are floating various tax increases, including raising the Portland Clean Energy Fund corporate tax rate and hiking the tax on large CEO salaries.
The research paper, Newgard and Dobay write, “is rooted in a single, foundational question: Can the City Council unilaterally create or expand tax obligations without first seeking voter authorization?”
Multnomah County Delays Rockwood Shelter to Give Jones-Dixon Time to Meet with Local Leaders
Willamette Week | By Anthony Effinger
Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson halted development of a new homeless shelter in the Rockwood section of Gresham to give Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon time to convene local leaders and determine if the site is still the best option for the facility.
Portland’s Old Town neighborhood is home to three county-supported shelters. Critics say the facilities have contributed to crime and drug use there.
Questions about Oregon liquor commission director’s work habits sparked 2 investigations before retirement
Oregon Live | By Noelle Crombie
The outgoing Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission director faced questions about his use of work hours in the months before he announced his retirement, records show.
One top manager said she felt compelled to report a trip Craig Prins took to a football game because she was worried that his behavior would further tarnish the high-profile state agency’s damaged reputation.
Map: Every ‘sanctuary jurisdiction’ in U.S. identified by Trump’s team, and what it got wrong about Oregon
Oregon Live | By Yesenia Amaro, Mark Friesen
The state of Oregon and 19 of its counties and cities appeared on a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” published by the Trump administration last week before federal officials quickly deleted the inventory after facing blowback.
At least five jurisdictions in Oregon said they didn’t know what prompted them to be on the list, and at least one – Linn County – contacted federal officials to request its removal.
Portland to pay $8.5M settlement to descendants of displaced Black families
OPB | By Kyra Buckley
The city of Portland will pay $8.5 million in settlement funds to 26 descendants of Black Portlanders driven from homes and businesses for development projects from the late 1950s through the ’70s.
CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY
Federal judge intervenes after ICE arrests 2nd asylum seeker in Portland immigration court
Oregon Live | By Maxine Bernstein
A second person was arrested by federal agents in Portland Immigration Court as he appeared Thursday for an asylum case and lawyers petitioned to block his removal from Oregon.
By day’s end, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials not to take the 24-year-old Mexican national out of the state without providing notice in writing to him with its reasoning “why such a move is necessary.”
Sauvie Island crash that killed teen happened after underage drinking on school board member’s property, parent says
Oregon Live | By Fedor Zarkhin
A fatal UTV crash on Sauvie Island last month was preceded by underage drinking at a get-together on property owned by Scappoose School Board Vice Chair Branda Jurasek, according to the father of the 17-year-old girl who died.
ECONOMY
Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s effort to eliminate Job Corps, 168 Astoria job cuts on hold
Oregon Live | By Matthew Kish
A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to pull the plug on Job Corps, issuing an order which at least pauses the closure of an Astoria center that would have eliminated 168 jobs.
Job Corps is a free vocational training program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor for people ages 16 to 24. The Labor Department said last month it would “pause” the program.
Intel veterans launch AheadComputing to design next-gen CPU
Oregon Live | By Mike Rogoway
Together, the four founders of Beaverton startup AheadComputing spent nearly a century at Intel.
They were among Intel’s top chip architects, working years in advance to develop new generations of microprocessors to power the computers of the future.
Regional News
State Republicans file initiative requiring proof of citizenship to vote
KATU | By Joel Moreno
Tighter controls on who gets to vote are part of a new initiative that could be introduced to the Washington State Legislature.
The move comes as other states try to eliminate vote-by-mail and require that ballots be submitted in-person. Under Washington's initiative, documentation would have to be produced to verify a person's citizenship status.
National News
Trump threatens to cut Musk contracts as feud quickly escalates
NPR
The feud between President Trump and his former adviser Elon Musk ramped up Thursday as the two lashed out at each other on social media.
Musk — who for days has been blasting a GOP megabill advancing most of Trump’s biggest domestic policy priorities — said that Trump would have lost the election without his support, and called him ungrateful.
Musk, in turn, posted that Trump hadn’t released all the records around sex offender Jeffrey Epstein because — according to Musk — Trump himself is implicated in those files. Musk did not provide any evidence of this, and Musk has in the past accused people of sex crimes without evidence. The White House had no immediate comment on Musk’s post.
GOP tax and spending bill dings states that offer health care to some immigrants here legally
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Tim Henderson
The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally.
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