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Oregon News
POLITICS
The session that was, and will be: Recapping the 2025 Legislature
KLCC | By Michael Dunne with Julie Fahey
JULIE FAHEY: I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish this session. We really wanted to focus on what are the big issues that are important to Oregonians, what are the big issues facing our state? So that's from everything from the cost of living to improving our schools, access to healthcare, which is really important here in Lane County and public safety. I'm also really proud of the work we did on housing and homelessness this session. So, obviously, we had a tough budget year. We had a lot coming at us from the federal government about the economic chaos caused by the new Trump administration. And so, it wasn't always an easy session, but we really stayed focused on the work and trying to deliver for Oregon.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You got a lot of wins. Didn't get everything. Let's talk about the transportation package. It's one of the reasons why there's a special session, maybe armchair quarterback for us, sort of what happened with that?
JULIE FAHEY: Yeah. So, we came into the session knowing that our transportation system is at risk, we are one of the lowest funding states on the west coast in terms of how much in resources we devote to our transportation system when compared to the other West Coast states. And as more people are moving to electric vehicles, that means fewer people are paying the gas tax. So, Oregon was one of the first states in the country to institute a gas tax over 100 years ago, and it worked great, and now we are needing to think about a way to modernize how we fund our transportation system. Okay, so that's the problem that we came into the session knowing that we needed to address. We worked. We worked for the year leading up to the session. We had a, you know, road show all around the state to listen to communities about what their needs were and how they want to pay for transportation infrastructure. You know, we had work groups heading into the session all about, how do we make sure our roads and our bridges and our transit systems have the funding that they need? So we propose what we thought was a solution to that problem. We're seeing all these needs. House Bill 2025, the transportation package this session, was a comprehensive solution to all of those challenges, and unfortunately, it didn't have the support to pass in the Senate. So, then we said in the house, we said, Okay, what's a stop gap measure just to prevent these layoffs that we're seeing at ODOT, and we weren't able to pass that in the final days of the session because of some procedural moves by the Republicans. So now we're at a point, you know, we just during the session without a transportation package, and then, you know what we had been talking about would happen? What has been happening, which is that ODOT workers around the state are getting layoff notices, including here in Lane County, the Vaneta maintenance shop is scheduled. Close. And so, since the close of session, about three and a half weeks ago, I have been working nonstop with the governor and with the Senate President to talk through what could a special session look like? What would a scaled down version that would solve our more immediate term needs look like to pass in a special session? And the governor recently announced that we'll be coming in on August 29 to do that.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, before I ask you about this special session, this is an overly simplistic question, but obviously the Democrats, you're, you're in charge. You have the majorities in both houses. How, you know? How did you lose the support to be able to push this through? What kind of things were some of the things that just seemed to not be able to get pushed through, or opinions and votes that couldn't happen?
JULIE FAHEY: Well, I think any time that we are, you know, voting to increase funding, raise taxes, there's a robust conversation about that and what, how do we balance the impact on everyday families with the required services that, you know, as that Oregonians all expect, roads, bridges, schools, healthcare, sorts of things. So, we had many robust conversations about, how do you balance those needs? How can we balance the need to make sure our potholes are filled and our roads are plowed and our, you know, our streets are striped so that they can be safe with, you know, not wanting to overly burden working families and making sure that you know we were not putting all of our eggs in one basket, right? We couldn't just increase our gas tax we had, what we proposed was a balance of different funding tools so that you know we weren't, we weren't sort of putting the burden all in one place.
Oregon mandated phone-free schools. Some parents are being asked to help foot the bill
The Oregonian | By Julia Silverman
Schools around Oregon are wrestling with how to implement Gov. Tina Kotek’s recently issued executive order prohibiting students from accessing their cellphones at any point during the school day.
And now, at least two Portland high schools are asking families to consider helping to foot the bill.
Oregon OKs $15 million more so immigrants can receive legal aid
The Oregonian | By Yesenia Amaro
Oregon lawmakers approved $15 million last month to help ensure immigrants facing deportation can receive free state-funded legal representation during the first two years of the Trump administration.
The latest allocation brings the program’s total funding up to $37million since its statewide launch in 2022.
Oregon won't meet Trump administration deadline for immigrants’ personal health data
The Lund Report | By Lynne Terry
The Lund Report has learned that state officials don’t expect to meet a July 30 deadline for detailed information about Oregon Health Plan patients and enrollees that would likely be used for the administration's immigration crackdown.
Oregon sues Trump admin over requests for SNAP data in ‘deportation machine’
KOIN 6 | By Michaela Bourgeois
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield joined a multistate lawsuit on Monday against the Trump administration, challenging demands from the United States Department of Agriculture for states to hand over personal information of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.
Local governments, Trump Administration battle in court over DEI initiatives
KATU | By Wright Gazaway
A federal judge gave the Trump administration until Friday to respond to a request from dozens of cities and counties to block the administration from enforcing new rules targeting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Federal judge issues new order protecting all Planned Parenthood clinics from Medicaid ‘defunding’
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are once again protected from a “defunding” provision passed by Congress after a federal judge in Massachusetts granted an emergency request for a new preliminary injunction.
The order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama, comes one week after an initial injunction blocked only certain clinics from receiving Medicaid funds under the new law.
TRANSPORTATION
Nelson criticizes governor’s transportation plan
Columbia Basin News | By Terry Murry
Republican lawmakers are also criticizing the plan Kotek says she’s confident will pass during the Aug. 29 special session.
“Just weeks after the Legislature rejected the largest tax increase in Oregon history, the governor is calling us back to Salem to try again, this time with less notice and less transparency,” Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham (R-The Dalles) stated.
Bonham added that Oregonians deserve a government that puts them first, not “more status quo policies and backroom deals to reward special interests.”
EDUCATION
Portland middle schools to adopt standards-based grading this fall
KOIN 6 | By Amanda Rhoades
Big changes are coming for sixth, seventh and eighth graders at Portland Public Schools this fall.
Students will no longer receive letter grades when they return to school in late August. Instead, teachers will use a standards-based approach to assess student learning.
The change will impact students at all PPS middle schools as well as students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at the district’s Kindergarten through eighth grade schools.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Multnomah County Lags Oregon in Job Growth
Willamette Week | By Anthony Effinger
Multnomah County, Oregon’s largest county and home to Portland, has lagged the state and the nation in jobs for the past 12 months, according to figures from the Oregon Employment Department.
Intel’s potential exit from advanced manufacturing puts its Oregon future in doubt
The Oregonian | By Mike Rogoway
Intel has been the driving force in semiconductor technology for nearly all its 57 years, setting the cadence for advances in computer technology that made the PC ubiquitous and the internet transformative.
For the last quarter-century, Intel has done that work at its Ronler Acres research campus in Hillsboro. Its Oregon scientists kept the company on the cutting edge with a succession of breakthroughs in transistor design, semiconductor materials and manufacturing technology.
Intel shocked Wall Street last week when the company said it may be done with all that.
Staying current on chip technology requires enormous spending — Intel’s capital budget is $18 billion this year — and the company said it isn’t selling enough of its own chips to pay the bills.
So if Intel can’t find a big outside client that wants to use Intel’s forthcoming 14A technology for its own chips, due in three or four years, the company said it might just give up.
CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY
County commissioner's request for police patrols around downtown Portland library receives chilly response
KGW | By Blair Best
On top of some high-profile incidents, police data supports the impression that the area around Multnomah County's Central Library has become a hotspot for criminal activity in downtown Portland within the last few years — and enforcement measures have done little to curb that trend.
Masked gunman steals cash, cigarettes from Oregon grocery store, police say
KOIN 6 | By Matt Rawlings
A Newport man is facing several charges after allegedly robbing a grocery store at gunpoint on Sunday.
HOUSING
Oregon governor, Portland mayor will personally court housing investors amid construction slump
The Oregonian | By Jonathan Bach
Gov. Tina Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson plan a charm offensive this fall to win over housing investors skeptical of putting their money in Portland.
Kotek said in an interview that she and Wilson agreed to meet with investors this fall to press them on the business case for Portland.
“We’re going to have to stay on the development community,” Kotek said.
Portland needs to build more housing, economists and officials say, to contain the cost of living. But many real estate investors decamped Portland in the wake of 2020 protests and the ensuing reputational damage.
After a stunning run in the 2010’s construction boom, Portland plunged to 80th of 81 metro areas in the latest Urban Land Institute report that tracks overall real estate prospects — a survey closely watched by investors and other insiders looking at where to place their money.
Homebuilders lean on those outside investors to bankroll new projects. Portland fared better in the ULI report on its homebuilding prospects alone at 30th place.
Wilson and Kotek have proposed knocking down barriers to new construction, including by waiving some housing construction fees for three years. The Portland City Council adopted the system development charge waiver earlier this month, a move cheered by the development community.
Kotek said she couldn’t speak to specifics like time and place, saying planning had only just started last week.
“I want to make sure Portland is competitive,” the governor said.
Gov. Kotek signs laws to boost housing supply but more work to be done to solve ‘crisis’
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Alex Baumhardt
Gov. Tina Kotek wants tens of thousands more homes, duplexes and apartments built across Oregon every year for the next decade to meet pent-up demand and to create more affordable housing markets.
To do this, she signed five new laws Monday meant to spur the construction of “middle housing” such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes, modular homes and to make it easier for developers to build quickly.
Oregon’s shortage of available homes, and especially of affordable homes, results from decades of underbuilding that have led to a multitude of problems including a growing homeless population, unaffordable rents and median home prices statewide topping more than half a million dollars.
Clackamas County opens housing voucher application for first time in 5 years
OPB | By Holly Bartholomew
Over the next four days, the Housing Authority of Clackamas County expects to receive more than 8,000 housing voucher applications.
On Monday, the county opened applications for the housing voucher waitlist, marking the first time in five years people in the county will have a chance to secure an affordable housing unit.
NATURAL RESOURCES & WILDFIRE
Even with more wildfires this year, weather has helped firefighters in Oregon
KATU | By Allison Gutleber
Dry, windy and hot weather has continued this summer just as it did last summer.
Officials say the big difference is the weather activity.
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