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Oregon News
2026 ELECTION
Record number of women running for governor
Pluribus News In Oregon, Republicans nominated Sen. Christine Drazan for governor, setting up a rematch with Kotek, who was elected by just a 3.5-point margin in 2022.
POLITICS
Oregon juvenile sentencing law back in spotlight after state parole hearing
KOIN 6 | By Emma Jerome
A 2019 Oregon law that eliminated life-without-parole sentences for juveniles is receiving renewed attention after convicted killer Dustin Wallace appeared before the state parole board earlier this week.
Senate Bill 1008, signed into law by former Gov. Kate Brown, prohibits courts from sentencing people who were under 18 at the time of their crimes to life without the possibility of parole.
The case has prompted criticism from some Republican leaders, including gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan, who argues Oregon’s law is failing victims’ families.
Dozens of new Oregon laws are set to go into effect this week. Here’s a closer look
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Shaanth Nanguneri
Oregon lawmakers passed more than 50 new laws during the legislative session earlier this year which are scheduled to go into effect on Friday. Many focus on codifying state and local powers to respond to President Donald Trump’s directives, as well as addressing cost-of-living issues.
Democratic leaders in both the Oregon House and Senate explained in a recent news release that the laws are intended to “shield Oregonians from the Trump administration’s brutality and to keep more money in working families’ wallets.” Among the new statutes is one that will disconnect Oregon from some federal tax cuts passed under the GOP’s 2025 federal tax and spending law, which survived a failed Republican-led referendum attempt.
Investing in people is clear path forward for Oregon Gov. Kotek’s ‘Prosperity Council’
Oregon Capital Chronicle | Opinion by Mary King, a professor emerita of economics at Portland State University. She was the Working Families Party's nominee for Oregon treasurer in 2024 and a past president of PSU's faculty union.
Rather than recycle the big business lobby’s permanent agenda to beef up its bottom line, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s Prosperity Council recommendations should follow the evidence. Prosperity comes from public investments in people and their capacities, especially in education from early childhood through apprenticeships and higher education.
Portland General Electric to increase data center rates by 29%, cut residential rates by 1.3%
OPB
Portland’s largest electric utility announced Wednesday it plans to increase rates by 29% for large load users like data centers. Meanwhile, the utility’s residential and commercial customers will see a slight decrease in their rates. Portland General Electric is making these changes as it begins implementing a landmark law that requires these large electricity customers to pay more.
The POWER Act, passed by Oregon lawmakers last year, created a new rate class that requires data centers, cryptocurrency and other large industrial energy users to pay for their share of electricity usage. It kicks in for projects that use more than 20 megawatts, or 20 million watts of power. That’s the equivalent of what a large industrial user like a paper mill uses in energy. According to Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a watchdog utility group, residential customers were paying more than twice as much per kilowatt-hour as data centers. PGE says at least 16 data centers will be impacted by this change. Other rate changes will include a 1.3% decrease for residential customers and a 2.2% decrease for commercial customers.
Oregon resumes SNAP renewal interviews as advocates warn more could lose benefits
KATU | By Shelby Slaughter
Thousands of Oregonians have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits over the past year, and advocates say more people could be affected as the state resumes a pandemic-paused eligibility requirement. Since July 2025, the Oregon Food Bank says 40,000 Oregonians have lost SNAP benefits. The spokesperson for the organization tells KATU they expect that number to increase following the return of mandatory renewal interviews, which resumed on June 1.
Appeals court ruling stands allowing feds to use tear gas near Portland apartments by ICE office
The Oregonian | By Maxine Bernstein
Lawyers for an apartment building near Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office lost its bid for a review of an appeals court ruling that cleared the way for federal officers to continue firing clouds of tear gas during protests. A group of Gray’s Landing residents and the affordable housing complex’s owner had sued the federal government, contending the wide use of tear gas against demonstrators wafted into apartments and made tenants sick.
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH & HEALTH CARE
Oregon State Hospital failed to submit accurate patient seclusion data to federal government, twice
The Oregonian
Oregon State Hospital officials said they twice miscalculated a key number used by the federal government to determine how frequently the psychiatric hospital kept patients locked in seclusion. They made the errors for the 2023 and 2024 calendar years. Officials discovered the problems only after The Oregonian/OregonLive questioned the accuracy of figures appearing in a federal database...
State officials fixed the error internally and sent the newsroom corrected figures. The upshot: While seclusion rates surged at the state hospital during the affected years, the spike wasn’t as pronounced as what appears in a national database maintained by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Locked up and alone: Sharp rise in Oregon State Hospital’s seclusion of patients pushed state to worst-in-nation status
The Oregonian | By Lillian Mongeau Hughes
The Oregon State Hospital ranked ninth out of nearly 1,400 inpatient psychiatric facilities for its rate of seclusion use in the year before Hass died, according to an analysis of 2024 federal and state data by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The newsroom found that Oregon State Hospital officials initially sent incorrect data to the federal government, but obtained corrected figures from the state for this story. The sharp increase at the state hospital pushed up Oregon’s national rank as well. In 2024, Oregon held psychiatric patients in seclusion across public and private hospitals at the highest rate in the country, according to the newsroom’s analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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