The opening ceremony for the Oregon House floor session on Wednesday was a moment of silent reflection.
After a mere 30 seconds of quiet, Speaker Pro Tem Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, moved on with the agenda, saying, “I’ve reflected enough,” eliciting laughter from House members.
Holvey’s comment characterized where the 2023 Oregon Legislature was at: nowhere, amid the long-running walkout by Republican and Independent senators.
Twenty-four hours later, the boycott ended. Sufficient Republicans showed up Thursday to provide a quorum, enabling the Senate to handle business for the first time since May 2. “It’s go time, Mr. President,” Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp of Bend told Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego.
Serious negotiations among legislative leaders launched Friday afternoon after Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland, laid the groundwork through her longstanding working relationship with Knopp. The framework of the agreement – which bills would die and which would be modified – was reached by Monday, but details were still being ironed out Thursday morning.
Senators face a backlog of hundreds of bills, including expansion of self-serve gasoline. They also must deal with Gov. Tina Kotek’s recent appointments to state commissions and her nomination of acting director David Gerstenfeld to lead the Oregon Employment Department.
The Senate’s first business on Thursday was shipping five controversial bills back to the Rules Committee to die or be reworked as dictated under walkout-ending agreement. Senators then proceeded to pass their first legislation since May 2 – HCR 25, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Oregon Institute of Technology – as they zipped through one bill after another with almost no debate.
“This is a good bill. It should pass,” Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, D-Portland, said in presenting SB 53, an election bill that previously passed the Senate and was back after being amended in the House.
The Oregon House had the day off, having temporarily run out of work after passing 27 bills on Wednesday, most with strong bipartisan backing. Representatives found other ways to consume time. Rep. James Hieb, R-Canby, took to the House floor Wednesday afternoon to complain the news media focused on space aliens instead of reporting the impeachment of President Joe Biden. (Note: Biden has not been impeached; Republicans have proposed impeaching him and Vice President Kamala Harris.)
The House will return to work Tuesday to confront a plethora of bills arriving from the Senate. More than 200 measures are on the Senate docket for Friday.
Despite Senate Republicans’ past complaints about partisanship, most legislation passes on a bipartisan basis. That is because the vast majority of bills are noncontroversial, as was evidenced by the Senate rushing through more than 20 bills before lunch Thursday and finishing all 35 by 4 p.m.
The senators’ speediness illustrated that one day – June 25, the constitutional deadline for the 2023 Legislature to end – could have been sufficient to handle the remaining budget bills, as Republicans had said. Approving the 2023-25 state budget, which starts July 1, is the Legislature’s prime duty under the Oregon Constitution.
The governor and Senate president talked about the current and upcoming budget on Thursday before Kotek headed to Astoria. She was making her One Oregon Listening Tour visits to Clatsop and Tillamook counties. Kotek reiterated to Wagner her disappointment that her early literacy initiative (HB 3198) was being funded by raiding Student Success Act dollars instead of through additional General Fund money as the governor had requested.
Despite the Senate walkout, bipartisanship had unfolded in assorted ways. The boycotting senators participated in committee meetings, although not floor sessions. And Knopp on Thursday thanked the House for adding his campaign-finance proposal to a separate elections measure, SB 166. He couldn’t advance his own bill while absent. The Senate also was unanimous Thursday in rejecting House changes to HB 473. The House had watered down the bill from Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, that added prevention of child sex trafficking to the school curriculum.
Meanwhile, the Legislature’s Craft Brewers Caucus, chaired by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, on Wednesday evening hosted its annual gathering for lawmakers, staff, lobbyists and others. And last month, a Senate team, including boycotting Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, defeated the House in the annual bicameral, bipartisan charity basketball game.
Legislative social events have declined in the years following passage of ethics regulations that prohibit lobbyists from sponsoring some get-togethers. An argument can be made that the rules, while well-intended, have hurt relationships among legislators. There also is more of a workday mentality now; members go home at the end of the legislative day rather than socialize with each other. Reflecting on those changes, a lawmaker told me last year: “Members really never get to know each other, and especially the divide between parties was strengthened. I remember a mentor of mine telling me that you can't get or stay mad at those you socialize with.”
More than 40 Democrats in the Legislature have signed on to a proposed constitutional amendment that would lower the quorum requirement to a mere majority of Senate or House members. Currently, two-thirds of members must be present for the Senate or House to conduct business.
That HJR 30 was introduced Wednesday. Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, one of the chief sponsors, told me that he understands why the Republican and Independent senators walked out.
“There are issues that any of us would use any available tool to advance or stop,” he said. “For me this is a larger question: Should we allow every tool to be available? Should we allow feelings on one or two contentious bills to crash the session and stop everything?”
Legislative passage would send the proposal to Oregon voters at the 2024 general election. On Thursday afternoon, Wagner said legislative action was unlikely before adjournment.
But, Gomberg said, legislators at least have begun the conversation about lessening the quorum requirement.
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