Housing, behavioral health, drug addiction and education are the clear priorities for the five-week legislative session that began Monday, top ranking lawmakers say.
In individual interviews, Senate President Rob Wagner, Speaker of the House Dan Rayfield, House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich and Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp discussed their top issues, potential changes to Measure 110, whether last year’s Senate Republican walkout will affect this session and more.
“All of our energy has to be focused on housing and homelessness and behavioral health and addiction crisis,” Rayfield, D-Corvallis, said. “The other stuff, if we can do it, fantastic. But all the energy has to be focused on the big issues.”
By law, the legislative session must end by March 10.
Last month, Gov, Tina Kotek set the stage for the session with the announcement of a $500 million plan to address housing and homelessness. The proposal would funnel millions into the construction of middle-income and affordable housing, infrastructure such as roads and sewers for new homes and incentives for climate-friendly projects.
Democrats Rayfield and Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, both said they support the housing plan but that it is missing key action plans on homelessness and drug addiction.
In her announcement, Kotek mentioned that the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response would recommend several health and safety-related bills, but she did not give specifics.
“We’ll have to see how deep we can go in alignment with her request,” Wagner said. “If we are working from the same bucket of money, we have to figure out how we’re going to make sure that some of those other needs are also met at the same time.”
Knopp, the Senate Republican leader from Bend, described Kotek’s plan as critical, adding that he would like to focus on infrastructure investment to increase housing production.
“There’s no question that we’re gonna have to make a significant investment in housing for those who are struggling to stay there,” Knopp said.
Helfrich, the House Republican leader from Hood River, on the other hand, said he thinks the governor’s $500 million plan is too ambitious in a time of economic uncertainty.
“I think in her proposal, she didn’t want to put dollars towards the rainy day fund, and I think that is a mistake,” Helfrich said. “I think the bleak economic future that we see coming right now, with the way the economy is going, the way interest rates are going, we don’t want to spend down what we would put in reserves.”
Oregon’s rainy day fund — essentially the state’s savings account — stood at $1.4 billion as of October, while a separate schools-specific savings account contained $750 million. Last year, the Legislature’s top budget writers pushed back against Kotek’s proposal to redirect funding from the rainy day fund into housing production and other pressing issues.
Revisiting Measure 110
All four lawmakers said they expect to see legislative action related to behavioral health and drug addiction. At the top of the list: changes to Measure 110, the state’s landmark drug decriminalization law.
A state audit released in December showed that service providers have been slow to spend state funds for drug treatment and recovery under the voter-approved measure. Hiring challenges, funding delays, low patient awareness of services and other factors contributed to providers spending only about a third of allocated state funding from July 2022 to June 2023, the audit found.
“This is a failed experiment,” Helfrich said. “We need to have complete reform of this, and I’m hoping that my Democratic colleagues across the aisle will have the internal fortitude to do that, but I don’t know. (Republican leaders) have not been a part of the discussions.”
Fellow Republican Knopp echoed that sentiment, adding that he supports a partial or full repeal of Measure 110. A survey published by a leading pollster in August revealed that 56% of Oregonians supported completely repealing the measure.
“I think it’s ironic that there are people who want drug courts or reauthorization expansion, which I do, but at the same time don’t want to recriminalize hard drugs that will require treatment and those drug courts,” Knopp said. “You can’t really have one without the other.”
Democratic lawmakers announced last month that they would press ahead with a proposal to make minor drug possession a crime again.
Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, a Beaverton Democrat, helped craft the recriminalization proposal and announced the long-awaited plan during a committee meeting on Jan. 23.
Among the policy proposals:
-- Make minor drug possession a Class C misdemeanor and create opportunities for people to get help before they face arrest or prosecution. Class C misdemeanors are the lowest level of misdemeanor and carry a penalty of up to 30 days in jail.
-- Prohibiting health insurers, health benefit plans and coordinated care organizations from requiring prior authorization for drugs used to treat substance use disorders.
-- Prohibiting long-term care facilities and residential facilities from refusing to admit people who are on medication-assisted treatment for addiction, such as buprenorphine and methadone.
-- Allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense emergency refills of drugs used to treat opioid use disorders in certain circumstances.
-- Requiring the Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, a state agency intended to improve the effectiveness of substance use disorder prevention and recovery services, to study barriers to treatment for youths.
-- Making it easier to prosecute drug dealers.
-- Imposing tougher sentences for people who deal drugs near parks, homeless shelters and treatment facilities.
Lawmakers also plan to seek funding for “shovel ready” treatment projects slated to open next year and money for a statewide prevention campaign. Other bills under consideration for the short session would expand jail access to medications used to treat addiction and build more housing for people in substance abuse recovery.
Education and early childhood
Last month, Kotek said the state needs to allocate $59 million more to ensure that all families who qualify for expanded day care subsidies the Legislature approved in 2023 can get the help. The state also needs to allocate $22 million more to fully fund early intervention programs, which serve young children with disabilities, Kotek said.
It is too early to know how close legislators will get to Kotek’s proposal, but legislators agreed that these nonpartisan issues will be a priority.
“We need to continue investments for Oregonians that need day care and those who are low income Oregonians so that they can be at work,” Rayfield said.
Still, all four legislators said, there’s no guarantee that partisan politics won’t interfere with the session.
Reproductive health, gun control
It is unknown how the drama of last year’s six week walkout by Republican senators in protest of controversial reproductive health care and gun control bills will affect this year’s session.
The Oregon Supreme Court’s ruled last week that 10 state senators who boycotted the Legislature last spring are barred from seeking reelection. While the ruling might deter walkouts in future years, Republicans who have already been barred from reelection have nothing to lose this session.
“It’ll be interesting to see,” Wagner said. “I’ve been working really diligently on building individual relationships with all members, both in my caucus and with Republicans, especially those that we know are going to be able to come back.”
Knopp said that Senate Democrats will have to be willing to negotiate and work with Republicans to avoid another walkout, noting that, “I don’t think anyone wants to repeat that.”
“I would just say that Senate Republicans have always been willing to work and negotiate on legislation,” Knopp said. “We look forward to Democrats joining us for that partnership that will make that a reality.”
— Carlos Fuentes; cfuentes@oregonian.com; 503-221-5386; @carlos_reports
Staff writer Noelle Crombie contributed to this report.
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