Capital Chatter: All sides waiting for Brown to lead

The 2017 Oregon Legislature convened Feb. 1 and must adjourn in early July. I asked Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, to evaluate how the legislative session was going.

Courtney was uncharacteristically positive:

“We’re still talking to each other and actually getting along OK given what’s going on in the country and all around in terms of people being divisive and in each other’s face.

“Pretty civil to one another.

“I think we’re trying to find ways to work together, and that in itself is remarkable.

“I think we’re beginning to realize the magnitude that we have been given a workload like probably no other legislature maybe ever — at least one of the greatest workloads ever. And I think the reality of that is starting to overwhelm legislators and is really starting to sink in.

“So, after two months — we’ve got three months to go — I’d say people are starting to wonder, ‘How are we going to do this?’, and that’s always a sign that they’re getting real.”

Courtney also expressed chagrin that he had suggested the possibility of the Legislature’s being unable to complete its work by July and needing to hold a special session. If legislative veterans lead the way and people buckle down, he said, a special session won’t be necessary.

• What won’t become law: I also asked Courtney what won’t happen in the 2017 Legislature. His response:

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to do all the labor things that people want us to do. I’m just going to make a statement — that will get me in trouble with my side — but we haven’t made that decision yet. But that’s one, for example.

“All the tax credits and deductions, some of which I signed onto, we’re not going to do. Some of them are amazingly positive and good, and they’re bipartisan, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to do all those.”

As far as what the Legislature might accomplish, Courtney predicted a “coming together” of Democrats and Republicans on land use and other bills to benefit rural Oregon.

• April is crunch time: House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, also said the Legislature is on track. She hopes the Legislature will find the revenue to provide a two-year K-12 school budget of at least $8.4 billion.

The state’s largest union of teachers, the Oregon Education Association, held a press conference Monday and said $8.4 billion was its “line in the sand.”

Kotek said that if legislators don’t have a revenue plan by the end of April, the Legislature would likely have to implement the draft budget presented by the Joint Ways & Means Committee’s co-chairs. That budget, based on existing revenue, would require significant cutbacks in current services, including schools.

An initial draft of a state transportation-financing plan should be ready in two weeks, Kotek said. But completing the plan, including holding public hearings, may take two months. She said legislators want to ensure the plan is fair and increases accountability on the part of cities, counties and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

• Kotek vs. Courtney: Speaker Kotek is an upbeat person, who sees a glass as half-full. By his own admission, President Courtney is so naturally pessimistic that he doesn’t even see the glass.

• Pay equity starts … where? A few observations about the Democrats’ “equal pay” bill, House Bill 2005, which the state House passed Tuesday after an intense and often partisan debate:

• The Republican version of the bill might be the rare instance in which floor speeches changed lawmakers’ minds. Despite failing, the Republican version picked up several Democrats’ votes.

A longtime Capitol observer told me that he could recall only a handful of times in 40 years that a floor speech persuaded a legislator to vote differently.

It strikes me that the reverse happens more often: Legislators grow so tired of a colleague’s yakking that they vote against him or her.

• Outside groups had already started attacking legislators for how they were expected to vote on the pay bill.

• The “equal pay” issue illustrates the Legislature’s hypocrisy. A senior legislator told me that it’s been years, possibly a quarter-century, since the Legislature examined itself to see whether male and female staff members were paid equitably.

• Even in its partisan moments, the Oregon Legislature beats Congress. With the lunch hour nearing on Tuesday, the majority Democrats wanted to postpone the debate on HB 2005 until Wednesday. The Republicans balked, so the Democrats agreed to proceed. The floor session wrapped up about 1:45 p.m. Thirty minutes later, the House Republican and Democratic leaders were all smiles as they gave a milk toast at a Dairy Day celebration honoring Oregon’s dairy farmers. Milk is the official state beverage.

• And the beat goes on … State government officially has a hiring freeze. Meanwhile, Gov. Kate Brown is hiring another senior staff member. Berri Leslie will be deputy chief of staff and “responsible for management of policy staff in the governor’s office.” Leslie will be paid $136,488 annually.

The governor has roughly 60 people on her staff. Other hires this year include Chief of Staff Nik Blosser, $168,000 annually, which is lower than his two most-recent predecessors in the job; Gina Zejdlik, deputy chief of staff, whose duties will include managing the governor’s office staff, $130,000 annually; Debbie Koreski, senior director, budget and children’s policy, $130,000 annually; and former state Rep. Peter Buckley, senior adviser for government transformation and budget stability, who will work half-time for $65,000 a year. These four filled vacancies on Brown’s staff, which had experienced lots of turnover.

If these additions stabilize Brown’s staff, strengthen her leadership and improve state government, they will be a good investment.

Still, it doesn’t look good for a governor to be filling vacancies on her own staff when the state supposedly has a hiring freeze because of the potential budget deficit.

• Cutting vacant, superfluous jobs: Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, urged the House Rules Committee on Tuesday to support his House Bill 2225. It would require state agencies to report positions that have been vacant for at least six months. Whisnant’s point is that if an agency can survive without an employee for six months, that job probably isn’t needed.

Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, is the bill’s other sponsor.

• Cover Oregon residue: The Cover Oregon debacle will hang around for years, as state workers comply with federal requirements and file mountains of paperwork. State officials also must figure out what to do with state-owned computer equipment that sits in Utah and Texas.

At least one state agency reportedly has inherited the stainless-steel staff refrigerators that were purchased for Cover Oregon’s headquarters.

Dick Hughes has been covering the Oregon political scene since 1976. Contact him at TheHughesisms@Gmail.com or follow him at Facebook.com/Hughesisms.