Oregon lawmakers partner on some issues, pick fights on others

Published 8:00 pm Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Cooperation and confrontation marked a hyperactive Wednesday in the Oregon Legislature as it dealt with affordable housing, homelessness, semiconductor industry aid, gun control and school security.

Gov. Tina Kotek held a “ceremonial signing” of a $200 million Affordable Housing & Emergency Homelessness Response Package that she had made the first major initiative of her new administration.

Surrounded by supporters at a desk in her temporary offices in the state library, Kotek said the bills would create a framework for cities to speed construction of the 500,000 new housing units a state analysis says will be needed in the next 20 years to catch-up with demand.

The package also aids projects to help the estimated 18,000 homeless in the state. The legislation has a goal to shelter at least 1,200 more people by the end of the year.

“I am hearing directly from homeless service providers across the state, no matter the region. It is clear they need this support right now,” said Kotek.

While championed by Kotek and authored by Democratic legislative leaders, the two bills received some Republican votes when passed by the Legislature earlier this month.

The Senate gave itself a harmonious interlude on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans agreed to a parliamentary motion that moved a bipartisan bill to aid the state’s computer semiconductor industry to the top of the day’s agenda.

Senate Bill 4 would direct $190 million in state money to boost Oregon companies competing for part of the federal $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act initiative. 

Congress wants to boost domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and the Oregon legislation is meant to push the state near the top of the list of applications. The state would spend another $10 million to locate and prepare new industrial manufacturing sites. State universities would get $10 million to line-up federal research grants.

Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, was among Republicans who backed the bill, which passed 20-9 and now goes to the House for consideration. Knopp also worked with Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, on a one-time special order that cleared the Senate agenda of a long list of backlogged bills in the chamber. Knopp has used a requirement that all bills be read aloud before a final vote as a brake on the pace of lawmaking by the Democratic majority. The Senate will return to the previous order of legislation when it meets Thursday.

House Republicans made a pointed but ultimately failed attempt to revive five “school security” bills that had stalled in committee and were effectively dead for the 2023 session. The bills dealt with school security officers to respond to intruders and called for studies of how to increase safety in the design and staffing of schools. Democratic leaders have criticized the package as an attempt by Republicans to support gun control measures that are expected to come to a House vote in coming weeks.

House Republican Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville, led the GOP minority in seeking to have the bills extracted from committee and brought to the House for a floor vote.

Each of the motions for “withdrawal” received a few votes from House Democrats, but failed to achieve the 31 votes needed for a majority in the 60-member House. 

“Today, votes were called for immediate consideration on five school safety bills that Republicans introduced that were sadly left to die in committee,” Breese-Iverson said. “These bills were ignored and never scheduled for public hearings by committee chairs.”

Two other bills that House Republicans counted in their “Safe Schools Package” were co-sponsored with Democrats. 

House Bill 3584 was approved unanimously on Wednesday. It requires that parents and guardians be electronically notified of emergencies at their children’s’ schools. 

House Bill 3103 would require “panic button” software or hardware to be in all classrooms and offices at most public schools to alert law enforcement and emergency response agencies.

The bill, whose chief co-sponsored include Rep. Emerson Levy, R-Bend, and Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, won approval from the House Education Committee with a “do pass” recommendation. The bill was sent to Joint Ways & Means for consideration of budgetary impact. Levy and Neron joined with Republicans who sought to bring the bill to the floor on Wednesday, but the effort fell one vote shy with 30-27 in favor and three lawmakers absent. The bill remains under consideration in the joint committee and could move to the House floor in coming days.

Lawmakers return for a full slate of 21 different committee meetings on Thursday as focus moves to House consideration of gun control and abortion access issues. 

Under self-imposed rules, most bills must be considered by the chamber where they were first introduced — House bills in the House, Senate bills in the Senate — by April 4. Most left in a policy committee of their originating chamber will be dead for 2023. Exceptions include bills in joint committees or in each chambers’ rules or revenue committees.