The frenzy of lawmaking in the Oregon Legislature will reach its fever pitch on Tuesday, the last chance for most of the 2,900 bills introduced since January to move on, or die for 2023.

“It’s a very stressful time, as advocates are pressing hard on committees and committee chairs to keep their bills alive, while those who want those and other bills to die are pressing for the reverse,” said Sen. Michael Denbrow, D-Portland, in a letter to constituents Sunday.

Known officially as “first chamber deadline,” the rule says most bills must receive committee action where they were introduced – either the House Or Senate.

“If a bill doesn’t make it out of committee on Tuesday, it cannot continue this session,” Denbrow said.

The self-imposed rule unclogs the pipeline of legislation before the 160-day session hits its halfway point at the end of this week.

The pace of legislation has been slowed by Senate Republicans’ parliamentary tactic of requiring all bills be read in full prior to final passage. In a possible harbinger of more slowing, House Republicans invoked the rule on the last bill considered on Monday. 

House Bill 3242 would allow individuals wider latitude to sue insurers who currently require settlement agreements. The bill was read in full by a clerk and passed 34-25 on a party-line vote. 

Few if any of the bills championed by the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, or by Gov. Tina Kotek, will suffer the fate of running out of time. Bipartisan support on housing, homelessness and semiconductor industry incentives have massive packages totaling nearly a half-billion dollars already signed into law by Kotek or speeding to completion.

Too many bills, too little time

Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said Monday during a press briefing that the looming deadline means bills that are important to individual lawmakers or interest groups might not make the cut. He said which bills don’t make it won’t be known for sure until Wednesday, but gave Senate Bill 551 as an example. It would require schools to provide information on the safe storage of firearms and medicines.

“I don’t think that is going to go through,” Wagner said.

To get as many bills over the finish line, lawmakers are holding a mass cram session Monday and Tuesday this week, with 19 committees meeting on Monday and 26 meeting on Tuesday.

The House Judiciary Committee is considering 42 bills over Monday and Tuesday. The Senate Education Committee has 32 bills on Tuesday alone. The Senate Judiciary Committee meets at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, with a second meeting at 5 p.m. to beat the midnight deadline.

In between are floor sessions. The House wants to take final votes on 21 bills. In the Senate, a backlog of 38 bills awaits.

On Monday, the Senate voted 20-9 to ban food vendors from using polystyrene foam containers when selling prepared foods. The bill now goes to the House.

The House on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill to allow legal notices in digital newspapers instead of requiring they appear in print newspapers. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, where newspapers Ashland and Medford have closed in recent years. Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, was a chief co-sponsor

EO Media Group started up the Rogue Valley Times in Medford and the Grants Pass Courier has expanded into Jackson County. But lawmakers are concerned that more print papers could close and the legal notices would not be seen. The bill now goes to the Senate, with Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, as a chief co-sponsor.

The House also voted 38-21 for House Bill 2759, which increases reporting requirements of “robocall” telephone solicitations. It also goes to the Senate for consideration.

‘Safe harbors’ and ‘gut-and-stuff’

It’s not curtains for all bills that don’t receive action on Tuesday. Most committees are tied to the calendar deadline, but there are 15 committees that are “safe harbors”exempt from the time rules. Any legislation in the 11 joint committees — those with both Senators and House members on the panel — aren’t affected by the deadline. Neither are bills in each chamber’s rules and revenue committees.

Wagner said he was receiving requests from bill authors to move legislation into one of the panels that are exempt from the deadline. Wagner said it was a good idea if a bill is close to consensus. But those that are just looking to buy extra time could end up in Senate or House Rules or Joint Ways & Means but never receive additional action before the constitutionally mandated end of the session on June 25.

Bills considered dead can also be resurrected through a legislative sleight-of-hand known as a “gut-and-stuff.” Legislative leaders position several “study bills” that are passed through committees. But their real purpose is to allow for the legislation to be amended in a way that takes out the original subject (“gut”) and replaces it with an amendment that becomes the entirety of the new bill (“stuff”).

Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, used a placeholder study bill — Senate Bill 348 — and moved to amend the bill so that it would include the language of Measure 114, the gun control initiative narrowly approved by voters last year. The initiative has been blocked in court and Republicans said the “gut and stuff” was an attempt to make an end-run around the judicial process.

Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, criticized the move on the Senate floor on Monday, saying that just as he was about to sit down for dinner on Friday night, the study bill showed an amendment to implement gun control restrictions showed up on the Oregon Legislative Information Services website.

“It’s now gutted and stuffed with yet another implementation of Measure 114,” Bonham said.

Wagner said that while he and Knopp, the Senate GOP leader, talk at least once a week, there is no deal in the works to get Republicans to stop requiring that all bills be read in full on final passage. The parliamentary quirk slows the number of bills that can be considered on any given day.

In a possible harbinger of further slowing, House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville, invoked the full reading on final passage of a bill on Monday. Though she has not yet opted for the blanket reading that Senate Republicans require, the option is on the table.

“As the minority party that does not have the authority to set committee or floor agendas, this is a tool we can use to send a message,” Breese-Iverson said. “We reserve this right as the session continues.”

After the Tuesday deadline passes, Wagner said that he would move to delay committee meetings to keep the Senate in session from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. next Monday and Tuesday in order to catch up on the bill backlog. If Republicans will agree to waive the full reading of bills before final passage, Wagner said the marathon sessions could be cut back.

“We’ve had no additional conversations on that,” Wagner said.