With only three weeks left in the 2024 Oregon Legislature, lawmakers need to hear from you.

But if you plan to testify at the State Capitol Salem, bring your lunch, water bottle and comfortable walking shoes. Because of the ongoing reconstruction of the Capitol, no food service is available. No longer is there a store to buy water, snacks, breath mints or anything else. And construction vehicles take up many of the previously public parking spaces around the Capitol. 

Or you can testify by video from anywhere – and hope that the system doesn’t stall or crash, as happened during the Legislature’s opening day. In either case, you now must register in advance. 

Public testimony is especially important as bills move from the House to the Senate and vice versa. That is because interested parties tend to focus on the first chamber and place insufficient attention on rallying support – or opposition – in the other chamber. You can sign up online to receive bill alerts and other information.  

Two weeks into the 35-day session, the vibe is one of hyperactivity and deadlines. “Due to the constrained timeline, legislators have been warned that evenings and weekends are considered working hours,” Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane, told constituents.

Along with floor sessions, Rep. Lisa Reynolds, D-Beaverton, wrote, “There’s the first day hugs (& jitters) just like the first day back to school. There’s the back-to-back 15-minute meetings with constituents and advocates. There’s our committee meetings, where we hear from colleagues, advocates, and members of the public and debate the pros and cons of the bills before us. There is ‘caucus,’ when House Democrats gather to discuss policy and logistics.”

That’s true for the minority party as well. Rep. Rick Lewis, R-Silverton, wrote, “Committees, floor session, constituent, caucus, and leadership meetings have filled my schedule to the brim.”

Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, told of working 14-hour days. And in her constituent newsletter, Rep. Emily McIntire, R-Eagle Point, described the hectic opening week as “the shortest longest week in a long time.“ 

Oregon newest legislator, Rep. Dwayne Yunker, R-Grants Pass, was sworn into office on Feb. 5, the session’s opening day. He told constituents, “Oregon Democrats are using the session to ram through hundreds of new laws to further expand the state’s intrusion into Oregonians’ lives and wallets.” 

However, his numbers are off. So far, legislators – both Democrats and Republicans – have introduced 96 Senate bills and 169 House bills. Including resolutions and memorials, the overall total is 288 pieces of legislation.

The Legislative Policy and Research Office even produced a “survival guide” and a nifty video for lawmakers and their aides that explained the differences between this year’s short session and the 160-day sessions held in odd-numbered years.

The Legislature is hammering away at the two key issues – housing/homelessness and revising Ballot Measure 110. A Senate committee this week approved a trimmed-down version of Gov. Tina Kotek’s housing bill. The joint committee working on Measure 110 has not announced its next meeting, as lawmakers privately rework their proposal.

Meanwhile, dozens of bills already are theoretically dead because they were not scheduled for a committee work session. Those meetings must happen by Feb. 19.

Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, and Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, lamented the probable demise of proposals to finance wildfire protection and response.

“Everybody seems to be agreed that something needs to be done, but everybody wants something else as the solution,” Evans said of HJR 201, which asked voters to create a statewide property tax for fire protection. “The only wrong answer is doing nothing.”

In his constituent newsletter last week, Evans said that as chair of the budget subcommittee handling public safety, his role “is to fight for the ‘nuts and bolts’ requirements for increasing our overall safety and security. This means that I focus my energy and time on the policies that rarely make the news (until we fail when the public needs us most).”

The proposed property tax made the news. About 1,300 people submitted testimony online or were able to testify in person, with most of them in opposition, according to the Taxpayers Association of Oregon.

Golden’s Senate Bill 1593, to restore the timber severance tax, might survive as a bill to study the issue. The Senate tax committee will hold a public hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Another bill not advancing was HB 4096, which Rep. Thuy Tran, D-Portland, and Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, sponsored to reduce suicides via firearms.

Until lawmakers go home on March 10, there remains the possibility, although unlikely, that any concept could yet be revived. On Thursday, House Republicans tried to salvage three of their education-related bills but were voted down by House Democrats. 

All this is happening while construction workers hammer away on the half-billion-dollar seismic and safety improvements. The Capitol Accessibility, Maintenance and Safety project now is expected to finish by the end of next year.

Outside, the scaffolding around the Capitol dome resembles a staircase awaiting the golden Oregon Pioneer’s descent.

New ADA ramps have been built along the State Street public entrance but without handrails, and ADA parking is scarce.  

The city of Salem’s electronic parking pay stations usually work, but sunlight glare can make them difficult to read. Given the problem of finding parking, some folks have resorted to creating their own parking spaces where none exist. The electric-vehicle charging stations outside the Capitol, which were removed during construction, have yet to be reinstalled.

Inside the statehouse, the most impressive feature is the cavernous hole where basement rooms once existed. Workers are creating a new foundation for the seismic protection.

CAMS director Jodie Jones told me last month that much of the current work would be done at night, so there should be less noise and fewer odor problems than last year.

On the session’s opening day, Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, wrote to constituents: “Looming over the Capitol is a fragile truce between Democrats and Republicans that is as pervasive as the pounding of jackhammers and noise of renovation construction that has continued around us for four years and counting.”