“The devil,” the sages have said, “is in the details.” Or, in a newer version of the idiom, “Governing is in the details.”

As House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, said while recounting a conversation with former Secretary of State Phil Keisling: “A lot of our biggest problems are public administration problems, not public policy problems. Sometimes the solution isn’t passing a bill. Sometimes the solution is actually to provide oversight.”

In a welcome but perhaps surprising display of political unity, Democratic and Republican legislators have committed to reexamining the details of state government operations. So has Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek.

… Even though the agencies she oversees will be the focus of that oversight.

… Even though Republican legislators long have been the ones calling for review of administrative rules; that is, the details that implement the laws passed by the Legislature.

… And even though Oregon’s Democratic leaders are displeased, to say the least, with how Republican President Donald Trump has powerfully demonstrated that in order to change government, it’s the details that matter.

Trump was inaugurated Monday but his first full day in office was Tuesday, which also was the first working day of the 2025 Legislature.

“The timing isn’t a coincidence — it’s a call to action,” Rep. Dwayne Yunker, R-Grants Pass, wrote in his constituent newsletter on Wednesday. “As we heard on Inauguration Day, we now have a powerful partner, the full force of the federal government, in our push to bring common sense and sanity back to Oregon, regardless of what the Dem supermajority here may want. January 20, 2025 was Oregon’s Liberation Day.”

Not according to Democrats, who were gearing up to oppose the new administration.

“We will make sure that Oregonians’ rights and freedoms are protected,” state Senate Majority Leader Kayse Jama, of Portland, told Capitol reporters last week. “We will see what actions the administration takes and will act accordingly.”

Kotek, House leaders and Senate leaders met separately with the Oregon Legislative Correspondents Association on Jan. 16. (You can watch a video of the three meetings here. The sounds of power tools are occasional heard in the background from the Capitol reconstruction work.)

Despite differing on the details, the politicians shared broad agreement on which issues were most important for the 2025 Legislature, including state government transparency, accountability and performance.

“Every time a law is passed or any time something happens at the state, you have to make a new rule. And if you’re tracking these in a particular area, whether it’s agriculture or transportation or whatever it is, it’s a lot,” Kotek said. “What we were hearing from folks is, 

‘There’s no one place I can find out all the rulemaking happening.’”

Kotek said some agency websites are crystal-clear; others are not. Agencies need consistent, public-focused approaches.

“That’s what we’re starting, and legislators are talking about the same thing,” she said. “Rulemaking has to happen. Let’s do it in a way that everyone feels like they’ve heard. Even if we disagree at the end, they knew what’s happening. They knew they could be involved.

“I can’t say we know that right now. Across the agencies, there’s too much variation.”

In the past, legislators often turned a blind eye, according to House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, of Canby. Legislative leaders were reluctant to make agencies look bad.

In contrast, Drazan said, the appropriate role of the Legislature is to look at the data and ask hard questions of agencies: “Did it work, or did it not work? Did you do what you said you were going to do or not? 

“This was the intent of the legislation. Did you go way over with your rulemaking, or were you narrowly focused?”

Senate Republican Leader Daniel Bonham, of The Dalles, said: “The reality of accountability is it has to be driven by the majority party, and I don’t say that to make excuses for the minority party.

“But I’ve been in committees where I wanted to ask direct questions but have been gaveled down by the chair of the committee saying, ‘We didn’t bring the agency forward to embarrass them or ask them difficult questions.’”

Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said the Legislature must change how it does business in order to effectively carry out its oversight role.

Ideas for improving state government have emerged from a bipartisan, geographically broad House work group: Reps. Bowman; David Gomberg, D-Otis; Emily McIntire, R-Eagle Point; Mark Owens, R-Crane; Nathan Sosa, D-Hillsboro; and Kim Wallan, R-Medford. 

Their HB 2454 would create the position of legislative audit officer. Duties would include, “Investigate, review the activities and actions of, and conduct oversight of executive branch agencies, programs and functions to identify opportunities and areas of improvement to make agency functions, operations and programs more effective, transparent and responsive.”

Said Bowman: “What I’m not interested in is the D.C.-style ‘gotcha,’ partisan oversight that you see regardless of who’s in power in Congress.

“Oregon has historically done things differently, and I hope that our oversight and accountability will focus on solutions, which was the explicit focus of the Democrats and Republicans on the work group.” 

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