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With mere hours left before it must end, the 2025 Oregon Legislature has exceeded expectations: It’s stranger, clunkier and more partisan than predicted.

Yet the Legislature appeared on track to complete its work by Sunday’s deadline. Most, maybe all, the final political deals had been consummated by Thursday. One overriding question remained: Do House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, have the votes to pass the reworked transportation bill.

Salem Rep. Kevin Mannix was the lone Republican supporting House Bill 2025 when the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment approved it Thursday evening, sending the bill to the House floor for a vote Friday.

If the HB 2025 fails, the Oregon Department of Transportation in early July will lay off 650 employees and move many others to new roles and different job sites. Seventeen ODOT maintenance stations will close. Even with passage, several ODOT workers will lose their jobs.

Huddling often with key lawmakers, Fahey emerged as chief negotiator and decision-maker this week. Gov. Tina Kotek apparently stymied legislators’ desire to delay the campaign-finance requirements that take effect in 2027. Fahey introduced a trimmed-down transportation tax-and-fee package aimed at mollifying enough opponents to pass both chambers. House Democrats passed one gun control bill but sidelined another that was anathema to Republicans (and some Democrats).

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 21-6 to override Kotek’s veto of Senate Bill 875, which revised the Oregon Foster Children’s Bill of Rights and the Oregon Foster Care Sibling Bill of Rights. Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, who introduced the measure, said Kotek had not previously raised any concerns about the bipartisan bill.  

On Thursday, Kotek visited the House Democratic Caucus, bringing donuts to accompany her comments. Not surprisingly, the House ultimately shelved the bill on a 49-4 vote, sustaining the governor’s veto.

Last week had ended with an acrimonious and embarrassing transportation meeting that was a triumph of partisanship and a rebuke of statesmanship. Legislative Democrats employed the same tactic as congressional Republicans: Steamroll the minority party.

The transportation committee on Friday endorsed that version of House Bill 2025 on a party-line vote. To get there, Senate President Wagner ensured a “yes” vote by appointing himself to the committee to replace recalcitrant Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone.

Such maneuvers are not unheard of. Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, similarly replaced Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, on the Joint Ways & Means Committee for votes in 2013 and 2019. In 1973, Senate President Jason Boe kicked fellow Democrat Vern Cook off the Senate Revenue Committee and took over as chairman. Boe, for whom the Oregon Capitol’s Senate office wing is named, wanted to expedite Republican Gov. Tom McCall’s tax plan.

What was most confounding about Friday’s off-and-on transportation meeting was that with the possible exception of Mannix, no one was trying to find a compromise between progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. Instead, legislators repeated, reiterated and reinforced their ideological positions.

At one point, co-Chair Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, loudly tangled with Co-Vice Chair Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, the most vocal opponent. Co-Chair Rep. Susan McLain, D-Forest Grove, utilized her experience as a longtime speech/debate teacher and coach to keep the meeting under control.

Afterward, Boshart Davis filed a conduct complaint against Gorsek. On Monday, he resigned from the committee. Wagner then appointed the most vocal Democratic advocate — Portland Sen. Khanh Phạm — as chair. Wagner replaced Gorsek and himself on the committee with Democratic Sens. Lew Frederick, Portland, and James Manning Jr., Eugene.

Also Monday, Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, announced he had asked to be taken off the committee. Fahey replaced him on Thursday with Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield.

Several Democrats balked at the $14.6 billion in transportation taxes and fees. Callers and letter writers urged Republicans to walk out and bring legislative business to a halt. The Republicans who did boycott were mostly thwarted in any bid for notoriety; the presiding officers “excused” their non-presence instead of marking them “absent.”

On Wednesday afternoon, legislators, local officials, lobbyists and interest groups were furiously deciphering Fahey’s 155-page amendment to the 99-page bill. It was predicted to raise $11.7 billion over 10 years.

Oregonians had submitted more than 3,900 pieces of testimony by late Thursday afternoon when the transportation committee began a public hearing. Most likely went unread. And with 51 minutes allowed for public testimony, most folks left without having a chance to speak.

The House is scheduled to meet at 9:30 a.m. and the Senate at 10 a.m. on Friday.