The Legislature — at least some of it — will return to the Oregon Capitol on Tuesday with bins of bills, a high COVID-19 viral load around the Capitol, and very little time to get in, get done and get out.

Tuesday’s kick-start to the 35-day session features 50 hearings this week alone. The “short session” sets an unforgiving pace as bills have to clear hurdles at breakneck speed to stay on track for a shot at getting to the governor’s desk. Once the clock starts, it doesn’t stop, not for Saturdays, Sundays, Presidents Day or COVID-19 outbreaks.

The docket is overflowing with 268 bills ranging from overtime for agricultural workers, regulating kratom, reining in the governor’s emergency powers, cannabis, construction, mental health, gambling, abortion, inmate labor, guns and magic mushrooms. It’s an agenda that would be daunting in the odd-year sessions that run 160 days. But the session only has five weeks.

The result is that bills face a legislative version of Death Race 2022. To become law, a bill introduced Tuesday, must swerve through hearings, committee votes, amendments and floor sessions in both the House and Senate. Bills must keep moving, with key hurdles on Feb. 7, 14, 18 and 24. Stall at any of the deadlines and the legislation becomes political roadkill.

There are a few “safe harbors” — joint committees, the chamber’s rules committees and a few other exceptions allow bills to stay alive past the various drop-dead dates. But all bills face the ultimate deadline of March 7, when the Oregon constitution requires the Legislature to shut down. A session can go an extra five days if both Democrats and Republicans agree. But that kind of bipartisan cooperation is a rarity.

Lawmakers also have the distractions of the quarterly state revenue forecast on Feb. 9 and the deadline to file to run for office that lands on March 8, right after the end of the session. 

COVID-19 outbreaks caused delays during the 2021 session that were stressful stoppages even during the six-month session. A stoppage of five days for a positive test would cripple the short session. The zip code with the Capitol has regularly been at or near the top of the infection rates throughout the pandemic.  

In the Senate, some lawmakers have refused to wear masks. Sen. Dallas Heard, R-Roseburg, who is also the state Republican party chair, has railed against requirements to wear masks. In the last special session, Sen. President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, was forced to order the sergeant-at-arms to escort Heard off the Senate floor.

Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, told OPB on Monday that up to six senators likely won’t be in the Capitol on Tuesday because of issues related to COVID-19. That would leave the Senate with a buffer of just four members to ensure the two-thirds majority required for a quorum to meet and conduct any business.

COVID-19 isn’t the only possible brake on the session. Democrats hold a 37-23 majority in the House and 18-12 majority in the Senate. That’s more than the three-fifths of votes needed to pass taxes or other financial legislation. 

Democrats have signaled plans to quick-march a slew of progressive legislation through the Legislature. Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, will preside over the House that features a turnover of leadership, along with members who have resigned early and been replaced by appointees. 

Rep. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, will formally nominate Rayfield for House speaker on Thursday. In making the announcement, Campos said the switch of leaders didn’t mean a change in direction.

“I’m excited that we will continue to have a Speaker who is a champion for progressive policies that are going to benefit working families, historically marginalized communities and all who desperately need support as we navigate the pandemic,” Campos said.

But a pair of wrinkles in the Oregon Constitution could throw sand into the gears of the Democrats’ apparent dominance over the Legislature. Republicans have parliamentary “tools” they can leverage to bring the session to a screeching halt: walkouts and slowdowns.

Oregon is one of the few states requiring more than a majority for a quorum to do any business. The two-thirds requirement has been used by Republicans to stage walkouts in 2019, 2020 and 2021. But Republicans can also require bills to be read in full on final passage, a laborious time-burning event that requires two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber to override. With just 35 days in the 2022 session, the slowdown could quickly clog the pipeline of legislation until time ran out on the session.

The 2022 session has several possible triggers for walkouts, including a bill to require agricultural workers receive overtime pay. House Republican leaders have pointed to the bill as a possible trip-wire, while Senate Republicans have said that it is the kind of complex legislation that requires the less compressed timeline of the odd-numbered year sessions. 

There are some intriguing possibilities of possible bipartisan movement. Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, is the lone Republican co-sponsor of a bill that would set a timeline for a phase-out of diesel fuel in the state. The appeal for rural Republicans is that the eastern parts of the state would get an extra two years before making the move. 

Rep. Jack Zika, R-Redmond, has announced he won’t seek re-election. He’s introduced legislation to allow cities to expand beyond their urban growth boundaries to create workforce housing.

It would apply in areas where development curbs have created an extreme lack of affordable living spaces for the people who work in affluent communities where there is a lack of apartments and other homes for those who work in businesses.

Democrats have split over the issue, with some lawmakers concerned that loosening restrictions on development would lead to the kind of sprawl they were recreated to limit. But others want to revist the role of UGBs in limiting supply in growing areas, thereby driving up prices.

Adding to the uncertainty is a collection of new leaders, lawmakers and lame ducks that make navigating the usual attempts at compromise less clear. The power troika atop Oregon politics is being dismantled, with former House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, resigning after nine years as the top officer in the House to run for governor.

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, has led the chamber since 2003, but will retire after his current term. Gov. Kate Brown, who has been in office since 2015, is also a lame duck, due to leave office next January.

Senate Republicans have a new caucus leader in Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, though the former House minority leader is a veteran of bipartisan deals and partisan warfare over the decades.

But Rep. Vikki Breese Iverson, R-Prineville, has only been in the House since 2019 and was chosen caucus leader after the surprise announcement by House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, that she would forgo a bid for re-election to run for governor.

Breese Iverson has shown a willingness to be more directly confrontational than Drazan. When Gov. Kate Brown announced the commutation of some inmates’ sentences, Breese Iverson issued a blistering statement.

“This is just the latest example from Democrats that values criminals over victims,” she said. “The Governor has been commuting sentences of killers and rapists at an alarming rate regardless of how this negatively affects victims and their families.” 

Knopp and Breese Iverson have returned leadership of Oregon’s legislative Republicans to the east side of the Cascades for the first time since 2017, while Democratic leaders are from Corvallis, Eugene, Salem and suburban Portland.

Whether the two sides of the mountains and two aisles of the legislative chambers find consensus or conflict will start coming into view at 8 a.m. Tuesday.