The slo-mo crash-and-burn of the Oregon Legislature’s 2023 session was marked Wednesday by a blown deadline and legislation sent by the House into the brick wall of a Senate boycott.

Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, stepped up to the chamber podium at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday and looked out at 30 empty desks.

“Good morning, everyone — Happy Flag Day,” Wagner said. “Without objection, the Senate is adjourned until 9 a.m., Thursday, June 15.”

Wagner rapped the gavel once, then walked out of the back of the chamber. 

The “pro forma” Senate session officially kept the Senate on a calendar — one that Republicans froze on May 3 with a walkout that’s chewed through 42 of the 160 days the Oregon Constitution allows lawmakers to meet this year.

While Republicans have cited a range of issues for the boycott, the move came just before a final Senate vote on House Bill 2002, which expands abortion access and transgender medical rights. House Bill 2005, a gun control package, was close behind on the Senate agenda. Republicans didn’t have the votes 16 votes to defeat either bill, but could shut down the Senate by denying the minimum 20 senators needed to create a quorum to meet at all.

That’s left a Senate agenda overflowing with legislation sent over from the House.

On Tuesday, the House approved House Bill 5014, which contained a state record $10.2 billion in spending for K-12 public schools. 

Freshman Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, had successfully worked to include $2.5 million for “panic button” systems for schools — alarms to inform students, staff, law enforcement and medical first responders when a school shooting or other emergency was going on. 

“We are one vote away from this important safety funding,” Levy said Wednesday.

But that one vote is far from a sure thing. The bill passed the House 42-16 and would normally be in the Senate awaiting 

The bill now goes to the Senate, with action unlikely unless a bargain is reached to get Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, to convince those in his caucus involved in the boycott to return to the Capitol to vote on the budget. 

Wednesday was the 148th day of the 160 days set by the Oregon Constitution for odd-year Legislative sessions. If the boycott continues, all pending legislation would die, including the state’s 2023-25 state budget. Gov. Tina Kotek would have to call lawmakers back for a special session just to get the budget approved.

During more optimistic times, at the beginning of the session in January, legislative leaders set June 15 as a self-imposed target date to wrap up their work and adjourn for the year. By finishing 11 days earlier than the law required, lawmakers could be back in their home districts for Juneteenth celebrations. The June 19 federal and state holiday commemorates the end of slavery following the Civil War.

The legislature will blow past the target deadline on Thursday. But with the Senate boycott, no action — including an early adjournment — can come up for a vote. 

The same ironic impact faces new legislation to change the quorum.

Dozens of Democrats signed onto House Joint Resolution 30, introduced in the House on Wednesday.

HJR 30 would refer a constitutional amendment to the November 2024 ballot. Voters would be asked to approve or reject changing Oregon’s quorum minimums to a majority instead of the current two-thirds. Oregon is one of four states that require more than a majority for a quorum.

The resolution is a likely victim of the problem it wants to address. Barring a last-minute compromise, GOP senators can maintain the Senate boycott until June 25. HJR 30 would be among the more than 500 bills that would expire along with the session. Supporters say they could reintroduce the issue during the 2024 session. 

But the resolution reflects current political realities. None of the supporters are Republicans. GOP leaders can walk out of the 35-day session that begins in February 2024 if legislation they opposed in 2023 is re-introduced. While Democrats used the quorum to walk out and kill a political redistricting plan in 2001, the walkout has been a parliamentary weapon for minority Republicans in recent years. 

Republicans last won a majority of Senate seats in the 2000 election, while their last House majority was elected in 2004. A Senate walkout in 2019 was only resolved with Democrats dropping a carbon cap bill to allow for a final few days to pass a state budget.

There was another walkout in 2020, this time by House and Senate Republicans to block a carbon cap bill. Then-Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, introduced Senate Joint Resolution 201, which would have switched Oregon to a majority for quorums. 

“SJR 201 is a measure to prevent minority walkouts from wrecking an entire Legislative Session and paralyzing government,” Burdick wrote in a statement about the resolution at the time. 

Republicans maintained the boycott during the “short session” that ran through parts of February and March. Burdick’s resolution died with hundreds of other bills at the end of the session.

Burdick was supportive of a change to a majority quorum, but a coalition lead by public employee union leaders and progressive activists pushed an alternative onto the November 2022 ballot.

Measure 113 blocked lawmakers who miss more than 10 days because of unexcused absences from running for re-election.

While Democrats believed the threat to re-election would make Republicans balk at boycotts, the 2023 session has been stopped cold by the longest boycott in Oregon history.

Nine Republicans and one Independent have walked out beyond the 10 absences, but are challenging the legality of the ban on re-election, as well as the text of the measure, which they says would put a ban in place later than supporters claim.

Republicans have sought to require more than simple majorities on other areas of state politics. The law currently requires bills that increase taxes or deal with revenue to be passed with a three-fifths majority.

Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, is sole sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 1, which would increase the percentage of votes needed to approve a bill to raise taxes and other revenue from the current three-fifths to two-thirds. The resolution was sent to the Senate Rules Committee and not brought up for a hearing by the Democratic-controlled panel.