Update Tuesday, 1pm: No Senate quorum again on Tuesday. Gov. Kotek talks with House caucuses. 

Republicans in the Oregon Senate were mostly absent from Monday’s roll call, extending a stalemate that began May 3 and threatens to sink the rest of the 2023 session.

The Senate agenda on Monday showed 127 bills backed up and awaiting final floor votes. The 10:30 a.m. roll call ended with a familiar thud: 18 senators were present, 16 Democrats and two Republicans, Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, and Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford. Oregon is one of four states requiring a two-thirds majority for a quorum to conduct any business. Republicans have ensured that the minimum of 20 senators cannot be met.

On Monday’s roll call, two senators were excused: Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, and Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, who have both been on long medical-related absences.

Ten Republican senators with more than 10 absences were again no-shows, having surpassed the threshold and triggering a new state law that would bar them from re-election.

The penalty, endorsed by voters in Measure 113 in November, was supposed to stop walkouts with career-threatening penalties. But the 10 senators have passed the mark and now have no new motivation to back off their demands.

Stalemate and special session

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, laid out a worst-case scenario for his constituents in a letter on Monday.

“Of the ten, several were not going to be returning anyway,” Dembrow said of the GOP senators. “Others were just elected in November and still have 3½ years left in their four-year terms. Some are hoping that the new Constitutional amendment will be thrown out by federal courts as a violation of the U.S. Constitution (which seems very unlikely).”

Democratic leaders have said they are unwilling to pull back House Bill 2002, a main reason for the Republican walkout. The measure would allow younger minors to get an abortion without parental approval and also expands medical coverage for gender-affirming treatment to include hair removal and some facial plastic surgery. The bill would also direct state courts to not cooperate with any enforcement activities related to medical care that is legal in Oregon.

Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, meanwhile, has expanded areas of contention to as many as 20 bills being advanced by Democrats. He also says the legislation is written in complex wording that does not meet a 1979 clarity of language requirement that resurfaced during Republican research for the current session.

“This isn’t about one bill, it’s about process and it’s about lots of bills,” Knopp told the Oregonian over the weekend. “They killed 37 bills in our agenda. So my question would be, why would we be a speed bump on the road to them achieving their agenda?”

Knopp has said Republicans will challenge Measure 113 and Wagner’s decisions of when and to whom excuses for absences could be granted.

Dembrow, in his constituent letter, broached the possibility that the walkout might not end before the session does. The Oregon constitution allows the Legislature to meet for 160 days in odd-numbered years and 35 days in even-numbered years.

In 2020, House and Senate Republicans walked out after just three bills were passed by the Legislature. They stayed out until the 35 days expired, leaving hundreds of pieces of legislation to expire as well.

Per state law, the Legislature must end by June 25 this year.

“At the moment we find ourselves in an odd replay of the 2020 session, which was ultimately killed by walkouts, with Republicans insisting that they would only vote on measures that they wanted to vote on,” Dembrow wrote. “Different Senate President, different Speaker, different majority leaders and minority leaders — same result.”

GOP senators in the Capitol, but not at meeting with Kotek

Whether the result will be the same as 2020, the approach by Kotek and legislative leaders is, for now, less openly confrontational.

In 2019, when Republican senators walked out over a bill to create a carbon cap on air pollution emissions, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, asked for help from Gov. Kate Brown to end a Republican walkout. Brown used her authority in the constitution to order the Oregon State Police to find the lawmakers and “compel” their return to the state capitol. Knopp, who was not the minority leader at that time, was one of several absent senators who went to Idaho and avoided troopers.

Kotek, elected governor in November after a decade as House speaker, said early in the walkout that she did not plan on using the state police, though she reserved the right to do so at a point in the future. Late last week, Kotek said last week that the walkout situation was not a crisis and that she had limited involvement in discussions between the two parties in the Legislature.

KATU News and The Oregon Capital Chronicle reported Monday that Kotek held meetings in the offices of Senate Democratic and Republican leaders. While the Democrats showed for the hour long meeting, Kotek arrived at the meeting with the Republicans to find only Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, was attending. Anderson has only had one unexcused absence and has gone to the floor for every roll call in recent days. Other Republicans took part by Zoom. Kotek afterwards called the virtual gathering a surprise and “disrespectful” according to the new reports.

The Legislature earlier in the session approved a continuing resolution, which would allow agencies to receive funds based on current levels into September. Kotek could call a special session soon after the end of the regular session to deal with the 2023-24 budget. Under law, each session is distinct. Kotek would have to resubmit her budget, have it revised by the Joint Committee on Ways & Means, and have it go through committee votes, including likely hearings.

Unlike earlier walkouts, Republican senators have taken part in some committee hearings and the panels needing only a majority for a quorum, and have moved legislation into the backed-up queue awaiting floor action.

On Monday, the Senate Natural Resources Committee sent House Bill 3440 to the Senate with a do-pass recommendation. The legislation, already approved by the House, would allow more cities to use revenue from sales of forfeited property for specific projects. The bill was requested by the City of Bend and has Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, as a chief co-sponsor.

The Senate Housing and Development Committee sent House Bill 3442 with a do-pass recommendation. It would give local governments more leeway on determining conditional use permit development of certain affordable housing within tsunami inundation zones or 100-year floodplains. The bill has already passed the House and Rep. Cyrus Javadi, R-Tillamook, is the chief co-sponsor.

Both bills only need Senate approval to go to Kotek for her signature. Without a Senate vote, they will be dead for 2023.

The House on Monday torpedoed a Senate bill that would have allowed shipments of up to five cases of cider or malt beverages, each containing not more than nine liters, per month to Oregon residents.

The bill by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, passed the Senate 26-4 on February 15, had received a do-pass recommendation from the House Economic Development and Small Business Committee.

But amid arguments of expanded alcohol availability, it was voted down 30-26 on the House floor.