Is Oregon’s 2023 legislative session toast? The answers I hear from political insiders range from “yes” to “not yet.”

Here are four observations:

1. The walkout by Republican and Independent senators continued Thursday. But has the political tone inside the Oregon Capitol mellowed at all? 

No and yes.

The Capitol hallways resemble a tomb, not the frenetic political scenes that typically mark the near-end of the annual legislative session.

Senate Democrats this week began fining the absent senators. Yet in recent days, Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, has abstained from publicly assailing the boycotters. In previous years when Republican senators walked out, then-Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, responded with sadness and pleas for them to return. In contrast, Wagner, forcefully denounced the walkout.

This week, those denunciations were left to other Democrats and their allies. Fifteen speakers held a Tuesday press conference on the Capitol steps to denounce the 5-week-old walkout, which has blocked the Sente from acting on any bills. The media event scolded the absent senators and kept the pressure on Democrats not to compromise on legislation dealing with abortion, transgender health care, gun control and other contentious issues.

Meanwhile, Wagner and House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, are issuing regular press releasing touting bipartisan legislation that awaits action. The House approved a $10.2 billion two-year budget for public schools on Wednesday, sending the bill to the Senate on a 52-6 vote.

2. Will the impasse end before the Legislature’s June 25 deadline to adjourn?

The 2023 Legislature’s lone constitutional requirement is to pass a budget. This week I asked Rayfield to rate the likelihood of that happening. On a scale of 1-10, he ranked his confidence level as “square in the middle.”

“There’s a lot of time left, and I think human beings are very resilient people that change day-to-day,” he said. “That’s why I have to walk in every day with a sense of optimism, because I do see the good work that we’re doing and that we can do.”

Senators privately hope that the negotiating climate has been “reset” through new talks involving Democrats not in caucus leadership. Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland, and Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp of Bend have had a good working relationship, including collaborating to pass 2017’s pay equity legislation.

The conflict engulfing Wagner and Knopp seems personal as well as political. In winning his Democratic colleagues’ nomination for Senate president, Wagner fully aligned himself with their progressive agenda, whereas Courtney was seen as a moderating influence – indeed, a roadblock to some progressive legislation. 

Knopp likely would have been Senate president if the Republicans fulfilled their hopes of toppling the Democratic majority in the 2022 elections. Last fall he subsequently blasted the Democrats’ nomination of Wagner for Senate president. He has kept up that criticism, including unsuccessfully seeking Wagner’s removal as presiding officer.

Democrats say they have a mandate for their agenda because voters handed them legislative majorities, although they did lose their Senate and House supermajorities. Republicans point out that the GOP came within a few thousand votes of winning the state Senate and the House.

3. Will the session continue until June 25?

To officially sine die – that is, conclude a legislative session – both the Senate and House must pass a resolution. However, the Senate cannot act until at least one boycotting senator returns, so the required 20 senators are present for a quorum.

There is precedent for simply giving up and going home. Courtney and then-House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, pulled the plug on the 2020 session instead of letting the boycotting legislators return for the final day, as Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. of Grants Pass and House Republican Leader Christine Drazan of Canby had promised.

Relationships now are much better in the House, with Rayfield as speaker and Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson of Prineville leading the Republicans. In the Senate, they’ve soured further, though Knopp said the absent senators would return June 25.

Senate Republican spokeswoman Ashley Kuenzi reiterated on Thursday: “We are standing firm as the last line of defense for parental rights and the rule of law. With the passage of Measure 113, which aims to prevent legislators from running for re-election if they have 10 or more unexcused absences, we know that we are taking a risk. But our democracy – and our generations to come – are wholly and entirely worth the sacrifice we are making. We will be back by June 25 to pass bills and budgets that are substantially bipartisan.”

One day could be adequate to handle the dozens that agency budgets still outstanding, but only if lawmakers suspend the rules and avoid extensive debate. However, Senate Democrats and their allies say that dropping other Democratic priorities would be allowing the minority to control the majority.

“There is too much at stake to normalize this obstruction of democracy,” Rep. Khanh Pham, D-Portland, said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, added: “I’ve always believed in a democracy the decisions are made by those who show up. But today in the Oregon State Senate, decisions are being made by those who don’t show up.”

4. Why is the impasse getting national attention?

The Oregon Republicans’ fifth legislative walkout in five years, it already is the longest in state history.

This week the New York Times wrote: “Oregon has long had a pronounced political split, reflecting the natural divisions between its rural farm and timber counties and its liberal cities like Portland and Eugene. But the state historically prided itself on the way its politicians usually seemed to find ground for collaboration. …

“The Republican boycott that has gridlocked the Senate since May 3 — one in a series of boycotts since 2019 — signals the degree to which bipartisanship has taken a back seat to strategic dysfunction.

“The standoff comes amid a particularly tumultuous year in state capitols around the country, with tensions stoked by a wave of abortion legislation — moved in the wake of last year’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade — and hotly contested bills on transgender issues, gun control and voting rights.”

The New York Post reported, “The drama in Oregon is the latest in a string of ideological clashes in statehouses across the country.”

Rolling Stone blamed the GOP, saying, “It’s a familiar story: Republican lawmakers, wildly out-of-step with their constituents on abortion, using any means necessary to impose restrictions or block protections.”

But an Associated Press national story on Thursday explained: “In a year of outsized acrimony at statehouses, it would be wrong to say tensions have never been worse. Legislatures have seen fistfights, unpopular members hounded from office, mass expulsions and even armed confrontations.

“Experts say what’s different now is that politics can reward sparring and punish bipartisanship, making reelection tougher for those who seek compromise.”