Until We Meet Again

The performance by the 83rd Oregon Legislative Assembly bombed.

Seems like only yesterday the Oregon House of Representatives was giving black drag queens a standing ovation after inviting them to perform on behalf of House Resolution 3, honoring black drag in Oregon.

Late Friday night the curtain suddenly came down on the 83rd Oregon Legislative Assembly, leaving observers around the state jeering, booing, crying, celebrating a major defeat for Gov. Tina Kotek and her supermajority Democrats in the House and Senate.

Their cockiness finally caught up with them.

House Bill 2025, a transportation package larded with all kinds of projects and, initially, $15 million in taxes and fee hikes, came to an end. While Republicans ran out the clock, Democratic leaders gave up and gaveled the session to a close.

Democratic leaders tried to offer a scaled-back alternative of $11.3 billion through an amendment attached to another bill, HB 3402. There were still skeptics as the amended bill worked its way through the House Rules Committee. Because the bill raised taxes, it needed every member of the supermajority to go along or more Republicans.

The increased fees and taxes in HB 2025 were sold as a way to pay for transportation improvements throughout the state, to support more public transit, provide safer streets and sidewalks for pedestrians, and charge drivers of electric vehicles for miles driven instead of fuel consumption. Nobody disputed that the state’s transportation infrastructure needs serious work.

But a $5.3 billion transportation package passed in 2017 after much last-minute legislative wrangling. The result: A lot of money was spent, but many of the promised improvements didn’t come through. (See “Death and Taxes.”)

This time around the initial package was so big that at $15 billion it was the largest tax hike in Oregon history. The outcry by constituents led Democrats to offer the reduced version of $11.3 billion. Opponents remained unimpressed.

Gov. Kotek herself even appeared before the House Rules Committee Friday evening to warn that the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) would have to lay off 600 to 700 workers “who provide essential services. … That would be one of the largest layoffs in Oregon history.”

Former state Rep. Julie Parrish (R-West Linn) listened to Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis sock it to Kotek on the governor’s “Hail Mary” plan and captured a screen save on X that summed up the situation:

Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis speaks, and Gov. Tina Kotek listens.

The slimmed down bill and Kotek’s threat of layoffs backfired among some supporters of the larger bill, which ostensibly would have paid for projects like widening and improving the Rose Quarter area of I-5 — a project that never began as planned under the 2017 transportation bill. Supporters of the larger bill were less interested in saving ODOT jobs — they wanted the state’s roads fixed.

The legislative arguing ended after 11 p.m. Friday. Although the session’s mandatory deadline wasn’t until Sunday, Democratic leaders folded.

As is the Oregon way, House and Senate leaders running the show adjourned “sine die.”

Oregon has some of the worst reading and writing test scores among young students, but state legislators love their little bit of Latin. Sine die — the literal translation is “without a day” — means the legislature has adjourned without a specific date for reconvening. (Oregon has made a fetish of “sine die” The Capitol building gift shop sells “sine die” T-shirts.)

Kotek held a press conference Saturday morning. As reported by Dirk VanderHart of OPB, she and Republican leaders traded blame. Kotek singled out procedural partisanship.

A better description might be partisan distrust. Towards the desperate end, certain promises were being made by Democratic leaders to a Republican — “Vote for this bill, and we’ll give you $60 million for highway improvements in your district.” No deal.

It didn’t work because the Democrats, drunk on the power of being in a one-party state for so long, have made promises in the past that they didn’t keep. The Republicans don’t trust them. Now even some D’s don’t trust the Democrats.

HB 2025 also gave rise to frustrations that extended beyond transportation and taxes and called into question what has become the typical legislative process of spending money on promises that may not pan out.

A typical legislative session begins with senators and representatives touting their goals. As the session proceeds, and bills are passed, gloating can begin.

Two years ago state Rep. Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro) and then-state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley) swung their hips and bragged on Twitter (now X):“This is how the pretty girls walk when the pretty girls get their way…”

https://twitter.com/ORHouseDems/status/1641221012305113088?s=20

What had the pretty girls done? The Senate had passed the $210 million Oregon CHIPS Act, a semiconductor funding bill that Bynum (now a member of Congress) and Sollman considered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure Oregon’s future in the tech industry.

Earlier this month, Intel announced plans to slash its workforce in one of its manufacturing units by as much as 20 percent beginning in July.

During this week’s turmoil over the transportation package, state Rep. Court Boice (R-Curry County) vented in one legislative hearing about the easy promises of large sums of money.

“I don’t know where the $200 million went…,” he said referring to the CHIPS funding. “Keep beating that drum … Understand what we’re doing to people.”

What’s next for the Oregon state legislature?

In her press conference Saturday, Kotek alluded to calling a special session. Given the amount of hatred still in the air, that would seem unwise.

Besides, the next session is only eight months away.