What was accomplished vs what was left on the table in the Oregon legislature

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Governor Tina Kotek is in the process of signing hundreds of bills that the Oregon legislature was able to pass before their June 25 end-of-session deadline after the six-week Republican-led walkout.

Following the longest walkout in state history, over bills that Republicans claimed were "unreadable" and felt a "tyranny of the majority" by Democrats, the lawmakers were able to reach a compromise to pass a variety of bills.

“When basically the work of the Senate gets stopped for almost six weeks, it obviously creates a huge backlog that we had to clear in a very short period of time. But, I’m really proud to say that Democrats showed up every day, did the work, we passed a lot of really amazing legislation,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber said. “I think Oregonians can be really proud of the work that we did.”

During the walkout, Senate Republican Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) claimed that members of his caucus were still participating in committee hearings but refused to show up to the Senate floor -- holding the chamber back from reaching the required quorum to vote on bills.

Meanwhile in the House, Democratic House Majority Leader Julie Fahey says she's proud that the House was able to work throughout the walkout and that House lawmakers developed a working relationship.

“I’m pretty proud that the House was able to keep business going…we were continuing to pass bills, continued to work with our Republican colleagues in a bipartisan way, and we had a number of really important bipartisan wins this session around housing and homelessness, the semiconductor industry, a rural economic development package," Fahey said. "And it’s really, in part, because we have the time in the House to build those relationships and build that trust with the Republican leadership over the past year and a half."

Early in the session -- before the May walkout -- lawmakers passed a $200 million homelessness and housing package along with another $70 million for rental assistance and affordable housing. Addressing Oregon's homelessness and affordable housing crises are top priorities of first-term Gov. Kotek -- and Democratic Senate President Rob Wagner previously told KOIN 6 News that the chamber was ready to answer her call to tackle these issues.

“We made it our top priority coming into the session, we knew it was a top priority for Oregonians,” Fahey said.

The $200 million package – consisting of HB 2002 and HB 5019 – funds Kotek’s Homelessness State of Emergency and includes $54 million for rental assistance and rehousing programs for people facing homelessness; another $33.5 million for rental assistance and eviction defense; and $23.8 million to add 600 shelter beds in metro areas.

Fahey says that funding is already out the door and she’s hopeful to see the impact of those investments within the next six months to a year.

“The governor and the legislature knew that we had to act quickly and that’s why it was the first thing that we prioritized this session,” Fahey said.

During the 2023 legislative session, Fahey points out that lawmakers made record investments in housing and homelessness.

“We have to build more housing in this state in order to solve our housing crisis,” Fahey said.

Record investments were also made in education as lawmakers passed legislation investing $10.2 billion for school budgets.

“Our education budget was incredibly robust, and we heard from all four corners of the state how important it was to continue to invest in education. I mean, that is going to make a big difference for those school budgets where they were thinking they might have to cut teachers and cut staff. They’re going to be able to keep those teachers and staff and hopefully even invest in other ways as well,” Lieber said.

Lawmakers also invested in another top Kotek priority of early childhood literacy.

Another legislative accomplishment, to the tune of $500 million, includes investments in the state's legacy semiconductor industry. Lawmakers also passed the $210 million CHIPS Act to bolster the state's semiconductor and microchip manufacturing. The bill also gives the governor the authority to expand land boundaries outside of the urban growth boundary in a quest to lure chip companies.

Lieber, who is a member of the legislative semiconductor committee, said the group worked in a bipartisan manner to pass the bill and that the investments put Oregon in a good position to receive federal dollars for the industry.

Lieber says she’s hopeful that money will act as an “economic engine” for decades to come.

The day the Republican-led walkout began, the Senate was slated to vote on bills addressing abortion and transgender healthcare right and restrictions on so-called ghost guns – firearms without a serial number.

Republican Leader Knopp told KOIN 6 News' Lisa Balick that his caucus was able to end the walkout because of “the Democrats willing to negotiate and to work with us in a bipartisan way to try to get these bills done in a way that respected our values and their values.”

Lieber says she’s satisfied with the compromises made to pass the bills.

“I think the main takeaway is that we live by our values, and we continue to do so even with the compromises that we made. We went into this session saying that we are going to codify Roe v. Wade and we did that. We went into this session saying we’re going to have sensible gun regulation and we did that,” Lieber said. “We try to listen to what the Republicans wanted and listen to what they were telling us they needed in order to get them back in the building but that took some time for us to have those real conversations around that.”

“We made sure that we didn’t lose any of the gender-affirming care that we had put into [HB] 2002 and we made some small tweaks to the parental notification statutes but otherwise we feel really good about the compromises that we made to get then back in the building,” Lieber said.

An amendment to the parental notification statute for minors to receive an abortion states that a minor under 15 years old may give consent for an abortion with a healthcare provider without parental consent as long as the provider believes asking for consent would result in physical or emotional abuse of the minor or would not be in the best interest of the minor.

Lieber says the overall session was at-risk amid the walkout.

“What was hanging in the balance was the entire rest of session and that was really something that we as Democrats knew that we needed to make sure that we were able to get past," Lieber said.

Ahead of the short session in February, Lieber says the focus will be on continued work on addressing homelessness and housing.

“Homelessness and housing is not going to go away and there’s ongoing work that we have to do with regard to that. We’ve got to make sure that investments we have made are doing what we think they’re going to do. So, making sure we have accountability within our system is going to be something that’s really important as we head into the short session,” Lieber said. “And we’ve got to continue to make sure that we’re listening to Oregonians. Not only listening to our colleagues across the aisle but make sure that we’re listening to Oregonians from all four corners of the state to understand what they continue to need from the legislature.”