What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) The 2019 legislative session must adjourn by June 30. Tensions are high as legislators make a last push to pass priority bills before the Constitutional end of session. A number of large policy priorities remain-diesel, cap-and-trade, paid family leave -and the next three weeks will be chaotic as they work […]

On May 17th, HB 2020 passed its first milestone. After three hours of debate, the Joint Committee on Carbon Reduction adopted the -94 amendments on a party line vote and sent the bill to the Joint Committee on Ways & Means. Session is drawing to a close, and legislators are making a last push to get […]

What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) Leadership is aiming toward a June 21 adjournment. Committees are rapidly finishing their work, particularly on the budget. The end game negotiations are largely concluded, and now that the PERS cost reduction bill passed, there seems to be an interesting mix of fatigue and resignation coupled with the excitement of […]

What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) The deadline for all policy bills has passed. Policy committees are now closed. All legislation passed from this point forward will have to come from either the Rules, Revenue, or Ways & Means Committees. As we indicated last week, this signals that the 2019 session is in the final homestretch […]

A PERS reform proposal has been formally introduced in SB 1049. The plan was unveiled Friday afternoon by Speaker Kotek and Senate President Courtney, and  public hearings on the bill will begin tonight. PERS Solutions for Public Services has put together a cost analysis of the bill which you can view here. SB 1049 includes the […]

On Wednesday, May 15, the State of Oregon just realized a historic and massive revenue forecast. Just from the last forecast in March, every metric grew by eye-popping numbers due to a historic influx of revenue over the tax season. Available resources for the next biennium (2019-2021) grew by $770 million. The kicker almost doubled […]

What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) This is the final week for policy committees to pass bills. Any bill not passed out of a policy committee (other than Rules or Revenue) is dead after Friday. All legislation passed after Friday will have to come from either Rules, Revenue, or Ways & Means. This signals that the […]

What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) House and Senate Republicans ground the session to a crawl last week as both caucuses employed tactics designed to slow the pace of the session. Senate Republicans simply did not come to the capitol and effectively denied the necessary quorum to conduct Senate business. Senate Republicans continue to negotiate with […]

HB 3427-A would levy a $2.8 billion gross receipts tax on all Oregon businesses with at least $1 million in sales. This is NEW revenue to fund proposed education priorities. The goal is laudable but the mechanism is not.  A gross receipts tax, as proposed in HB 3427, is one of the most regressive taxing […]

What’s Happening (OSCC Political Observations) We think that things will start getting more interesting now that the major $2.8 billion business tax passed the House 37-21. Even though the tax bill was muscled through the House, there is still not yet a clear path to the goal. Because although legislative leadership appears to have made […]