Oregon Special Session Winds Down

By Chris Lehman | Feb. 25, 2010 8:52 a.m. | Updated: June 16, 2010 11:56 p.m. | Salem, OR

Oregon is one of five states where the legislature typically meets every other year. The policy goes back to horse-and-buggy days. This month in Salem, lawmakers have been trying to send voters a constitutional amendment to allow annual sessions. They had hoped to finish up their work Wednesday night. But a rift over the details is bringing them back for another day. Salem Correspondent Chris Lehman reports.Read more about the special session of the Oregon Legislature at Chris Lehman's statehouse blog, Capitol Currents.
Just before 7 o'clock last night, Senate President Peter Courtney made a surprise announcement: He adjourned the Senate until 10 o'clock this morning. The move caught many in the capitol off-guard, including House Speaker Dave Hunt. But a last-minute fallout over an annual legislative sessions referral left some in the Senate fuming.Jason Atkinson: “This is a tragedy.”Republican Senator Jason Atkinson said that House Democrats were out of line when they tacked on another month to the proposed legislative schedule in the annual sessions plan. Atkinson says voters would reject the longer time frame. And that would deter future legislatures from referring another such measure for a long time:Jason Atkinson: “I'm not willing to take that gamble. Because when it loses, I'll probably be dead before this body ever has the courage to do it again.”Democratic House Speaker Dave Hunt defended his members' decision. He said the Senate plan wouldn't allow enough time for lawmakers to tackle complicated issues. The death, for now, of the annual sessions proposal doesn't upset some lobbyists like Andrea Meyer of the Oregon ACLU. She said short sessions lead to bad public policy:Andrea Meyer: “When it comes to civil liberties issues, they are complicated issues. There are unintended consequences. And the role that ACLU and other groups down here play is to point those issues out. And a three or four week session makes it very difficult for that to happen.”Majority Democrats dispute the notion that this short special session resulted in bad policy. They point to measures that provide credit to small businesses, extend unemployment benefits, and renew funding for a program that pays for daycare for children of low-income parents. That last one pleased Portia Moye of Portland. She had lobbied lawmakers to approve the money that pays for her to care for her daughter's four young children.Portia Moye: “I was very concerned, because it's going to hurt on both ends. It would hurt the parent, and then it (would) hurt the child care providers. Not only me, but there's a lot of other child care providers out there assisting their children in day care.”Lawmakers also scaled back a tax credit for renewable energy projects that they said was far more generous than originally intended. They also put a freeze on a cost-cutting measure from last year that allowed some criminals to get out of prison early. Even with the last minute delay, lawmakers stress that they're still on track to finish up ahead of schedule. I'm Chris Lehman in Salem.

© 2010 Northwest News Network

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