Last weekend, the shocking assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman has weighed heavily on many of us. My heart is with her family, her community, and everyone in Minnesota’s state government as they grieve this profound loss.

This tragedy did not happen in a vacuum. It is the devastating outcome of years of escalating political violence—violence fueled by reckless, dehumanizing rhetoric from some political leaders and public figures. We cannot allow this to become normalized. The anguish we feel in the wake of Speaker Hortman’s death must be a wake-up call. Her memory should compel all of us in public life to raise the standard of our political discourse, reject hate, and lead with decency and accountability.

Here in Oregon, the legislative session is in the final two weeks. We convened on January 21 and since then have been steadily holding hearings and passing legislation. Today's count: 530 bills and resolutions have made it through both the House and Senate. We've already passed noteworthy pro-consumer, pro-environment, and pro-safety legislation, and there are still some bills in the queue. Now the pace is quicker with the Constitutional end date (sine die) June 29. So in these final weeks we need to wrap up a few big policy packages with budgets, including those focused on transportation and wildfire. 

photo: My desk in the House Chamber. Last week I brought some snips from my garden to be with me in Salem, including parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (name that tune!).

If you missed my latest e-news, here's the link to March-April, Making progress in Salem.

The House At Work

A selection of bills that we've passed in the last few weeks

And some more

For people with a security camera or alarm for their home, for workers who receive hard-to-figure-out paystubs, for people who donate blood, for travelers, online shoppers, crime victims ...

Here's a quick mention of some more of the interesting bills we passed in the last few weeks.

• Make pay stubs easier to interpret, requiring employers to clearly show earnings and deductions (SB 906).
• Allow employees to use earned sick leave for blood donation at an accredited Red Cross or Blood Banks site (SB 1108).
• Crack down on criminal use of Wi-Fi signal jammers, which thieves use to disrupt home and business alarms and communication systems (SB 959).
• Privacy in your hotel room—allowing a right to sue a transient lodging provider that makes or transmits a visual image or audio recording in a private space without consent (SB 470).
• Protect online shoppers from hidden fees on grocery orders, online tickets, etc. (SB 430). 

I’ve also been voting on technical bills that help people or keep government running behind the scenes. Examples: making it easier and safer to dispose of used medical supplies like needles and medications (SB 139), improving bottle and can return options (SB 992), and helping Tribal health organizations access public health data for disease tracking and the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (SB 841)

Health Care

Health Care: Three losses and a big win!

The bills that would have directly defined physician in charge, and prohibit noncompete contracts, and give the Attorney General the authority to sue, didn’t pass. We made a good fight. Testimony on our side was strong. Corporate interests, including the insurance industry, was just stronger. Nevertheless, the big bill, SB 951, made it over the finish line!

CPOM: Corporate Practice of Medicine

SB 951, over a year in the making with lots of compromises and "blood sweat and tears" led by Representative Ben Bowman, did pass. I co chief sponsored this and also teamed up with Sen. Anthony Broadman to ensure a prohibition on noncompete contract language would be included. It’s a strong statement that in Oregon we’ll put patients over profits. It ensures that practices are owned and controlled by licensed medical professionals and includes the prohibition on “noncompete clauses” for certain physicians. Check out our press release.

Federal actions striking local programs

Wildfire, science, arts, workers: cuts to cities, counties, and local nonprofits

The Trump administration has been making cuts across the country. Here are a few examples close to home. In some cases, this is not about scaling back government programs over time - it's canceling contracts already awarded. Cutting the budget requires Congressional action and policy choices. Reneging on signed contracts is wrong.

(In this photo: with friends at a fundraiser for Eugene Public Library.)

• We’re proud of the arts in Eugene. The Eugene Symphony tentatively lost $50,000 in promised grants. National Endowment for the Arts sent grant cancellations to Lane Arts Council, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, and Bach Festival too.
• Last week Lane County received notice from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the $19.5 million grant to establish six resiliency hubs for wildfire and other disasters was terminated.
• OSU lost $45 million in federal funding to expand research in the Corvallis Microfluidics Tech Hub. This funding was initially awarded in January authorized by the CHIPS Act.
• At UO, National Institutes of Health terminated 13 grants; 2 were reinstated and the remaining 11 are being appealed or are in the queue for appeal.
• A KLCC story explained and summarized the federal cancellation of of a program supporting disaster preparedness. One Lane County example: the Mapleton Water District lost a $2.7 million grant to purchase a 300,000-gallon water storage tank and replace aging and brittle water lines.
• On May 22 the U.S. Department of Labor terminated four federal Unemployment Insurance (UI) grants awarded to Oregon Employment Department (OED), losing up to $12.2 million on variety of programs. These grants were paying for community-based organizations to help workers with unemployment insurance claims, improve outreach to help workers learn about unemployment insurance, and improve UI integrity through recovering overpayments.

A surprising twist on a tribute to Ukraine

On May 21 one veteran stood up in the House chamber and spoke to defend Putin, while another veteran gave an eloquent speech supporting SCR 23 to create a ceremonial sister state relationship between Oregon and Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine, stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. The resolution passed with 45 yes votes, 2 no votes, and one member left the chamber, not voting. Five strong Ukrainian women were there to watch the vote.

Budget

And then there's the budget. But there isn't "one budget" that the legislature adopts. About 90 budget bills are processed through eight Joint Ways and Means budget subcommittees, with separate bills for each agency, board, commission, etc., with a handful of bills to handle last-minute changes.

Unlike the federal government, Oregon’s constitution requires the state to have a balanced budget. The budgets this year will be different, recognizing growth in the state’s population and rising costs to deliver services or programs to Oregonians but also less money than was initially forecasted. The state economists point out that federal chaos generally and funding cuts specifically, already done or anticipated, leaves Oregon’s economic outlook sluggish and uncertain. Because of prudent budgeting and strategic investments, including Oregon's Rainy Day Fund established in my first term as a legislator, Oregon is still very well positioned to deliver much needed programs at least in the near term. 

Agency budgets this year are mixed; some will be receiving more funding to keep up with inflation and caseload ("current service level") and others may see shifts in funding or programs. The total for funding K-12 is about $16.7 B, a 10.5% increase over the 2023-25 biennium.

Fire season

Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) reports that large fire activity started in Oregon earlier than anticipated. The Rowena Fire has burned 3,563 acres since it started last week. Of Oregon's 12 protection districts, 10 are in fire season; the other two are in northwest Oregon. As of June 13 there have been 394 fires and 14,380 acres burned. 

ODF has 200 engines, 400 firefighters, 15 large dozers, lookouts and dispatchers, 21 tactical aircraft to drop water and retardant on fires, 8 detection and aerial supervision aircraft, and 25 unmanned aerial systems for mapping, situational awareness and detection. Through incident resource agreements with private contractors they also access to additional crews, 240 dozers, 186 tenders, and more, and private landowners have 640 trained personnel and 445 pieces of equipment that can also be called on.

Federal actions are impacting ODF and firefighting. ODF says, "The full scope of operational impacts won’t likely be known until we’re well into fire season, but we do know already that there are several fewer interagency incident management teams in the national system than usual. Thankfully, Oregon is one of only 4 states with its own incident management teams: 3 from ODF and 3 from OSFM. We’re also anticipating more asks to assist in fighting fire on federal lands than usual. As we receive those requests, we’ll be weighing them against potential impacts to our ability to keep fires small on the lands we’re obligated to protect and, most importantly, the safety and wellbeing of our employees."

Here's a link to follow ODF Wildfire News

Snapshots

Cal Young Middle School

Eugene Police Department representatives

Film, video, and media workers advocating for investing in film and video jobs

Insurance agents from Eugene; we talked about fire risk, home ownership, and health care.

Honorary Page from Eugene

Interns Jefferson, Jacob, and Kiley on their last day working together at the Capitol. Jefferson is off to American University to pursue a master's degree in public policy.

Great visit with Western Oregon University leadership. In this photo, Dr. Jose Coll, Provost. We talked about WOU's role as a regional state university and also how they serve as a regional security operations center for the local school district, county, and nearby cities.

I saw a demonstration of WOU's virtual cadaver lab used for health professions. An Anatomage Table enables 3-D virtual dissection and anatomy visualization. It functions like a high-tech tablet at the size of an operating bed. These are life-sized 3-dimensional images of a real cadaver. Layers reveal nerves, bones, muscle and tendon, and I even watched (virtually) the birth of a baby. This was fascinating!