The Oregon Legislature is on the brink of an unprecedented breakdown because the Senate can’t get anything done.
The Oregon Constitution requires two-thirds of each legislative chamber to be present to conduct business. In the Senate, that means 20 senators.
The Senate has 17 Democrats, 11 Republicans, and two Independents. Both Independent senators are former Republicans and, if they caucus, align with the Republicans. Effectively, there is a 17-13 split. Two Senators, Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, and Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, have been excused from floor sessions for medical needs. The remaining 16 Democratic senators need four non-Democrats to attend floor sessions to meet the quorum requirements and vote on bills.
For weeks, this has not happened. Instead, 16 Democrats and Sens. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, and David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, have appeared for daily scheduled floor sessions. Anderson and Brock Smith represent moderate districts.
Ballot Measure 113, which bars legislators with 10 unexcused absences from reelection, was supposed to curb the walkouts of recent sessions. Republicans plan to challenge the measure’s constitutionality. In the meantime, 10 senators have hit that limit, one-third of the chamber and all non-Democrats.
House Bill 2002 appears to be at the heart of the standoff. The bill would expand reproductive health care and gender-affirming care rights for Oregonians, including minors. The walkout, however, seems to be about more than simple opposition to a bill, with two notable points.
The first point is that, in Oregon, legislative walkouts work. In recent sessions, Republicans have effectively used walkouts to kill Democrats’ progressive priorities. Since 2019, Republicans have walked out of a legislative session six times, including a walkout in 2020 that stopped all but three bills that session. Generally, the walkouts began with a bill coming to the floor on a foundational topic for Republicans, such as gun control, reproductive rights or taxation. Republicans walk out, deny a quorum, and then Republican and Democratic leadership meet. Usually, Democrats stop votes on the bills in question, Republicans come back to the Capitol, and the Senate works through the rest of the session, including passing budgets and policy bills. In a situation where the minority Republicans have little leverage, this has been an effective tool.
This transactional style of politics seems to have left some Democratic senators unhappy. With the retirement of former Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, last year, the Senate elected Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, as president. He has committed to working the bills that the majority of senators have approved in committees. HB 2002 is a perfect example. It is a top priority for many Democratic legislators, and Wagner has committed to passing the bill, repeatedly and publicly.
This impasse is the logical extension of opposing parties cleaving to ideology rather than transactional politics. But a second point has come into play: the broken relationship between Wagner and Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend.
The two leaders do not seem to like or trust each other. Knopp has blistered Wagner and Democrats repeatedly in press releases. Wagner has used his stature as president to call on Republicans to end the walkout, and the Senate Democratic Caucus has called the walkout a grievous miscalculation. This partisan rhetorical carpet bombing is unusual in Oregon politics in recent years.
These two things, when combined, do not inspire optimism that Senate Republicans will return before the session’s end. Republicans’ offer to return for the last day of session does not seem like it will come to fruition.
There are a few possible outcomes:
1. One of the involved parties could change a previously held position. Either party could relent on HB 2002 and then return to hammer out the remaining bills in session. This has happened previously but seems unlikely this year.
2. Less likely, given the chamber’s makeup, a few non-Democratic senators could break with the Republican caucus and cut a deal directly with Democratic leadership to return to give a quorum. Given how this disagreement is about a basic party doctrine, in Oregon and nationally, a side deal is hard to envision.
3. Most likely, at least today, is that Republicans stay away and deny quorum until the session ends early or ends automatically June 25.
If either of the first two scenarios occur, history will probably record this as a difficult session that ended like other difficult sessions: on time and functionally. If, however, we get to option three and the walkout persists, a bunch of unusual things happen.
- Almost no budgets have passed. Without new budgets, the government could eventually shut down. The Legislature passed a continuing resolution, however, that will allow continued government spending at minimum at current levels through Sept. 15.
- Gov. Tina Kotek would almost immediately call a special session to pass budgets. Knopp and Wagner, along with other legislative leaders, would need to meet to discuss exactly what the special session would address. It could, theoretically, include some policy bills. But it is easiest to have no policy bills and just do budgets. This would kill HB 2002. It is unclear whether Democratic legislators would stand for this, and it is also unknown whether they could compel non-Democratic legislators to return if they did bring back HB 2002.
- All the bills that still have to be approved by the Senate would die. Killing hundreds of bills means advocates would be forced to start over, promising chaos for the 2024 short session.
- There is no guarantee non-Democratic legislators would return for the 2024 session. The problem with the 10-absence limit is that, once they are over it, there’s no reason not to continue accruing absences.
- Ideally, a special session for budgets would happen in July. If negotiations drag past Sept. 15, state agencies start running out of money and we live in a place without a functioning government.
A long session ending with dozens of budgets unpassed is unheard of in modern Oregon politics. History holds out the hope that this brinksmanship is part of the process, and in the end, it will be sorted out. There is a first time for everything, however, and maybe this is the year a precedent is laid down.
– Richard Donovan
Legislative Services specialist
