Tensions flare as legislators press causes and bills die
Each week in the short session could be likened to the turning of a season.
The first week is a spring of policy potential and legislative ambition. The second week is a summer of policy growth and withering legislative heat. Week three turns to the autumn of many policy goals and the closing of the legislative committee cycle. And finally, week four, the bleak winter, marks the end for most policy bills, a week of raging against the dying of the legislative light.
Week four was last week. And there was more legislative raging than usual, as exemplified by two legislators making very different public decisions.
The first legislator is education champion and former school board member Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis. Last year, she became aware of students who were allegedly being illegally denied a full school day during the COVID-19 pandemic. These students were often entitled to special education services and were, likely due to staffing shortages, simply not allowed to come to school as often as their peers in the same grade.
Gelser Blouin dedicated a pre-session hearing in the Senate Education Committee in January to the topic, and she drafted a bill for this session to address the situation. SB 1578 would have, among other things, created a new process for a direct appeal to the Oregon Department of Education. After long, challenging and productive discussions, Gelser Blouin submitted amendments at the request of the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators and OSBA, and we were able to support the amended bill. The bill would have required an investment of almost $7 million to staff 21 new ODE positions, which is a significant investment for a short session.
Early last week, Gelser Blouin found out legislative leadership had decided not to move her bill forward. She, very tactfully, raged. She tweeted her disappointment. She made repeated statements in committee and on the Senate floor that she was not sure she would be able to support Democratic-priority bills if her colleagues did not have time to address her concerns and pass SB 1578. And she confirmed, to Oregon Public Broadcasting, that Gov. Kate Brown called her directly to tell her the bill was dead.
I cannot overstate the gravity of this sort of disclosure. Brown is deliberate in the way she contacts legislators and advocates, reserving her personal touch for big issues and top leaders. To have a senator disclose this sort of individual outreach, which the governor’s office described as a collegial courtesy, is quite unusual. The disclosure underscores the tension and the stakes Gelser Blouin perceives around this bill.
The second legislator is Sen. Dallas Heard, R-Roseburg and the Oregon Republican Party chair. Heard disagrees with Oregon’s mask mandate. He has previously been expelled from the Senate for failing to wear a mask, as required by Senate rule.
He has described the mask mandate as tyranny in speeches on the Senate floor, and last Thursday this came to a head.
Heard appeared on the Senate floor with no mask. Senate President Peter Courtney asked him to wear a mask; Heard declined. Courtney, D-Salem, then asked him, in accordance with rule, to remove himself from the floor; he declined. Courtney then asked the secretary of the Senate, the chamber parliamentarian, to ask Heard to leave the floor; Heard declined. In circumstances like this, the majority-party leader is customarily expected to act. Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, made the motion to exclude Heard, both from the Senate floor and the Capitol entirely, until he returned wearing a mask in compliance with rule.
An hourlong debate ranged across topics including masking, the nature of emergencies, the constitution, individual rights, mandates, representation, Brown’s actions, the science behind masks and, ultimately, what each person owes in the face of costs to society. It culminated in a personal appeal to Heard by Courtney, who has made bipartisanship and Senate process his legacy.
“I ask that you stay in the family, brother, sincerely,” Courtney said. “We’re not complete, as an institution, if you leave. We have a lot to do before ending this session, regarding children and families. We do. I’d like you to be part of that. … One last time, Sen. Dallas Heard, District 1, will you please, please wear your mask and stay?”
Heard declined.
The motion passed on a party-line vote. Heard is excluded from the Capitol until he wears a mask. Courtney, visibly distraught by the exclusion of a senator, recessed the proceedings for a break to recover.
Heard and Gelser Blouin are possibly emblematic of a trend of recent legislative proceedings that have been producing the previously unthinkable.
A few years ago, this sort of exclusion would have been unheard of but the partisan rancor has grown ever sharper. The 2020 special session culminated in the fourth walkout over the preceding 10 months. And the 2021 session, the first virtual session brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw the first expulsion of a House member. All unthinkable.
This disruptive activity, coupled with the dramatic drop-off in the number of bills alive, raises questions about the short session’s value. Many legislators will find their efforts on a bill or project will not be rewarded this session. Weeks of work will likely be met with a message from legislative leadership that their bill ran out of time. That frustration could affect legislators’ efforts going forward.
Hopefully, this upcoming week, week five, will be another spring, with blossoms of good policy and education investments to help soothe the past month’s friction.
- Richard Donovan
Legislative Services specialist