The short legislative session is a sprint, so it’s only fitting that this year’s session will start with a bang.
The 83rd Oregon Legislative Assembly will convene Monday, Feb. 2, for a maximum of 35 days. On Wednesday, the Legislature will hear the quarterly Oregon Economic and Revenue Forecast, giving legislators an idea of the state’s current financial position.
Changes in federal tax and spending have severely crimped Oregon’s budget, cutting both federal funding and Oregon’s own tax revenue. Oregon’s budget woes could overshadow everything else legislators might want to do this month.
They won’t have much time to debate, though, because the short session deadlines come fast and furious.
The Legislature has a series of gates a bill must pass through to become a law. If it doesn’t get through the gate before the deadline, the gate slams close. There are parliamentary ways to pry that gate open and slip a bill through, but usually once the gate closes the bills behind it are effectively dead.
Bills can also be shunted into committees where the deadlines mostly don’t apply. Both chambers’ rules and revenue committees and any joint committees are not subject to policy committee deadlines.
Here are some important dates for the upcoming session:
- Feb. 2 – The House and Senate are scheduled to convene at 8:30 a.m. The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet at 8 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to meet at 8 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- Feb. 4 – The House Revenue Committee and the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee will hold a joint meeting to hear the quarterly Oregon Economic and Revenue Report. It will tell legislators whether they need to reset the 2025-27 Oregon budget.
- Feb. 9 – First chamber work session posting deadline: A bill must have been placed on a committee agenda by this day, or it will be among the first to die.
- Feb. 16 – First chamber work session deadline: Bills that have not had a committee vote in their chamber of origin or been moved into a committee exempt from the deadlines by this day are effectively dead.
- Feb. 17 – Education Advocacy Day: OSBA, the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon Association of Education Service Districts and the Oregon Association of School Business Officials are holding a joint advocacy day for invited members to receive training and meet with key elected leaders.
- Feb. 20 – Second chamber work session posting deadline: House bills in the Senate and Senate bills in the House must be placed on a committee agenda by this day or their 2026 gate is closed.
- Feb. 26 – Second chamber work session deadline: Only the strongest bills remain at this point, when a bill will need to have passed its chamber of origin as well as a committee in the opposite chamber to keep going.
- March 8 – The session must close by this date, but the Legislature can finish up earlier and call sine die.
