OMBA

Final Legislative Report

2023 Oregon Legislative Session

Prepared by: Markee and Associates 

The 2023 legislature officially adjourned on Sunday, June 25^th at 4:26 PM and concluded what was the first session back in person since the 2020 short session just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. During the last three years nearly all legislative business was conducted essentially remotely except for voting on the House and Senate floor which made for an interesting dynamic this year as over 50% of the legislative membership had never been though a “normal” session before. Additionally, there was a historic turnover at the leadership level as we had two of the longest serving House Speakers and Senate Presidents in history replaced by new leaders. As your lobby team, it was great to be able to operate normally again in the building, though due to construction, much of the Capitol was closed off, which made talking to members off the floor difficult as there was very limited room to have those conversations. The current make-up of the legislature is controlled by the Democrats who hold majorities in both chambers with a 17-13 advantage in the Senate and 35-25 in the House.

While the session began with relative cooperation and bipartisanship, the goodwill and willingness to work together quickly went away when two bills dealing with abortion issues/gender affirming care (HB 2002) and guns (HB 2005) began moving through the process. Eventually both bills passed the house after many hours of debate and procedural motions made by the republicans to delay passage. Meanwhile, in the Senate there were a handful of matters which left Republicans feeling as though their perspectives were not being taken seriously by the majority party and there was not the same sprit cooperation as was the general case in the house. Early in May the Senate Republicans decided to walk out of the building and not provide a quorum to pass bills which in effect shut the chamber down and did not allow the passage of bills and led to several weeks of posturing and negotiations. Finally on June 15^th the two parties in the Senate stuck a deal to make some changes to HB 2002 relating to parental notification as well as some other changes to limit the scope of HB 2005 to banning “ghost guns”, is meant to address unserialized and undetectable guns and in so doing ended the longest walkout in the history of American state legislatures.

Some of the other major priorities of the legislature this year were to try and address housing and homelessness. There remains a wide range of opinions on how to best tackle a very difficult issue, but most can agree the matter is something the state needs to address. A piece of the overall Housing Package was contained in HB 5019 and in HB 2001. These two bills were essentially the “Affordable Housing/Homelessness Response” bills and invested roughly $200M to help shelter individuals living on the street, increase affordable housing production and attempt to prevent additional homelessness in the future. HB 2001 establishes the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis and associated production targets, and HB 5019 (as described above) includes providing statewide assistance to rehouse people, expand shelter capacity, direct money to emergency management response and to develop a proposal for long-term rent assistance programs. There was also nearly $2 billion invested though the passage of SB 5511, 5505 and HB 3395. Separate from the Housing Package, as in sessions past, there were also bills around creating a state bank, as well as ones which sought to eliminate or make changes to the mortgage interest deduction. In the same vein HB 2008 was a bill which sought to make some sweeping changes to how debt is collected as well as would have made changes to exemptions individuals are entitled to in the event they own a debt. While there were many negotiations on this measure, interested parties on both sides couldn’t quite come to an agreement so there will very likely be a similar concept brought forth in the sessions ahead. Another area which was made a priority was attempting to address Behavioral health. The legislature allocated money to add capacity for substance use disorder facilities, expanding access to overdose reversal drugs, and funded a suicide prevention and 24/7 crisis line though a tax on wireless phone carriers with the passage of HB 2757.

On the budget front, the May Revenue forecast, which is what the legislature uses to finalize state budgets, was unexpectedly up. The projection showed net general fund resources were up $1.88B from the March forecast which means much higher ending balances, higher reserves but also a very large kicker payout in 2024. This meant that the General Fund revenue outlook from the last 21’-23’ biennium was forecast to be $7.4B ahead of the 2021 close of session forecast.

While the legislature has completed its business for the time being, there will be more work to be done in the months ahead as work plans are released and members take some time off following session. The legislature will convene September 27^th-29th in some capacity for legislative days, though it remains to be seen how exactly that will occur as likely the building will be heavily under construction.  In the upcoming 2024 session, legislators and committees will be limited to only introducing two measures each.  For bills to be introduced, the concepts must be submitted to legislative council by November 9^th so if there is a desire to have something introduced, we will want to talk about it relatively soon just so we can make sure we meet the deadline. On the following pages are a handful of the more pertinent bills we worked on your behalf. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to ask.

SB 619 and HB 2052 Both of these bills have been in the making for several years now.  Back in 2019 the Attorney General’s office started a work group to talk through the issues of privacy and data brokers with the idea of introducing legislation in 2021.  We worked very closely with this workgroup and on an individual basis with the AG’s office.  Because of the effects of COVID the AG decided 2021 was not the right time to focus on these issues and looked to 2022.  Both pieces of legislation were introduced in 2022 but for political reasons neither of them passed.           As it relates to data brokers, we saw the exact same language from 2022 get reintroduced in 2023.  The definitions and exemptions listed in the bill are written to make sure that it doesn’t apply to you.  The data broker bill passed this session with basically no opposition.  The conversations around SB 619 continued well into session this year.  The big areas of contention revolved around a private right of action, who all should be exempt and at what level under GLBA, and looking at what types of records should be kept by the entity holding the data related to who they have given it to. There is a GLBA exemption but we may need to look at this language for some minor tweaks in the future.  From the general business perspective, making sure there was no private right of action was the number one priority.  In the end, this bill is something that we decided was “ok” and not to oppose.  In fear that the bill would get worse if we had to wait until the next session to pass the legislation, many from the business community actively worked towards its passage.  Ultimately both pieces of legislation passed and will be signed by the governor soon.

HB 2001 We outlined this bill above, however for more specificity, here are some bullet points of some of what money is spent in the legislation:

• $130 million for the Governors Emergency Declaration
• $27 million to address homelessness in 25 rural counties that aren’t included in the Governors Order. 
• $25 million earmarked for homeless youth, to help young people and their families with rent assistance, shelter and mental health or substance abuse treatment. 
• $20 million to encourage production of modular homes.
• $5 million in grants for farmers to improve health and safety conditions at farm worker camps.
• $3 million in revolving loans builders can use to pay for predevelopment costs, such as permits and local infrastructure fees, for homes that will be affordable to people earning between 80% and 120% of the median income in their area. 

HB 2008 This piece of legislation was introduced at the request of SEIU (one of the most powerful advocacy groups in the capitol) and Legal Aide. As introduced, was modeled after a ballot measure that passed in Arizona making dramatic changes to all the garnishment exemptions and major changes to the Unfair Debt Collection Practices Act.  For example, the original bill would have increased the wage exemption to $1,000 per week and would have increased the homestead exemption to the median home price in the area – so for a home in Portland, the exemption would have gone to around $500,000.  On top of increased exemptions, the legislation also created new exemptions like a blanket exemption on a bank garnishment of $6,000.  As for the UDCPA, they were asking for a longer statute of limitation to 6 years from the date of discovery, new class action abilities and a change to the Porter v Hill case that would allow them to sue you if the court awarded a different amount than what you sued for.  The Speaker of the House was very helpful in putting together working groups to try and talk through the issues.  SEIU did come down on many of their exemption levels, though they never did get close to numbers industry was comfortable with as it relates to wage exemptions.  As for the unfair debt collections practices act, they didn’t move much at all and thought they would be able to run over the business community but ultimately the bill died when the business compromise was rejected. This concept will almost certainly be back again during the February session next year.

HB 2763 is legislation that deals with a State Bank.  The Oregon legislature has been dealing with the issue of a state bank for the past several sessions.  OMBA has opposed this type of legislation every year.  While there was legislation to create a state bank this year, none of those actually passed.  HB 2763 did pass and will create a taskforce to look and study the idea of a state bank – what would it look like, what products would it offer, etc.  The taskforce is required to report back to the legislature on their findings/recommendations.

HB 3414 was one of the Governor’s priority pieces of legislation around housing.  The bill was controversial with the environmental community as it looked to free up more buildable land outside the current urban growth boundaries.  While we were not the lead on this issue we worked with Oregonians in Action, Home Builders and the Oregon Realtors to try and help with it’s passage.  Unfortunately, after passing the House, the bill died on the Senate floor the last day of session

SB 611 is a bill which modifies the maximum annual residential rent increase to the lesser of 10% or 7% of the consumer price index and limits the increase to once per year. The bill passed and applies to rent increase notices given as of June 24^th, 2023.

SB 976 is a bill which sought to do away with the mortgage interest deduction. In short, this measure would have disallowed the deduction for a residence other than one’s principal residence unless they make more than $250,000 with a phase out for those making between $200,000-$250,000. The idea of doing away with this deduction is something we have fought each session for at least the last decade. There have been multiple attempts to either do away with the deduction altogether or to make some types of concessions like in this bill. Thankfully, the bill only got an initial hearing and did not come up for a vote. We worked hard with several of our coalition partners (Realtors, Bankers, Home Builders, ETC.) and were able to kill SB 976. This bill or one like it will almost certainly be back for the February short session in 2024.

Should you have questions please feel free to reach out. It has been a pleasure representing OMBA for another session. You all are terrific to work with and your input is invaluable as we work to achieve the best outcomes possible on your behalf in Salem. The Government Affairs committee works extremely diligently to get though all the legislation we track for you and our hats go off to each of them! On the following report it will list all legislation we tracked this session with a summary of the bill and the history of what happened to it during the session.