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• Redistricting/Prison Gerrymandering

• Broadband, Vote-by-mail, Privacy

• Elections

• Government Ethics

• Rulemaking

Redistricting/Prison Gerrymandering

HB 2250 was heard in House Rules 3/19. The League submitted written testimony. The federal Census Bureau unfortunately counts prisoners where they are incarcerated rather than where they reside. This inflates the population counts where prisons are located and deflates the population counts for prisoners’ residence districts. Therefore, the representation of these districts and jurisdictions is skewed. HB 2250 corrects this injustice by requiring that the Department of Corrections determine prisoner residence addresses, as best that it can, and give the addresses to Portland State University Population Research Center. The Center will then correct the population counts that it receives from the Census Bureau and provide the corrected counts to the Legislature, the Secretary of State, or the various other jurisdictions that perform redistricting. Some Rules committee members asked about students residing at college or patients in care institutions. However, college students and patients can choose where they want to reside and be registered to vote; prisoners have no choice and don’t get any representation from public officials where they are incarcerated. 

Broadband, Vote-by-mail, Privacy

By Becky Gladstone

• HB 3228 had a public hearing March 2, with League verbal and written testimony presented with committee permission by two League members together, Rebecca Gladstone in support of this bill’s cybersecurity insurance study and resilience fund, welcoming new League advocate Lindsay Washburn, who added significant AI modification comments.

• HB 2581 passed a Senate work session with one excused, on March 18, to coordinate expanded resiliency services with the State Resiliency Officer (SRO), League testimony in support.

• SB 473, to create a crime of threatening a public official, will have a first work session on April 2, see verbal and written League testimony in support.  

• HB 3148 has a work session scheduled for March 26, to extend broadband funding. We support equitable statewide broadband as a fundamental need, signing group letters for HB 3148 (2025) and HB 3201 Enrolled (2023).

• HB 2341, had a Senate side work session, March 20, passing with one excused, to add veterans’ email addresses to shared information, League testimony in support.

Watching

SB 1121: We will speak to this bill which creates the crime of unlawful disclosure of private information, with a public hearing and possible concurrent work session vote on April 8.

Elections

By Barbara Klein

The Open Primaries amended bill HB 3166-2, which LWVOR strongly supported in its original form, had a hearing on March 19th in the House Rules Committee (video can be seen here around minute 19). LWVOR submitted testimony as a neutral comment, neither in support nor opposition. LWVOR strongly supports the idea of “unified” primaries, but the amended bill contains points we have historically not supported (specifically a top-two election system). There was much interest in the bill both in support (especially to encourage youth and independent voters) and in opposition (regarding protection of parties, although much of that was directed toward the original bill).

Government Ethics

By Chris Cobey

SB 983 permits local public officials to participate, discuss, debate and vote on the adoption of a local budget that includes compensation for the public official or one of their relatives. This is a clear conflict of interest for a local official and should be avoided. However, we can understand that in small jurisdictions it can be awkward when some members cannot vote. The bill is supported by the Oregon School Boards Association and the League of Oregon Cities.

HB 2330 A would establish a 21-member Task Force on Law Enforcement Interdiction Against Financial Scams on Older Oregonians. The bill passed out of the House Commerce and Consumer Protection committee 3/4 on a 10 to 0 vote and is now in the Ways and Means committee.

Rulemaking

By Peggy Lynch

The League continues to follow the bills listed on the March 17 agenda of the Senate Committee On Rules since some of the bills relate to the process of rulemaking. After legislation is passed, agencies are required to implement those laws. That action often requires rulemaking to clarify the details around that implementation. But the League is concerned when legislators “get a second bite at the apple” by relitigating the legislation when rulemaking is only meant to implement, not change policies.  

Separately, the League was invited to a conversation among state agency rules staff on addressing concerns of the Governor and in an attempt to standardize the process statewide. The Governor has provided Rulemaking Guidance to state agencies:

• This document includes questions received from agencies since the Governor’s letter

• This document includes additional resources for agencies including direction to post updates to the Transparency site, a website template that agencies can use (if they choose) to develop their pages, and links to other comprehensive agency rule making sites to review.   

The League will also attend a separate rules process discussion being led by the Dept. of Land Conservation and Development. See the Land Use section for more information on this issue. 

We continue to watch a series of bills related to rulemaking which we might oppose: HB 2255, HB 2303, HB 2402 and HB 2427.  We are also concerned with HB 3382, since the requirements of the Secretary of State to gather ALL the state agencies’ rulemaking, including all materials would be overwhelming. Individual state agencies provide that information on their rulemaking websites.  We may sign on to a letter explaining our concerns to legislative leadership.  

Because the League is often engaged in rulemaking, we regularly comment on legislation that would affect changes in Oregon’s current Administrative Rules. We have provided testimony in opposition to HB 2692, a bill that would create complicated and burdensome processes for agencies to implement legislation with their rulemaking procedures. 

Interested in reading additional reports?  Please see our Climate Emergency, Natural Resources, and Social Policy report sections.