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Governmental Affairs - State Issues
State Issues Archive
February 24th, 2008
Board weighs in on State Mental Hospital
The Salem Chamber took a pro-active stand in support of public safety as it pertains to the State Mental Hospital at their February meeting. As a result of the discussion, the following letter was sent to Salem area Legislators, Governor Ted Kulongoski, the Statesman Journal, and Salem City Councilors.
View the letter sent from the Chamber's Board of Directors
Contact your local Legislators about the State Mental Hospital issue
October 30th, 2007
Employment Law Changes - What you should know
Recently, Randall Sutton of Saalfeld Griggs joined the Salem Chamber's Governmental Affairs Team to share his insight on bills which have passed that will impact employers at the turn of the calendar year. View his recap of the bills businesses need to be aware of here.
October 9th, 2007
Salem Chamber takes stand on Measures 49 and 50
November’s ballot will feature two measures referred to voters by the Oregon Legislature. The Salem Chamber’s Governmental Affairs Team, after hearing arguments from proponents and opponents of both measures, recommended to the Board of Directors a position of opposition to both measures.
Measure 49: A legislative referral relating to compensation for loss of value of private property resulting from land use regulation and creates new provisions amending Measure 37 passed by Oregon voters in 2004.
Salem Chamber Position: Oppose
The motion to oppose Measure 49 was passed on a 13 -3 vote. The Chamber’s opposition is based on a flawed process that, once it was drafted, offered no public hearings or opportunity to improve the content in the over 20 page measure. The legislature failed to accomplish their job and come up with a bi-partisan solution to the Measure 37 issues. All legislative votes regarding Measure 49 were party line votes.
Measure 50: A legislative referral to amend the Oregon Constitution to provide dedicated funding for children’s health care and other health programs through an increase in the tobacco tax. The measure would raise the cigarette tax by 84.5 cents per pack to equalize it with the cigarette tax in the State of Washington. The measure would also raise the tax on cigars and other tobacco products.
Salem Chamber Position: OPPOSE based on strong opposition to amending Oregon’s Constitution for the purpose of implementing a tax. The motion to oppose was passed with a unanimous vote.
Putting a tax in Oregon’s Constitution is a dangerous precedent to set and creates an easy path for new taxes in the future. It takes a three-fifths majority to pass a tax in the Oregon Legislature but only a simple majority is required to put a tax in the Constitution.
Currently, 60,000 uninsured youth within Oregon are already eligible for programs funded by the state’s current system yet remain without health care. Government programs should first prove successful and efficient before requesting additional funds.
In addition, $65 million in revenue (based on total projected revenue from this new tax) is not dedicated to a specific health program and could be used for any purpose by the legislature. Also, there is no plan defined within the measure to sustain future financial funding. If revenues from the tax were to decline, the State would need to look at cutting other programs and services or find new revenue sources to sustain the new health programs created by the passage of this measure.
In the Chamber Board’s deliberation on both issues, great frustration was voiced regarding the legislature’s inability to provide the leadership needed to come up with good bi-partisan solutions. Both measures have enough flaws to warrant a strong statement from the people that poorly crafted measures are not the answer to important issues and that we expect the legislature to readdress these issues and do a better job.
September 6th, 2007
Sen.
Courtney and Reps. Komp, Cameron, and Clem give their perspectives on 2007
Legislative Session
The
September Governmental Affairs Forum at the Salem Chamber brought in another
full crowd interested in hearing from four of Salem's elected officials at
the state level. According to the legislators, the 2007 session
brought both accomplishments and challenges. Representative Clem focused on
some issues that could have negatively impacted agricultural businesses by
creating constraints on their operations. As a member of the Agriculture and
Natural Resources Committee, Clem said he fought to protect the rights of
those that produce natural resources within our state.
Senator Peter Courtney, President of the Oregon Senate, focused on a number of different issues including the promise of the Legislature to convene by the end of June. He also pledged his support for Measure 49, which is a revised version of issues that were never resolved regarding the rights of property owners through the approval of Measure 37 by Oregon voters.
"It's an extraordinary and well thought out measure," said Senator Courtney.
The Senate President also expressed disappointment in the Legislature's inability to act on Measure 50 during the session. The measure will now be decided by the voters of the state in November, which would extend health coverage to Oregon children through an increase in cigarette tax.
Representative Cameron shared his perspective on the sheer size of the State of Oregon budget including a analysis of the amount of money that will be spent per person based on decisions made in the 2007 session.
"We will spend $13,715 on average per person, $790 per person going to public safety, $1453 per person going to economic development, $994 per person going to transportation, $3,890 going to education, and $3,400 going to human services."
Cameron also noted that the Legislature had a
total of 4.85 billion more revenue this session than in the 2005 session
when combining general fund, lottery fund, and federal dollars.
Representative Betty Komp focused on the issues revolving around increased funding for schools and accountability she feels needs to exist.
"We're spending an additional $1 billion on education this year compared to last session without an increase in accountability," said Komp.
Komp also expressed concern about the State taking care of seniors and providing adequate funding to expand the congested Woodburn interchange.
To contact your Legislators, click here for contact information.
5/2/07
- Flaws in System Lead to Blemished Bills
Written by Tom Hughes, Mayor of
Hillsboro
How do bad laws get passed? How does a legislative session that started with so much promise begin to seep away into just "more of the same"? Is there any reason to have any hope things will get better? A quick look at HB 2944 might give us an answer to all three questions.
HB 2944 is a bill that expands the definition of a "public works project." By doing so, it sucks many more projects into the bureaucratic maw of prevailing wage administered by the Bureau of Labor and Industries.
It passed the Oregon House of Representatives by a 40 to 19 vote. HB 2944 is a bad bill and should never have gotten four votes, let alone 40. It is a gift to the building trade unions and Oregon's increasingly out-of-touch and myopic labor commissioner, Dan Garner.
What it means for Hillsboro and other communities around the state is important projects needed to refresh aging downtowns will simply not go forward. It doesn't add efficiencies; all it does is add red tape.
How can anyone think that is a good law? It is bad for the community and even for the workers who could have worked on those projects at a fair, family wage that might be a few cents an hour shy of the legally mandated prevailing wage. So how did it pass?
The reality is bad bills pass because of the flawed caucus system that exists in the Legislature. Each caucus, Democrats and Republicans, wants to be the majority. Each caucus has its own group of special interests that financially support that endeavor in order to gain something when their side wins.
In the case of the Democrats, those interests include unions. As one local official was told by her representative about his yes vote on HB 2944, "The unions supported me, and I'm going to support the unions."
In fact, as a life-long Democrat and a former union member, I had hoped things would get better under the Democrats than under the Republicans.
Things have not gotten universally better. In fact, in cases like HB 2944, rather than getting better they have just gotten different: a different group of special interests who must be paid back for political contributions during the election.
It makes one wonder, how long the local community will have to pay before our representatives' campaign debt is paid off.
What gives me hope is our newest representative, David Edwards, stayed the course and voted for his community instead of his political supporters. This is an act of courage and should be commended. His no vote said a lot about Rep. Edwards' willingness to listen to the local folks and consider the consequences of his actions and then vote for what was good for his community.
To the stand-pat, business-as-usual crowd that still runs the Legislature, Republicans and Democrats, you all need to dig out your Bob Dylan albums (I know you have them) and listen carefully: "Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand, cuz the times they are a changin'."
Tom Hughes is mayor of the City of Hillsboro.
Contact the Salem Chamber:
For additional information on the Chamber's business advocacy efforts, please contact Jason Brandt at 503-581-1466, ext. 304.