SALEM, Ore. — Oregon lawmakers wrapped up the legislative session and went home last week, but the to-do list for 2016 will be shaped from the ruins of this year’s failed legislation.
Among the issues certain to rise is the transportation-funding plan fizzled this year, and universities desire for more money. An affordable housing bill got lost in the end-of-session shuffle. Also, labor groups are pushing to hike the minimum wage.
Lawmakers meet for only five weeks during election years, so much of the work to prepare for the 2016 session will take place in the coming months.
Business and labor interests have pushed the state for years to approve a plan for road and bridge construction. Funding for a new Interstate 5 bridge across the Columbia River was approved in 2013, but the plan fell apart when Washington state failed to approve its half of the funding.
This year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, working with Gov. Kate Brown, negotiated a proposal that included hikes in the gas tax, vehicle registration fees and other taxes to pay for construction of roads, bridges, mass transit and airports. But it fell apart over a dispute about greenhouse gas emissions.
The desire for a new plan won’t fizzle.
“Getting a transportation package is still a very high priority,” said Duncan Wyse, president of the Oregon Business Council. “Roads are congested, in disrepair and we are not prepared for a major earthquake. The situation will only get worse, and more expensive to fix, the longer we wait.”
Still, raising taxes in an election year may be too politically perilous for lawmakers to tackle. And it’s not clear that that the impasse over greenhouse gas emissions can be resolved. Brown has said the issues should be “decoupled,” and Republicans have said they shouldn’t be. The issue may not be resolved until the 2016 election, when voters are likely to be asked to repeal the low-carbon fuel standard.
“It takes a lot of dialogue to build a transportation package,” House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said last week. “So whether that’s ’16 or ’17, I’m open to the discussion. We’ll have to see how it goes.”
While lawmakers couldn’t resolve their differences over transportation, they did support a big increase in higher education funding. The seven universities got a 28-percent boost, bringing their funding close to the level it was at in 2007, but still $55 million less than what they wanted.
In a joint statement, the presidents of the seven universities said the increase will make a big dent in college costs, but they’ll be back in February “for additional support to further reduce the tuition burden.”
Universities had hoped their budget would include an automatic increase next year if the state’s finances stay on track, but lawmakers did not give it. The Legislature’s top budget writers — Sen. Richard Devlin and Rep. Peter Buckley — say they want to see how the universities use this year’s increase. They’ve directed administrators to focus the money on initiatives that help students complete school on time.
Several other issues that were discussed but not approved are also likely to return next year.
Moments before lawmakers adjourned the session Monday, the Senate approved a bonding package with more than $60 million to tackle rising rent prices, largely by building subsidized apartments. But they did not approve a separate bill that sets up the legal framework for spending the money,
Left-leaning interest groups are pushing to raise the minimum wage, but several bills going as high as $15 an hour died in committees for lack of sufficient support. The groups are now pursuing a ballot measure that would set a $15 statewide wage floor, potentially creating pressure for lawmakers to adopt a smaller hike or allow cities like Portland to go higher than the statewide minimum of $9.25 per hour.
