Introduction. The corporate kicker is gone for the year. Health benefit plans (insurance & medical providers) will be required to provide birth control pills regardless of age and religious affiliation. School districts will be forced to buy State level medical insurance. Convicted criminals will have wider access to defense services. None of these were favorable actions in my mind. Expect the cost of education, insurance, and doing business to rise in Oregon as a result of these bills and new laws.
Consent Calendar & Floor Votes. Twenty-three bills passed in the House this week. In addition to the above, these bills pertained to Cancer Awareness Month, children’s medical expenses, farm use of all-terrain vehicles, fire service professionals attending DPSST training, commission budgets, pre-1977 school buses, and mixed income housing.
Committees. Veterans Committee worked on bills related to veteran funeral expenses, hunting licenses for disabled veterans, property tax exemptions, military healthcare issues. Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee worked on bills related to island annexation, expanding timber harvests on state lands, smoke management, forest fire protection, and the Oregon Forest Practices Act.
Legislature 101. HB 2702 and HB 2031 which took away this year’s $290 million dollar corporate kicker, placing it into a rainy day fund, passed the Senate this week. The Governor announced he planned to sign it into law. In order to force a vote in the Senate, the House Democratic Leadership kept SJR 3, SB 48 and SB 549 on the daily House calendar every day this week. Had HB 2702 and HB 2031 not passed the Senate, the House would have referred the corporate kicker to the May 15th ballot for a vote by the citizens. Instead of this political blackmail, it would have been preferable to let the citizens of Oregon decide this constitutional issue.
Citizens can track bills and measures on www.leg.state.or.us .
Representative Brian Boquist represents rural portions of Yamhill, Polk, Benton, Linn and Marion County. He serves as a minority member of the Veterans, and Agriculture Natural Resources Committees.