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News Release
Contact: Robin Maxey June 30, 2011
(503) 986-1605
robin.maxey@state.or.us
Senate President: 2011 Session Accomplishments
Extend Beyond Education, Health Care Reforms
(SALEM) – Senate President Peter Courtney said Thursday the 2011 legislative session – Oregon’s first annual session – will be remembered for the evenly-divided House of Representatives; overcoming severe budget challenges and the transformational changes lawmakers made to healthcare and education.
“This Legislature achieved remarkable things, which hadn’t been accomplished in decades,” Courtney said. “From redistricting to updating the bottle bill, Legislators didn’t sit on the sidelines. Nobody got everything they wanted. Where we could find consensus, we took action. Where we struggled, we still moved the ball forward.”
Evenly divided House
Courtney praised the work of Co-Speakers Arnie Roblan and Bruce Hanna who presided over an evenly divided House and said willingness of lawmakers to work with members of both parties and both chambers contributed to the success of the session.
“These are unbelievably partisan times in our country. Oregon lawmakers in both the House and Senate recognized the magnitude of the challenge created by an evenly divided chamber. They put aside their partisan differences and focused on getting the people’s work complete,” said Courtney, who presided over an evenly divided Senate in 2003.
Top accomplishments
The Senate President said the list of legislative accomplishments doesn’t end with the creation of an insurance marketplace that will provide 350,000 Oregonians with access to affordable, quality health care; and critical reforms that will change the way education is financed and governed from early childhood learning to post graduate studies.
Other significant accomplishments in the 2011 session include:
· Expansion of Oregon’s landmark bottle bill to include more beverage containers and create regional redemption centers;
· Reforms that will allow the state’s universities the autonomy to better serve students and operate more efficiently;
· Additional education reforms which increase the state’s investment in early childhood education, remodel the state’s troubled system of Education Service Districts and encourage schools to offer full-day kindergarten;
· Creation of the Cool Schools program which will finance money-saving energy efficiency projects in Oregon classrooms and create thousands of jobs;
· Targeted land use law changes that will create jobs by streamlining the development of industrial lands;
· Expediting approval for linear projects like roads, extending water and sewer lines and construction of power lines for electricity distribution;
· Creation of a “One Stop Shop” Business Portal and Registry to help businesses start, expand, relocate, or operate in Oregon by providing easy access to important business registration information and resources in one place;
· Accountability reforms that change the way agencies evaluate staffing needs and require state agencies to report back the Legislature about progress made in response to official performance audits;
· And passage of both Legislative and Congressional redistricting plans for the first time in nearly a century.
Budget
Courtney said balancing the state budget in the face of $3.5 billion revenue shortfall was a remarkable achievement which shouldn’t be overlooked.
“We kept funding for K-12 schools stable. We did the best we could to protect our seniors and the disabled. We managed to keep the bad guys behind bars and our state police on the road,” Courtney said.
Annual sessions
The 76th Oregon Legislative Assembly adjourned its odd-year session Thursday after just 153 days (including the 3 organizational days in January), equaling the shortest regular session since 1971. By comparison, both the 2003 and 2005 sessions lasted for more than 200 days and sessions have averaged 192 days since 1999.
Courtney said much of the credit for the shorter session goes to Oregon voters who approved moving to annual sessions in Measure 71 in 2010.
“Annual sessions created a different mindset,” Courtney said. “We know we’re coming back for 35 days starting in February 2012. We know we can adjust the budget. We know we can tackle new challenges. We know the February session gives us another chance to reach the finish line on issues we couldn’t settle in this session.”