Dear Friends,
The Oregon Legislature adjourned “sine die” at 9:41 P.M., Friday, February 22nd ending the nineteen day of the special session of the 74^th Legislative Session.  Of the 109 bills introduced, 73 were passed and 36 failed.

Good Legislation
I believe we did pass some good legislation for Oregon including bills to support six of the eight House and Senate Republican priorities for the session.  We provided funding to begin to restore 24/7 State Police coverage (SB 5556) on our highways and additional funding for senior programs including the Oregon Project Independence (SB 5556) which allows our seniors to remain in their homes and receive health care.  Also, we passed legislation to secure Oregon driver’s licenses.  Oregon will now require applicants to provide proof of legal presence for driver’s licenses and ID cards (SB 1080).
We passed Republican priority legislation to protect Oregonians from predatory foreclosure scams (HB 3630), refunded the Big Look committee (SB 5556) to reform and update Oregon land use system, and we expanded water resources for Eastern Oregon agriculture and groundwater replenishment (SB 1069).
I was proud to carry and co-sponsor a bill (SB 1095) to keep major meth dealers behind bars.  The legislation increased the bond bail amount from $50,000 to $500,000.  Without this bill, a meth dealer could get out of jail on as little as $500 and again be selling meth to our children.
Friday was a long day and we passed several bills which were being held ‘hostage’ within each chamber as deals were made and failed. It was interesting that the deals were between Senate Democrats and House Democrats.

Lost Opportunities
I believe there was some missed opportunities.  For example, we learned that school districts were making secret deals with teachers who physically or sexually abused students.  The teachers were offered secret buy out deals and even remained in other Oregon school district, a practice called by the media “pass the trash.”  The House Democrat leadership refused to allow a Republican request for legislation to address this practice in the last days of the session.  We have now formed a bipartisan work group to study this problem and develop proposed legislation.  I will participate in this work group as vice chair of the House Education Committee.
Our request to hire a legislative auditor to monitor the performance and fiscal responsibility of state government was not supported by the Democrat leadership.  Then, despite a $2.9 billion increase in new revenue, the Democrats passed a huge budget with minimum reserves for the economic downturn we are now facing.  The economic forecast is now down about $200 million.  I believe to address this fiscal situation we should have asked state agencies to reduce their increased budgets by 5 % and halt the Governor’s plans to give huge pay raises to agency directors and state union workers.

Annual Session Test--Now What?
You the citizens will have to decide if Oregon needs annual sessions.  You will have to vote on changing the Oregon Constitution to allow the legislature to meet every year.  Our session was to address the most urgent bipartisan policy issues and adjust the budget if required to demonstrate to the people we could do this with the minimum of politics.  The Senate President decided to allow each Senator to introduce one bill and the Senate committees could introduce bills.  In the House, the Speaker only allowed the committees to introduce bills.  All the House Committees are chaired by Democrats.  Thus, the House Republicans were not allowed to introduce any bills.  Further, some bills were introduced in the House which only passed by party votes but they failed in the Senate.  Also, the Speaker did not allow alternative versions of bills (called minority reports) unless you have 31 votes – which is a majority of the membership and thus, they effectively silenced the voice of the majority.  I still do not understand this policy but since we did not introduce any “majority minority” reports, I guess the policy achieved the goals of erasing alternative versions of bills.  The Senate President did a good job of trying to make the session effective and efficient and I give him credit for his leadership.
Overall, I would grade our test with a C-.  We did pass some good legislation for Oregon but could have finished our work in much less time if the politics had been controlled better. Remember we do have one Legislative member running for US Senator and one for State Treasurer, and four for State Secretary of State.  Thus, I guess it was not possible to completely eliminate politics in the Capitol.

Josie and I are glad to be back home and meeting with constituents and local leaders on our issues and possible legislation in 2009.  It is an honor to serve (even if we do have to be in Salem every year) and I thank you for your trust.

Sincerely,
Gene Whisnant