Oregon's 2020 Legislative Session: Stalled by Senators Walkout

Introduction & Background:

The Oregon State Legislature meets full time only every other year. On off-years, the Oregon House and Senate are in session for an abbreviated 5-weeks. This year, the short session is February 3 – March 8, 2020. There are over 100 bills before the two houses, including a ban on flavored vape products, gun storage safety, increasing the numbers of state police officers, and many others. Some of these bills will more directly affect you depending on what part of Oregon you live in. There are resources and links below that will help you find your representative and senator and see which bills they are sponsoring and/or voting for and against.

Meanwhile, one major bill – SB1530 (Senate Bill 1530) – threatens to stall out the legislative session entirely because state Republican senators have begun another walkout to keep it from coming to a vote. SB1530 is called a “cap-and-trade” bill, and proposes to slowly curb carbon emissions from industries over the next twenty years by charging them to have permits for those emissions. The industries can “trade” their emissions permits with other companies if they want to – so that the overall cap on emissions stays the same. Industries can trade amongst themselves if they need more or fewer emissions permits.

The Republican walkout will deny the state senate a quorum. A quorum is a minimum number of senators that must be present for votes to be held. According to current Oregon Senate rules, that must be 2/3 of the senators. Currently, though the Democratic Party holds a majority in the Senate, it does not have a 2/3 majority, so if all the Republican senators refuse to show up, no votes can be cast. The bill that prompted the walkout is a climate change bill that has seen numerous changes since it was the focus of a Republican walkout during the last legislative session in the summer of 2019. The Republican senators also vow to leave the state so that they cannot be compelled to attend the Senate session (if they stay in the state, state police could legally compel them to return to the Capitol). Their absence will also keep the other bills before the Senate from being passed.

Essential Questions:

Do you believe it is effective to have a short 5-week session for the Oregon state legislature every other year? Why or why not?
Which bills currently before the Oregon legislature appeal most to you / do you hope gets passed, and why?
Why is SB1530, the Cap and Trade Climate bill, so controversial in Oregon?
What other solutions do you think the state legislature could propose to protect Oregon’s climate and/or limit pollution?
Do you believe it’s an effective action to walkout (leave the state) if your political party is in the minority and you want to stop a bill from passing by the majority?
What do you believe is the most effective way Oregonians can impact our state legislature’s decisions around climate change?