Special Un-Urgency Legislative Session

The experimental off-year Legislative session was designed to show us what to expect from annual sessions. It did. Same old, same old. There was, of course, no “emergency” in the usual sense of the word, “a crisis” This special rump session was just like the biennial session, but with fewer frayed tempers from hot weather in July and August. To call the results “competent” is an example of defining success downward.

Sone nice and non-controversial measures did pass; making dog-fighting a felony, for example.
But some things we might think of as needing an emergency session–like say, the mortgage meltdown which will rock the economy in 6 months as both sub-prime borrowers are foreclosed and lots of unlucky folks who purchased in 2007 go upside-down in their conventional mortgages in overbuilt subdivisisions–were left undone. That relief package died by lobbyist. Its failure did nothing for the reputations of Speaker Jeff Merkley and Sen. Ben Westlund in their quests for statewide voter support.

As Rep. Larry Galizio (D Tigard) explained over on Blue Oregon :

"* * * the bill was actively opposed by the very consumer groups that worked the hardest to get mortgage lending reform this session. All legislators received an email from AARP opposing the bill; additionally, OSPIRG was essentially neutral, if not hostile to the bill. And Our Oregon (which walked out of the mortgage work group months earlier) came out with tepid support at the eleventh hour."

"* * * the bill l was a last-minute watered-down collection of "reforms." This doesn't mean that it was completely useless, but the benefits were outweighed by the costs of passing the bill."

A fundamental problem is the picture of the Leg buffeted by events and with issue attention deficit disorder. Worried about the November election, noise from the rightwing, and some allegations from somebody in the Bush Justice Department (oxymoron alert there) about terrorists and Oregon being the a phony drivers license hub, the Dems changed position on licensing requirements.

The Leg got pushed around by a rich guy (Kevin Mannix’s initiative moneybags) into referring a property crimes measure to voters in an effort to stave off a worse property crimes initiative. Then it was pushed around by a really rich guy (Phil Knight) to go forward with floating $200 million in bonds (regardless of bond market upheaval) in state-backed bonds for the U of O basketball arena. Maybe U of O really needs a new arena, but where was the long range planning and priority setting for the university system?