This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

If you want to know what’s going on in the Oregon Legislature, just go to Oregon Public Broadcasting’s (OPB) website.

There, you will find all the information from one of Oregon’s best journalism sites.

OPB was a former client of mine and it still is represented by my old firm, now called CFM Advocates. 

So, am I biased?  Yes.  And with good reason.

Such was the case yesterday as I read a story by two OPB reporters, Lauren Dake and Dirk VanderHart.  It was a great story on the status of the Oregon Legislature, which is meeting at the Capitol for its “long session,” one scheduled every other yearsl

Under this subhead, here are excerpts of what the two reporters wrote, Housing and semiconductors have largely united lawmakers so far this year. More fraught discussions are coming:

• Urged by Governor Tina Kotek, the Democrat-controlled Legislature wasted no time building a $200 million package aimed at easing the state’s dire housing crisis, especially for the homeless, a major plank in the new governor’s term as she took office last January.
• Spurred by federal deadlines, lawmakers also rushed to roll out the red carpet for new semi-conductor facilities.
• Taken together, the housing and semi-conductor bills may wind up becoming the shorthand by which the 2023 session is known years from now.  Halfway through the five-month session, they are, by far, the most consequential items to find their way to Kotek’s desk.

While lawmakers have so far avoided major fights, several issues remain on the table which could prompt political tension — gun regulations, abortion, transgender health care, and rent control.

Further, the elephant in the room, as is true in every legislative session, is the need to balance the two-year State of Oregon budget.  Note the word “balance.”

In contrast to the federal government, Oregon’s budget every cycle must contain equal amounts of revenue and expenses.  Lawmakers have yet to grapple seriously with this reality that could be far starker than the state has seen in years.  The final budget numbers won’t be known until May, when economists deliver a revenue forecast that will be used to build the final two-year spending plan.

Here are a few other nuggets from OPB’s story:

• Every week, Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, and Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, meet to discuss the week’s agenda. The regular conversations have done little to ease the tension between the two legislators in the upper chamber.
• In the session’s first 11 weeks, minority Republicans have refused to waive the constitutional requirement that bills be read in their entirety before a final vote on the Senate floor.  The move is one of the only options GOP lawmakers still have to leverage power given their minority status in both chambers, but so far it’s made seemingly little impact on what proposals live or die.  Democrats have said they will simply hold marathon floor sessions to pass their priorities – meetings dominated by a computer voice droning out bills line-by-line while senators mill around.
• On the top of Knopp’s list of legislation he’d like to kill:  A Democrat proposal to go farther on rent control. In 2019, Oregon became the first in the nation with statewide rent control.  The current law prohibits raising rent by more than 7 per cent per year, plus inflation.  With the recent spike in inflation, Democrats are pushing to further lower the cap.
• Perhaps the most emotionally-charged bill so far this session is a sweeping measure to guarantee access to abortion and gender-affirming care, the latter of which raises the political tender issue of transgender care.
• Over on the House side of the state Capitol, the relationships between legislative leaders feel easier.  “I think we have formed a friendship,” House Republican Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson said of her political dynamic with House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis.
• Along with abortion access, gun regulations are a perennial point of friction in Salem — and this year is no exception.  Democrats are moving along several fronts to expand the state’s requirements for gun ownership, and they often cite ongoing mass shootings occurring with regularity around the country as evidence tighter controls are needed.

So, legislators are a little more than halfway toward adjournment, which, by law, must occur in late June or early July.  The requirement to end the session is useful because it means disagreements just cannot go on and on.

When I was a state lobbyist, adjournment – it is called “adjournment sine die” – was day I looked forward to expectantly.  Actually, I pined for it.  Because it meant that my 14-16 hours days at the Capitol were done for another year.

That was good then.  And the end of the legislative session this year will allow those who care to get about the business of rating its performance.