Biz group abandons effort to overturn school funding package

(Update: Adding Oregon Education Assn. news release)

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon business group says it will no longer try to overturn an education tax package meant to provide a $1 billion funding increase to the state’s public school system.

Oregon Manufacturers & Commerce said in a statement Tuesday the group has abandoned efforts to send the school funding package to the voters to potentially overturn during a special election. The law — signed by Gov. Kate Brown earlier this year — is expected to bring in billions of dollars of new revenue for schools through a half a percent tax on the state’s wealthiest businesses.

The group said lawmakers made it difficult to put the issue to the ballot by changing the date of a potential special election from next November to this coming January.

Jim Green, executive director of the Oregon School Boards Association, said the announcement “moves us one step closer to ensuring that this vital investment in our young people will become a reality.”

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Full statement from Oregon Manufacturers & Commerce:

How lawmakers made referral of the hidden sales tax virtually impossible

Dear Friends and Supporters:

Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers approved HB 3427, which established a $2.8 billion hidden sales tax in our state. Our association vigorously opposed this legislation, as gross receipts taxes have a disproportionately negative impact on the manufacturing industry. We also believe that the Legislature’s decision to pass a gross receipts tax after Oregon voters overwhelmingly rejected such a tax at the ballot in 2016 represented a disservice to the people they were sworn to represent.

Following passage of HB 3427, OMC took the lead in organizing a prospective referral of the new tax. From the moment we filed this paperwork, we were overwhelmed by the response we received from everyday Oregonians and employers who do business in this state. People are extremely concerned about what this new tax increase will mean for their family budgets and for the financial viability of their businesses.

Unfortunately, lawmakers supportive of the new tax took several steps in the final days of the legislative session that rigged the referral process in their favor and forced us to reevaluate the viability of efforts.

SB 761
Lawmakers made it significantly more difficult to gather the required number of signatures necessary to put a referral on the ballot by prohibiting the distribution of electronic petition signature sheets or “e-sheets.” E-sheets have been used by countless initiative campaigns and, according to the Secretary of State, have a higher signature validity rate than traditional signature sheets. Despite their effectiveness (or perhaps because of), lawmakers chose to severely undercut our ability to gather signatures via e-sheets, making the referendum process significantly more time-consuming and expensive.

SB 116
Lawmakers took additional steps to compromise the integrity of the citizens’ referral process by passing SB 116. This legislation moved the date of the referral election to January of 2020 instead of November of 2020, leaving us significantly less time to raise the money needed to run an effective campaign. SB 116 also put lawmakers in charge of drafting the ballot title language and explanatory statements for our referral. The legislation specifically states that the committee in charge of drafting these statements will be made up of a deciding-majority of Democratic lawmakers. In other words, the lawmakers who supported HB 3427 would be put in charge of drafting the language voters would read before casting their votes. That’s the legislative equivalent of a football coach rewriting the rules of the game in a way that gives his team the biggest advantage possible.

HB 2164
Because HB 3427, the original gross receipts tax bill, contained several serious flaws, lawmakers were forced to pass a “fix it” bill later in the session. HB 2164 was the vehicle for these fixes and included changes to a portion of HB 3427 that we included in our referral effort. We’ve had our attorneys analyze what HB 2164 means for our referral effort and they concluded we would likely need to refer HB 2164 in addition to HB 3427 in order to achieve our desired outcome, meaning we would need to gather signatures for two referrals at the same time. But here’s the kicker: the referral of HB 2164 would appear on the November 2020 ballot while the referral of HB 3427 would appear on the January 2020 ballot, meaning we would have to run two successful campaigns in the same year to overturn the gross receipts tax.

We’re extremely disappointed that lawmakers went to such great lengths to hamstring our referral efforts, but the reality is that they have rigged the system so far in their favor that our chances of success at this point are very remote. Though we will not be moving forward with the referral effort, we will continue to explore opportunities to minimize the negative impacts of this new tax on Oregonians by any means possible, including through legislative action or a potential initiative in a future election.

Sincerely,

Oregon Manufacturers & Commerce

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News release from the Oregon Education Association:

Education investments safe from threats

Today’s announcement that opponents of the Student Success Act will not threaten education investments at the ballot is being celebrated by students, families, and educators across the state.

“This means that our kids’ lives will be better and we can give each student what they deserve,” says John Larson, high school English teacher and president of the Oregon Education Association. “They will have smaller class sizes, more individualized attention, critical programs like art, music, and PE, and access to so many more elements of a quality education.”

“Educators and public school families now will have the certainty they need and students deserve. This is very good news for Oregon.”

The Student Success Act, passed by lawmakers this year, will send $2 billion to Oregon classrooms in January to lower class sizes and fund promised increases in mental health counselors, early childhood learning programs, career technical education, art and PE.