Oregon lawmakers proposed hundreds of bills in the ‘short session.’ Many failed to pass

Dozens of proposals meant to address issues such as immigration, public health, education and economic issues died in committees, lacking, support, time or both

By Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

SALEM, Ore. -- Oregon lawmakers proposed hundreds of bills in the packed, five-week-long legislative session that wrapped on Friday, including dozens that failed to cross the finish line.

Many of the dead bills broadly directed state agencies to study specific issues. And some Republican-led proposals gained little traction among the legislature’s Democratic majority.

Multiple ambitious bills were watered down, some were gutted and left largely hollow or stuffed with new legislation, and others failed to move out of committees entirely. Advocates and lawmakers behind some high profile policy proposals that didn’t advance are vowing to reintroduce them in the longer legislative session next year or another future session. In the meantime, here’s a look at some of the noteworthy bills that didn’t make it this year.

Immigration

Oregon lawmakers opened the session with a promise to challenge the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. But not all of their efforts managed to clear both chambers and head to Gov. Tina Kotek’s desk.

Senate Bill 1563 would have empowered Oregonians to sue law enforcement agents who violate their rights under the Oregon Constitution. A similar measure in Illinois is being challenged by the Trump administration in federal court. Though Oregon’s bill didn’t pass, lawmakers did clear legislation that allows people to sue individuals who enter their property, including medical facilities or buildings, without a warrant signed by a judge.

One effort that would have allowed Kotek to withhold state payments to the Trump administration if the federal government failed to disburse court-ordered funds to the state failed to pass. Though House Bill 4143 cleared the House, the measure stalled in the Oregon Senate. Another bill that would have required contractors hired by state agencies, as well as state grant recipients, to promise they would not conduct transportation operations for federal deportation efforts died in the House.

Lawmakers also allowed a ballot-referral bill to die that would have asked Oregonians in the November 2026 election to ban “secret police.” Instead, they opted to pass House Bill 4138 which would allow people to sue law enforcement agencies who fail to comply with a newly passed bill prohibiting all law enforcement officers from wearing masks in most circumstances. Democrats say the measure has a greater chance of standing up in court given that it doesn’t discriminate against federal officers.

Senate Majority Leader Kayse Jama, D-Portland, told reporters on Friday that lawmakers would continue to strategize about how to further protect immigrants and refugees in the state. He suggested they would come back in the 2027 session with more responsive proposals.

“The reality is that we don’t know what the next year, next month, next week, is going to look like in terms of the Trump administration’s attacks on the immigrant, refugee community,” he said. 

Education and economy

Among the most ambitious proposals to die an early death was Senate Bill 1555, an attempt to overhaul the methodology used to figure out how much money the state sends to Oregon’s schools every two years. The effort led by Democrats did not have the buy-in of membership from both parties, who worried it was too much to take on during a short session. 

Republicans also offered some education proposals that failed to move forward, including a bill from Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, that would have allowed teachers to remove disruptive students from their classrooms and required students be held back if they couldn’t demonstrate grade-level proficiency in core subjects by third grade. Another Republican bill would have required the state to replicate recent federal tax code changes that allow individuals to write off a portion of private school tuition from their federal income taxes.

A proposal to reallocate a portion of the Oregon “kicker” tax refund to the state school fund didn’t make it far. Nor did another proposal to send the kicker to the state’s general fund. Another bill to raise the baseline estate tax threshold on dead Oregonians’ assets from $1 million to $2.5 million passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but died in the House after a public hearing.

And a bill spearheaded by a progressive Portland lawmaker seeking to revive a 2025 proposal to mandate Google and large tech companies pay damages to local news outlets for the content the tech companies aggregate at no cost died for the second year in a row. Sen. Khanh Phạm signaled that her proposal, which also involves the creation of a Civic Information Consortium partially funded with the damages payments, is likely to be reintroduced in 2027.

Public health

Sen. Lisa Reynolds, a pediatrician and Democrat from Portland, was behind many of the session’s biggest public health proposals.

She was successful in pushing legislation to guarantee vaccine access, but faced significant pushback on a bill to limit the amount of THC allowed in marijuana edibles sold in Oregon. Reynolds blamed it on lobbying from marijuana industry groups.

Reynolds also unexpectedly found herself as the face of the opposition to a bipartisan bill introduced by Drazan that would have blocked public health and harm reduction groups from handing out free hypodermic needles and syringes to drug users within 2,000 feet of schools or child care centers. Republicans tried and failed to force a vote on it in the Senate after it faltered in the Senate Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health.

Reynolds, who chairs the committee, wrote in her newsletter that she shared the bill authors’ concerns about needles near schools, but that she would be convening county and city leadership to find a solution.

“The bill in question would have essentially banned harm reduction in our state, a move that health experts know can put so many people at risk,” she wrote.

A bill to beef up Measure 114’s permit-to-purchase process for guns in Oregon that was passed by voters in 2022 was gutted after stiff opposition from Republicans in the Senate who were ready to walk out over it. Lawmakers opted instead to strip down the bill and solely focus on delaying implementation of the 2022 gun law until 2028. The move highlighted the delicate balancing act Democratic leadership faced in pushing through their priorities on a shorter time frame.

Lift Every Voice Oregon, the coalition of advocates who brought the gun measure to Oregon voters in 2022, said in a statement they “know that change can take a long time.”

They continued, “It has been too long already. But we will persevere.”

Governance

Lawmakers not for the first time attempted to take up an issue that has historically divided members on both sides of the aisle: bill limits. House Bill 4002 was another attempt by House Speaker Julie Fahey to limit lawmakers to no more than 25 proposals each during a long legislative session, and the governor and state agencies to no more than 200 combined aside from budgeting bills.

The proposal died in the House Rules Committee in the wake of heated opposition within and outside the Democratic Caucus. Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, resigned from his position as assistant majority leader over it, and it never received a committee vote after one public hearing.

House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, told reporters on Friday there is a “genuine effort” to support bill limits.

There's a bipartisan coalition in favor and a bipartisan coalition opposed, so the politics are a little funky, but there wasn't the support to move that bill this session.

– House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard

Another bill that would have made it a felony to threaten a public official or their family with the intent to cause alarm died in the House Rules Committee. Critics of the legislation warned it trampled on free speech rights and unfairly carved out special protections for elected officials, while ignoring the danger facing other public-facing professions.

Environment

The session was not rife with bills meant to protect the environment, but few of the bills that were proposed to spur more clean energy growth or tackle climate change moved forward. 

Phạm and Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland failed for the second year to pass a Climate Superfund Bill requiring the largest, most profitable oil and gas companies in history to pay damages for disasters fueled by climate change. Both failures came in the face of business and industry lobbyists convinced oil companies would raise gas prices to pay for it.

Bills that would allow Oregonians to use plug-in solar panels popular in Asia to power some of their home energy needs, and that would let home and building owners sell excess energy from solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles back to the electrical grid also failed to pass.