Central Oregon Politics and Policy

Democrats are pulling out what one lawmaker called “the silver bullet.”

The legislative session is expected to last only a couple more weeks, and the political maneuvering has kicked into high gear.

Today, House Democrats filed three “discharge” petitions. Such petitions are a way to allow a bill to bypass a committee and go directly to the House floor for a vote. The petition needs 31 signatures from lawmakers to move to a full vote by the split 30-30 House.

The petitions are used when committee co-chairs, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, can’t agree to give a bill a hearing.

Democrats are hoping to get the following three bills around the Republican committee co-chairs who are blocking them:

Senate Bill 742: The so-called tuition-equity bill, which would allow illegal immigrant students who have attended Oregon schools for a certain period of time the chance to attend an Oregon university and pay in-state tuition. Currently, these students are considered out-of-state residents and must pay thousands more to attend university.

Senate Bill 601: Would name a National Guard armory after former Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

House Bill 2524: This bill would ensure that wages paid to construction workers in enterprise zones meet the prevailing wage standard.

Unmanned drones got one step closer to circling the Central Oregon skies after senators agreed to urge Congress to hurry up and approve the process allowing them to be tested over the High Desert.

Roger Lee, executive director with Economic Development for Central Oregon, said he’s hoping this could help make Central Oregon ” a national testing area in the unpopulated desert.”

House Joint Memorial 20 passed the Senate floor Tuesday. It has already passed the House. The city of Bend and Economic Development for Central Oregon have been pushing the idea. Supporters believe opening the airspace would bring jobs to Central Oregon. Those against the Federal Aviation Administration taking that step point out that drones are often used in combat zones.

The aerial drones would circle above portions of Deschutes, Crook, Harney and Lake counties.

Gov. John Kitzhaber is throwing his weight behind a bill that would give tribal police officers more authority off reservations.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a vocal proponent in getting Senate Bill 412 passed.

But the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association has been as vocal in their opposition.

The governor wrote in a letter he thinks the bill will improve public safety in Oregon. He said the state just celebrated the fifteenth anniversary that formalized the relationship the state has with the nine federally recognized tribes. The governor’s letter continued, “It is clear today that we must work  together to develop mutual respect for the sovereign interest of the tribes and the state of Oregon.”

The Sheriff’s Association said the bill would give tribal cops too much power, making them the most powerful cops in the state because tribal cops would be able to go off tribal lands but non-tribal cops would not have any authority on the reservation.

Their biggest problem with the bill has been the issue of reciprocity. Nontribal officers want more rights on tribal lands. Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, addressed that issue on Thursday when the Senate Rules Committee voted the bill out of committee. It now heads to the full Senate for a vote.

Ferrioli said what makes this issue so interesting is tribal members have citizen rights in tribal areas, and they are also citizens of the state of Oregon, but non-Indians  do not have  rights on tribal land.

“We have certain limitations relative to nations within a nation,” Ferrioli said on Thursday. “It’s not within legislative authority to convey certain police powers on Indian lands. It is not within our powers to do so.”

Since the beginning of the session, some lawmakers have said Oregon’s 40-year-old bottle bill – the first in the nation – has been showing signs of age.

After a vote on the Senate floor this morning, it looks like the bottle bill could get its first face-lift.

The Senate approved House Bill 3145 on Wednesday.

“Like a lot of us who hit middle age, we have to adjust with the times, yet we have to stay true to who we are. The Bottle Bill is not just words on paper. It is a symbol of what it means to be an Oregonian,” said Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton.

Here are the overhaul highlights:

The new bill would expand the deposit to cover more beverage containers.

It will increase the deposit from 5 to 10 cents, if the redemption rate is below 80 percent for two years and no sooner than 2017.

And it creates a pilot project for a large redemption center, larger than what is currently allowed under law.

The bill now heads to the governor’s desk for his signature.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, said the e-mail he sent Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, was “unfortunate.”

“I said those things when I was angry,” Greenlick said.

Greenlick was pushing to make jory soil the state’s official soil. Telfer, along with several state senators, voted the measure down.  It finally passed on Monday but Telfer stood by her vote.

Jory soil is predominantly found in the Willamette Valley.

“Jory soil, I believe, represents a small part of the state, it doesn’t represent the east side of the mountains,” Telfer said. “On the east side, people are sick of people from the Valley running the show, dictating what the state is or what it represents. It’s not representative of the entire state of Oregon.”

Beyond voting the measure down in the earlier vote, a heated debate surrounded the measure and its chief sponsor – Greenlick.

It prompted Sen. Larry George, R-Sherwood, to release a statement about Greenlick and his personality, summing up the debate with, “One member has hijacked the entire process by holding good policy bills hostage, all to demand passage of a pet bill with zero policy impact.”

Greenlick’s e-mail to Telfer told her he would do everything he could to kill a bill she’s pushing. That bill would help create a pilot program in Central Oregon to facilitate a regional health council.

Greenlick has since back pedaled.

“I was never going to kill it,” he said.

He said he had worked hard for  Telfer on her bill.

“It hurt that something important to me was being laughed off,” he said.

There was a lot of talk of marijuana at the Capitol on Thursday.

The same day lawmakers debated the future of Oregon’s Medical Marijuana Act, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that judges can’t deny medical marijuana users concealed handgun permits.

Leland Berger was the attorney who represented the medical marijuana users at the court and he testified Thursday telling lawmakers their proposed changes to the act should be reconsidered.

“Please kill this bill,” he said. “This is a bill that shouldn’t go anywhere.”

The bill, House Bill 3664, would give the Oregon State Police a database of medical marijuana growers. It would also limit the number of people from four to two that growers can provide medical cannabis to.

In 2000, there were about 600 Oregonians with medical marijuana cards. In 2005, there were 13,055. This year, there are 38,269 medical marijuana cardholders in Oregon, according to information from the Department of Human Services, which runs the program.

Voters approved the program in 1998.

There are two newly established cannabis  clubs in Bend, the Central Oregon Alternative Therapy Club and the Herb Center.

Taylor Westlund, 18, remembers when her father would leave their Tumalo home and head for Salem.

He would take off down their long driveway, stop at the high point, get out and wave. Then, he would hit his brakes as he made his way toward the road. That way, his children and wife knew as they saw the red lights, he was thinking of them as he headed back to the state Capitol.

“I could see him all the way down the driveway, his brakes flashing,” Taylor Westlund said.

The longtime lawmaker and former state treasurer Ben Westlund died in March 2010 after a battle with lung cancer. On Monday, a bill to honor him, which the entire Legislature signed, passed the Senate. Westlund’s family, his wife, Libby, his two children, his two brothers and their wives, were at the Capitol for a ceremony honoring Westlund.

Representatives and senators packed the governor’s ceremonial office taking turns speaking to the family.

For his children, both said it reaffirmed what they had always been told about their father: that he was well liked. Lawmakers told stories of a man who liked people and who talked to everyone.

His wife and high school sweetheart, Libby, said her husband knew lobbyists, staffers, interns. He talked to the custodians, and the officers.

She said he was also a jokester. He became friends with the electrician and once rewired the voting buttons on the floor. So, if a lawmaker thought he or she was voting ‘no’ Westlund had rewired the buttons turning it into a ‘yes’ vote.

B.J. Westlund, 23, who recently graduated from University of Portland, remembers being in the Capitol late at night with his father. With hardly anyone around, the two would slide down the long marble banisters together.

B.J. said when his father was away, he would call home every night at 8 p.m.

Libby broke into tears when she thanked everyone for coming.

“He loved working with all of you, even when you disagreed with him,” she said.

But she prompted a laugh when she followed with “even though of course, you were wrong.”

“He would have been so touched by all of this,” she said.

Even as partisan sniping breaks out the Capitol, the two major parties will make political peace in Bend – if only temporarily – by fielding a mixed group of Democratic and Republican senators in the Pole, Pedal, Paddle race.

The team name: Capitol Punishment. Organized by Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, for the second year in a row, it will field four Democrats and three Republicans in the May 21 race.

State Sen. Chris Telfer

Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland – a former journalist who coined the team name last year- will ride the 22-mile cycling leg; Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, will handle the downhill skiing; Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, will handle the cross-country skiing; Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, will run the 10K leg; Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River, will paddle a canoe for the Deschutes River leg; and Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem — a 66-year-old fitness zealot –will “sprint” a half mile to the finish line, according to Telfer’s news release. Telfer will serve as honorary captain.

Telfer said that the team has had one meeting over beers and agreed to try to finish in 2 hours and 15 minutes. But forget about comparing measurable outcomes on a year-to-year basis – a popular topic of legislative debate. Someone asked how the team did last year, Telfer said, and “nobody could remember.”

House Democratic Leader Dave Hunt, of Gladstone, said he’s using his “silver bullet” to force a hearing tomorrow on the controversial tuition-equity bill.

The bill would allow undocumented students to attend universities in Oregon at the same tuition as Oregon residents. Now,  students, some of whom have attended kindergarten through 12th grade in Oregon, are considered out-of-state residents and must pay accordingly to attend universities in Oregon.

Each co-chair of a committee can schedule a hearing for a bill without the consent of the co-chair. All committees in the House this session are evenly split between the two parties. The House Rules Committee has been been hearing several education-related bills after the House Education Committee stopped meeting because of  partisan gridlock.

The tuition-equity bill has caught the attention of many Central Oregon constituents. Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, who voted against it in the Senate, said it’s one of the bills that generated the most attention from constituents.

And Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, said during his town hall meeting in Prineville he had to correct people that the bill would not allow the students to attend schools for free, but instead for less money. McLane also said he does not support the bill.

Hunt is hoping by forcing a hearing on the bill, he can get it out of committee and to the House floor for a vote.