In the not-so-old days, the Oregon legislature only met every two years. Now it convenes for a short session in even-numbered years, like 2024, and for a long session in odd-numbered years, like 2025.
Today the Salem City Club had a program that featured the Senate Democratic Majority Leader, Kayse Jama, and the House Republican Leader, Christine Drazan (she ran for Governor in 2022).
Christine Drazan and Kayse Jama
Jama, a Somali-American, spoke first. Due to his accent and use of a handheld microphone (a built-in microphone wasn't working) I had some difficulty in understanding him. So I'll use this as an excuse for any errors in what Jama said, along with my notoriously bad handwriting as I took notes.
He noted that Oregon faces a lot of challenges, including rising prices. Unity is needed. Citizens expect Democrats and Republicans to work together in the upcoming legislative session.
Protecting the rights of all Oregonians is a Democratic priority. So are building more affordable housing and dealing with homelessness, issues that obviously are related. Constructing infrastructure on land suitable for housing is needed: sewer, water, and such.
He doesn't think that public safety can be achieved by arresting our way out of crime. LGBTQ rights are important to assure. Collaboration between diverse interests will be needed to solve the state's problems. We need to work together and be kind to each other.
Drazan then described the Republican approach. The status quo isn't working. This is an opportunity to work across the aisle (Democrats control both the state House and Senate). She said that billions of dollars already have been spent on housing without a whole lot of results.
There are still too many people living on the streets. We need to try something different, a new strategy. We need to better understand the population we're serving, whether this be the homeless or students.
Oregon schools are falling behind on test scores. She urged that students be viewed as customers, putting them at the center of the conversation about education policies. Oregon's state budget is a moral document. The key question to be asked of programs is "Will it work?" Accountability measures are sorely needed.
In the Q&A part of the program, I asked about Oregon's land use program, saying that in states with strong land use rules, farm and forest land is better protected but affordable housing is lacking compared to states with weaker land use rules. So where is the balance to be struck?
Drazan said that since the passage of Oregon's pioneering land use program (in the early 1970s), more requirements keep being added. Carve-outs from the program occur for particular purposes, but she prefers a general revamping of the state's land use rules that would better balance economic vitality with protecting the environment.
Someone asked Drazan if she would take money away from public schools and give it to private schools. She said that she believes in public schools but wants a focus to return to individual students, as some students are not being served well. She favors a "yes, and" rather than an "either, or" approach to the public-private debate. We need to be more flexible with education.
After a questioner asked if the "kicker" should be done away with, Jama said that conversation is needed. Drazan gave a fairly intricate answer that, if I understood it correctly, basically said that if the legislature had been able to spend all of the revenue available in strong economic years, the state would be in worse shape now due to the need to either keep funding new programs during weak economic years, or eliminating them when times became tough.
(The kicker rebates money to taxpayers when revenues come in several percent more than what was projected by the state economist for the next two-year period.)
After the program ended I went up to Drazan, shook her hand, and told her, with a smile on my face, that I was pleased to hear a Republican say things that made quite a bit of sense to me. I also said that it was a pleasure to have she and Jama engage in this dialogue, as Democrats and Republicans don't do much of that in Washington D.C. these days.
Of course, after the meeting I told someone else that Republican politicians in Oregon are prone to appearing more moderate in public than they do in private, given our state's electoral leaning toward the Democratic Party. So I'll take a wait-and-see approach to how collaborative Republicans turn out to be in the 2025 legislative session.
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