Please see Governance Overview here.

Jump to a topic:

• From Interim

• Relating to Federal Laws

• Elections

• Consumer and Other Protections

• Ethics

• Resilience

Catch up on interim news and highlights of some of the 40 governance bills we've identified, out of 700 bills so far this session. We’re preparing testimony for seven of them in the session’s first two days so expect more individual reports next week. Many governance bills will be in committees not limited by 10-day advancement time constraints (e.g. Rules, Ways and Means). Either way, short session wrap is March 9^th. Consider signing up to help, lwvor@lwvor.org.

Please see LWVOR Legislative Reports and subscribe to our weekly email LR summaries, starting again in February 2026.

From Interim

Oregon AG action AG Rayfield testified to Interim Senate Rules on many issues. See his response at 34.46 minutes in the hearing video for the next big hurdles for Oregon, and as a country, His highest concern is protecting the integrity of our elections, closely followed by trust in government and in our judicial system, for a strong democracy.

Rayfield’s office filed 53 lawsuits in the last year, winning an overwhelming majority, safeguarding $4.6B for Oregon (not including a tariff case). Because FEMA funding suddenly stopped, a winning suit protected $128M funding for 29 BRIC (building resilient infrastructure and communities) projects, predominantly rural. Legal action cost less than $20K, a tremendous return on investment. Another win let $134M flow for the 1 in 6 Oregonians depending on SNAP benefits, costing $25K for litigation.

Relating to federal laws and actions

The federal judge dismissed the case heard in Eugene on Jan 14 on the 27th. LWVOR filed an amicus brief as a friend of the court. The plaintiffs held Oregon and our Secretary of State in contempt for protecting personal voting information.

A sampling of upcoming governance legislation:

• Withhold OR payments (HB 4143) to the US government if withheld federal funding defies a court order.

• Civil Actions for cause against federal and out-of-state law enforcement, HB 4114

•  OR National Guard HB 4091 has a hearing on Tuesday and we expect to testify (not yet prepared), expecting our  testimony for HB 3954 A (2025) to be relevant. See the Interim OR National Guard report, including discussion of duty to follow “patently illegal” or “manifestly unlawful” orders, hearing video, ~26 minutes in. From the materials:

  • The “Burden of proof rests with the service member”

  • Orders are disobeyed at the peril of the service member. Does not apply to patently illegal orders.

  • The dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.

Elections

• SB 1508 and HB 4018 look like placeholders which the League may cover. 

•  HB 4024 Enrolled (2024),  updates, a major campaign finance bill (League Testimony).

• SB 1509 allows for switching President and Vice President electors if they do not vote as they pledged. See “Faithless Elector Law”, testimony in defense, here, and states with robust laws. 

• “Faithless electors” SB 1509 allows for “switch of electors of President and Vice President if they do not vote like they pledged”. We anticipate this to be addressed in another bill, too. See  “Faithless Elector Law”, testimony in defense, and here, also a list of which states have robust laws.

  
  

Consumer and Other Protections

• Consumer Protection, HB 4024 prevents event ticket resale unless a seller has or can get tickets, relates to Sen. Prozanski’s consumer protection SB 430 Enrolled (2025), which started with hidden event ticket fees, then developed into multi-faceted consumer protection, League testimony.

• Protect Public Officials HB 4017 permits a candidate to use campaign contributions for protection. SB 1530  expands the crime of aggravated harassment to include threats concerning public officials. The League has testified to many bills to protecting government services, especially elections, and those who provide them, expanding to cover more people.

• Immigration bills will be shared with Social Policy: SB 1594 relates to enforcing federal immigration laws, HB 4001 will study immigration enforcement, and HB 4111 addresses immigration status as not admissible for civil cases.

• Gun bills, depending on your perspective, address protection. HB 4096 and HB 4145 will both be heard on the first day of session. (See the Social Policy Legislative Report)

Ethics

By Lindsey Washburn

SB1589 - Lobby Reform Requires lobbyists to notify the Oregon Government Ethics Commission regarding certain information about the lobbyist's: representing certain clients, compensation, and new or different position on legislative or administrative action.\

Resilience

HB 4044 and HB 4121  emergency preparedness organization. See OEM Resilience Priorities & Report.

Interested in reading additional reports?  Please see our Climate Emergency, Revenue, Natural Resources, and Social Policy report sections.