Please see Governance Overview here.

Jump to a topic:

• Governance Sine Die Summary

• Artificial Intelligence

• Elections

• Campaign Finance

• Selected Elections Bills

• Privacy, Consumer Rights, Federal Response

• Emergency Preparedness

Governance Sine Die summary, Overview, post session

Rebecca Gladstone

Passage of HB 4018, undoing campaign finance reform, has been a disappointment. See Norman Turrill’s report that  HB 4018, passed against League opposition. A related question is the ethics of incumbents accepting campaign contributions during the legislative session, banned in the House but not in Senate Rules. It may have been disregarded in both chambers during this session.

We have shared work for immigration and privacy issues, including federal overreach, with Social Policy. We started this hectic legislative session with a number of new governance volunteers but several were away during the session, so you’ll see mention of bills not addressed with League testimony. The problem of simply too much legislative work was discussed and observed, but not solved, for the League but also by legislators. We recommend again that this problem, shared by all, be addressed.

Too many bills? Legislators protesting against bill limits said they feel unheard, partly a partisan climate challenge. Our 2025 long session had 3,400 proposals, unmanageable for our legislators, their staffs, and Legislative Counsel, Fiscal and Revenue Offices. HB 4002, to limit bill proposals, failed again. This workload is not feasible in either short or long sessions and it needs policy attention.

Legislative message traffic is getting heavier. Staff are pressed to even catalog input for bills and they are often too busy to answer phones directly. We are concerned for their juggling district and constituent needs with session work.

Extend the short session? This is sometimes suggested but it pushes against the spirit of our “citizen legislature”, with most having other jobs to support themselves. Oregon is among the lowest for legislative pay and recent pay increase proposals have failed, falling prey to competing budget priorities and optics of them giving themselves a raise.

Thank you to our volunteers, reporting and working bills here, also to our members and readers.  Though the session has concluded, our work continues as bills that succeeded or failed influence upcoming policy and budget considerations. We welcome volunteers to help address all of our issues, especially for gaps like revenue. This is a better time for training, please let us know if you are interested, lwvor@lwvor.org.

Artificial Intelligence/Cybersecurity

Lindsey Washburn

Notice of Artificial Output  SB1546 requires AI companion and platform operators to disclose that users are interacting with artificial output, implement safety protocols to detect and prevent suicidal ideation, and provide special protections for minors. The Senate concurred with House amendments and repassed the bill. The bill has been signed by the President and Speaker and now awaits the Governor's signature.

Elections

Barbara Klein

A-Engrossed SB 1509 (Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act) awaits the Governor’s signature. This bi-partisan bill passed the House unanimously on Feb 20^th; it passed the Senate on March 4 with two Democrats voting against the bill. The bill, similarly passed in other states, further protects Oregon's voters from being disenfranchised by faithless presidential electors and has strong League support. During the session we submitted both written and verbal testimony, (seen at minute 16:10) and it was part of our Action Alerts. We are hopeful that this will now become Oregon law.

Campaign Finance HB 4018

Norman Turrill

HB 4018 Enrolled on campaign finance (CFR) is now law, rammed through March 5 by the House 39-19 and the Senate 20-9. Honest Elections Oregon (HEO, a coalition including the League, Common Cause, the Campaign Legal Center, among others) opposed and characterized it as betraying the 2024 deal made to withdraw Initiative Petition 9 in exchange for passing HB 4024, agreeing to work on technical fixes without policy changes. In 2024, an historic deal was made after extensive 4-way negotiations between HEO, legislative leaders including Speaker Fahey, labor union lobbyists, and business lobbyists.

The HB 4018 proponents disregarded any input from good government groups, including suggested technical fixes. The proponents characterized the bill as some technical fixes. The bill replaces some 40% of the 2024 law and includes many complex policy changes that essentially allow huge campaign contributions from large business and labor unions, while still limiting individual contributors. The bill delays HB 4024 election (financial) disclosure changes for 3 years.

See media coverage in the Oregonian, (again), the Statesman Journal, and OPB. Sen. Golden, who has announced his Senate retirement, was a champion opponent, characterizing this as a “hot mess.” Pressure came from labor union lobbyist(s) and legislative leaders but it fell short of purported threats to legislators if they did not vote for the bill.

Members of HEO have asked the Governor to veto HB 4018. As HB 4018 becomes law, HEO has said it is likely to bring another related initiative, this time as an Oregon constitutional amendment.

SB 1502 Enrolled was introduced on March 4 and quickly passed into law during the last day of session. It simply directs the Secretary of State to presession draft a 2027 bill with necessary campaign finance improvements from HB 4024 and HB 4018. Apparently, some legislators demanded SB 1502 in exchange for their votes in favor of HB 4018.

Selected Elections bills

Chris Cobey

HB 4017 (use of campaign funds for security): Passed; on Governor’s desk as of March 9.

HB 4177 A (modified definition of public meetings for open meetings purposes). Passed both houses as of March 9.

HJR 201 (top two primaries). Neutral position. Had only a public hearing in the house of origin. Renewed proposal anticipated in 2027 session.

Privacy, consumer rights, and federal response

Rebecca Gladstone

See our earlier LR for bills that Rep Chotzen grouped for federal response and /or immigration justice, many of them addressed by the League by either Governance or Social Policy, where many more of these actually passed. Please read that legislative report.

HB 4123 Enrolled This landlord-tenant privacy bill, with immigration consequences, passed with a majority in both chambers, League testimony, in support.

HB 4091 this Oregon National Guard activation and authority bill passed from the House to Senate Vets, on partisan lines, no amendments, but then stalled at the Senate President’s desk. See supporting League testimony. see League HB 3954 testimony (2025).

HB 4143 A, to fund payments between federal and state accounts, passed from the House and then from Senate Judiciary on partisan lines, but it failed to progress from the Senate President’s desk. See our earlier LR and League testimony.

SB 1530 was eclipsed by the related omnibus bill, SB 1516 Enrolled, which passed with 15 amendments. Both began by addressing threats to public officials. See League testimony in support of 1530, as introduced, which passed from the Senate on partisan lines. The 5^th amendment replaced the bill to require state and local to cooperate with federal law enforcement and then the bill, heard in House Rules, was not given a work session.

We followed these bills, seeing promising progress, and all passed:

HB 5204 Enrolled passed with biennial agency budget changes, including for some Secretary of State software needs.

HB 4024 Enrolled, to prevent event ticket resale unless the seller has or can get tickets, passed without amendments. See League testimony, supporting Senator Prozanski’s SB 430 Enrolled (2025) consumer protections, foundational for HB 4024.

SB 1587 Enrolled We are pleased to see this data broker, personal information protection pass, though on partisan lines.

Emergency Preparedness

HB 4044 A to create an Office of Resilience and Emergency Management within the Department of Human Services, passed unanimously from House Vets in mid February, bound for W&Ms, where it failed to progress.

HB 4121 Enrolled awaits the Governor’s signature to create new systems and structures to improve emergency response in Oregon, see the -3 amendment analysis. 

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