Republicans in the Oregon Senate ended their six-week walkout on Thursday, after reaching a deal to water down Democratic bills on abortion and guns that the GOP has strenuously opposed.
Those changes — unthinkable if Republicans had not launched the longest walkout in state history — represent a win for the boycotting senators. But the party got far from everything it wanted in protracted negotiations with Democrats.
Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, refused to excuse absences racked up by 10 conservative lawmakers since the walkout began May 3. That means all 10 are expected to be blocked from running for reelection, under a ballot measure passed by voters last November.
Democrats also balked at a larger “kill list” of bills Republicans want taken out of consideration as lawmakers speed to a mandatory June 25 adjournment. The deal is contingent on the GOP agreeing to waive normal procedural rules, a step that will allow Democrats to fast-track hundreds of bills awaiting passage in the Senate.
As a result of the deal, hammered out over hours of negotiation since last Friday, many priorities both parties put forward for this session remain achievable. And the Legislature will be able to pass a new two-year budget that contains record funding for schools, new money for mental health services, and funding to help address a crisis in public defense, among many other things.
But some of the session’s most controversial proposals will look very different when they head to the Senate floor for a vote.
While they have offered many reasons for walking out this year, Republicans have been most vocal about House Bill 2002. As it passed the House, the bill would expand protections for abortions and transgender care, among many other provisions.
Republicans and their allies have railed against a provision in the bill that would allow children of any age to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent, a step they say is an affront to parents’ rights.
As OPB reported was likely on Monday, lawmakers have agreed to keep in place a legal requirement that parental permission is required for children under 15 to end a pregnancy. But that requirement can be overridden if two health providers in separate medical practices conclude informing parents would be harmful to the child, according to a briefing with key players engaged in the negotiations.
Other pieces of the bill remain intact, including expanding what gender-affirming care must be covered by insurance plans and securing legal protections for providers who perform abortions by residents of anti-abortion states.
Democrats have also agreed to kill Senate Joint Resolution 33, which would have asked voters to enshrine protections for abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender care in the state Constitution. Republicans said they offered support for the same-sex marriage portion of the resolution.
And Republicans appear to have won big concessions on the session’s major gun control bill. House Bill 2005 would have implemented three major changes: outlawing untraceable “ghost” guns, increasing the age to purchase and own most guns from 18 to 21, and allowing cities to ban concealed weapons in public buildings.
Under the deal, only the ghost gun provision will survive.
Democrats will also agree to killSenate Bill 348 and a handful of other gun bills that would put some provisions of Measure 114, a gun safety law approved by voters last year, into statute. The ballot measure is currently on hold amid court challenges. It banned the sale or transfer of extended capacity magazine clips and required a permit to purchase a gun, among other restrictions.
Democrats will also waive $325 daily fines they began levying on absent lawmakers last week. And lawmakers will find a way to address Republicans’ insistence that the Senate has not followed a law that requires bill summaries to be written at roughly and eighth grade level. How the chamber will do so was not immediately clear.
