Transportation bill passes out of committee, but road blocks remain

With just one full week left in the legislative session, Oregon’s transportation funding package, House Bill 2025, is in a very precarious position.

The bill is seen by supporters as a vital funding lifeline for the Oregon Department of Transportation as the agency transitions away from the gas tax and looks to shore up its ailing highway fund. It comes with dozens of tax increases and several new funding sources in order to pay for bridge and road maintenance, freeway expansion projects, safe routes to schools, updates to urban highways, new off-street paths, public transit, and more. Overall, HB 2025 is slated to raise $14.6 billion in new revenue for transportation over the next 10 years.

An amended version of the bill (-23 amendment) passed out of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment on Friday on a party-line vote of 7-5; but it took a last second procedural maneuver by Senate President Rob Wagner (a Democrat) to make it happen. Since Democratic committee member Mark Meek made clear his intention to vote against the bill, Wagner replaced Meek in order to ensure passage.

As if having a committee member present but unable to vote wasn’t awkward enough, a pointed exchange between two committee members punctuated a meeting full of strong disagreements.

Committee Co-Vice Chair Shelly Boshart Davis, a Republican, is strongly opposed to the bill. She favors a version of the bill that would completely eliminate state funding for transit, safe routes to school, and bicycle infrastructure (the bill would repeal the 1977 Bicycle Bill). A vote on that version of the bill (the -8 amendment) failed 8-4.

Boshart Davis is a leading voice from a chorus of Republicans who think HB 2025 is nothing more than a Democratic tax grab and that ODOT needs to focus on its “core mission” of catering solely to car users and letting cities fund transit and cycling needs. “We are looking at the largest tax increase in Oregon’s history,” she said at Friday’s meeting. Boshart Davis is also opposed to what she calls a “really bad process” that was “grossly irresponsible” because she feels the public hasn’t had enough time to weigh in on the bill (the full fiscal analysis wasn’t released until Friday).

As Boshart Davis repeated these stinging critiques at Friday’s meeting, committee Co-Chair Senator Chris Gorsek — a Democrat and architect of the bill — interrupted her (see exchange above). “Excuse me,” he said, “You are impugning all of us that have worked on that bill. So stop with that! You’ve made your point representative. Enough!”

Committee Co-Chair Susan McLain calmed things down, but the damage was done. Later in the meeting, Boshart Davis said she planned to make a formal complaint about Gorsek’s behavior. Today, House Republicans issued a statement calling for Gorsek to be removed from committee assignments and face censure on the Senate floor.

While Democrats have a super-majority in the House and Senate, they spent weeks trying to hash out a bill that would garner at least a few moderate Republican votes — but that effort has produced no fruit. A large bloc of Republicans that are vehemently opposed to the bill are already saying they’d work to refer it to voters if it passes. There are also threats of a walkout if and when the bill comes to a floor vote. One Republican, Darcey Edwards, who represents portions of Washington and Columbia counties west of Portland, boycotted today’s floor session because of her opposition HB 2025.

While a floor vote was scheduled for early this week, a few hours ago Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that Democrats would send HB 2025 back to committee for consideration of possible amendments.

So far no further committee meeting has been scheduled and no new amendments have been posted.

With just days left in the session, Democrats still have road blocks to clear before passing their highest priority legislation.

At the end of Friday’s meeting, Portland Democrat Khanh Pham said, “I recognize this is a major investment, and that is part of what I think is my responsibility, our responsibility as as legislators, to actually govern for our state. And for that reason, I am unapologetic about the need for investing in our roads, for the health of our communities and the health of our economies.”

UPDATE, 3:05 pm: Senate President Rob Wagner has taken himself and Sen. Gorsek off the committee and has added three new members: Senator Khanh Pham, Senator Lew Frederick, and Senator James Manning Jr. HB 2025 has also been rereferred to the committee and OPB has the latest on how House Speaker Julie Fahey is trying to amend the bill with moderate Democrats to ensure passage.