The 2025 legislative session has come to an end and lawmakers have failed to pass any transportation legislation.
After years of work, a statewide listening tour, dozens of committee meetings and public hearings, Democrats who led the process failed to bring a bill over the finish line. It’s a massive political defeat of historic proportions that comes with consequences likely to be felt in every corner of the state.
After the main transportation bill died, a last ditch effort to pass a plan-B bill, House Bill 3402-3 (the “-3” refers to the amendment that was adopted by committee) was slated for a vote on the House floor late Friday night, but Democrats needed help from Republicans to clear time-sensitive procedural hurdles and they didn’t get it.
Democrats — despite having a supermajority in the House, Senate and holding the Governor’s office — were unable to keep all their Senators in line and ultimately lost the game to the minority party.
House Bill 2025-28; an $11.6 billion package that would have saved transit systems, given the Oregon Department of Transportation a boost to maintenance and operations, funded highway expansion megaprojects, and invested in major safety projects, died earlier in the day on Friday because Democratic Senator Mark Meek wouldn’t vote for it. Meek had shared frustration about the rushed timeline of the bill for weeks and — while he was open to some tax increases — wasn’t comfortable with the size of the bill. Before the final committee vote he shared disinformation on social media, telling his followers that the bill included tolling when in fact that is blatantly false.
The bill passed committee 8-4 and there were smiles as it had some bipartisan momentum (thanks to a “yes” vote from Republican House Rep. Kevin Mannix) heading to the House floor. It was likely going to pass the House, but it was the Senate that doomed Democrats.
Democrats hold 18 of the 30 seats in the Senate and they needed every one of those votes to hold onto the three-fifths majority required to pass a tax bill. Senator Meek, a Democrat, remained a very stubborn “no” and Senate President Rob Wagner failed to persuade a single Republican to take Meek’s place in the “aye” column.
With HB 2025-28 dead, lawmakers scrambled to fill a placeholder bill, HB 3402-3, with bare bones legislation that would be an interim measure to keep ODOT afloat and prevent massive layoffs at the agency. The bill was heard in the House Rules Committee Friday evening where lawmakers heard massive, diverse, nearly unanimous opposition — from city and county leaders, unions, advocacy groups, and individual Oregonians.
The only two voices in support of the bill came from Governor Tina Kotek — who said in her committee testimony she would lay off 600-700 ODOT workers on Monday morning if the bill didn’t pass (about 14% of their total workforce) — and from ODOT leadership, who said it was vital to keep the lights on and perform a basic level of service until more money could be found.
“I know it is disappointing when you get to this point in session and such a big bill with so much work is not going to move forward,” Kotek said in her testimony. “The path forward today is to ensure that ODOT-provided essential services continue… It will solve an immediate need, but it’s not going to solve all our problems… But nonetheless, we have to move forward.”
HB 3402-3 would have raised around $2 billion over 10 years (less than half the amount of the 2017 transportation bill and $10 billion less than HB 2025) via a three-cent gas tax increase and increases to vehicle title and registration fees. Beyond this relatively tiny revenue bump, opposition to the bill was fierce because the bill stipulated that all new revenue would go to ODOT. That provision was a huge slap in the face to counties and cities who have traditionally received 30% and 20% of State Highway Fund revenue respectively (with ODOT keeping 50%).
HB 3402-3 had no funding for transit, and no funding for key programs Oregonians are clamoring for like the Great Streets program, Safe Routes to School, Community Paths, and so on. It also had no set-aside funding for key highway expansion megaprojects that many lawmakers voted for in 2017 like the I-5 Rose Quarter, I-205 widening, and Abernethy Bridge widening.
Despite this opposition, HB 3402-3 passed the Rules Committee 4-3 on a party-line vote.
It headed to the House floor and was in the queue for a vote late last night, but time ran out because Republicans refused to help the Democrats suspend some procedural rules to get it over the finish line. (For an excellent breakdown of how this process played out, check this Bluesky thread from Oregon Capitol Chronicle reporter Julia Shumway.)
With nothing to show for years of work and negotiations, it remains to be seen what the fallout will be from this immense debacle. Governor Kotek threatened to layoff 600-700 ODOT workers on Monday morning. That would be a catastrophic blow to those families, to the agency and to Oregonians who rely on the state to keep the transportation system in good shape. Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, representing a City of Portland budget that was counting on $11 million from the transportation bill, said he would be forced to lay off up to 60 Portland Bureau of Transportation staffers.
Republicans and their allies in the online punditry ecosystem are gleeful to see these bills die. The House Republican Caucus released a statement saying the tax increases would have, “funded a progressive left agenda that would harm Oregonians.” “Forcing families to pay one of the largest tax hikes in history when they can barely get by was a cruel policy from the start,” added House Republican Leader Christine Drazan.
From here, I’m not sure what the likelihood is of lawmakers saving transportation funding in an interim or emergency session. If they do make an attempt, Democrats will need to to get their own party fully in line. One thing made clear Friday is that Republicans would rather see ODOT burn to the ground than give them any new funding.
While some lawmakers map out next steps (and others sit back and start vacation), advocates and city leaders now find themselves in a distressing moment of uncertainty. Transit advocates and agency leaders might be the ones feeling most left out in the cold. Without an increase in transportation funding, TriMet has said they would cut 27% of transit service — which could be up to 45 of their 79 bus lines — starting in 2027.
There’s a lot more I want to share about all this, but that’s the basics of what happened yesterday and where we stand this morning. Stay tuned for more coverage.
Thanks for reading.
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I am curious about Rep. Meek’s opposition to the bill on Friday. What were the sticking points for him? In my opinion, an increase in the gas tax to account for inflation is way overdue, and the tax should be annually adjusted for inflation.
Smarter, more informed people than I will no doubt have keener insights, but I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that Meek was captured by car-driving-obsessed suburbanites from the district he represents – people who have no appetite to pay for the transportation infrastructure they have come to expect.
He is the one who posted the false information that the bill included a toll on the 205. It is hard to tell if he opposed the bill or what MAGA republicans told him was in their imaginary version of the bill. Hopefully in the future Meek will actually read the bills he is voting on.
“Meek was captured by car-driving-obsessed suburbanites from the district he represents”
Meaning he was “captured by” (i.e. representing) the people who voted him into office.
I don’t know about his initial opposition, but my read on the situation is that he was pissed off at being booted from the committee by Wagner and tanked everything in revenge.
But then Wagner is surely at fault for not knowing in advance that Meek would vote against the bill in committee and keep it from going to the floor. Meek is to blame but Wagner is surely also at fault. Hope he’ll say in coming days what he was thinking.
Hey…but we must keep on voting for the democratic “supermajority”* and the democratic governor…right?
Right???
*LOL
Yes – we must, for as long as Rs want to bring The Handmaid’s Tale to Oregon.
I know social policy isn’t supposed to affect transportation, but it really does.
Lesser-eviling into self-reinforcing dysfunction is capitulation to fascism.
A better world is possible.
We have to succeed in the two-party system we have, not the system we wish we had.
I’d love to see an alternative that actually had some decent transportation ideas. The last time there was a well funded third party opposition candidate for governor they were worse than the republican candidate.
There have been plenty of lefty or green candidates that have primaried corporate democrats but the many “urbanists” whinging about this comical failure did not vote for them because they did not want to “waste”their vote (what a ****ing joke). If someone wants a better world some political risk is required. Are you desperate enough to risk a democrat loss? If not, then it’s likely you will never see any semblance of political power.
No, we should vote for the person or party that will be able to enact legislation to create effective transportation options for all Oregonians at a cost we can afford?
yes, LOL
No, you should vote in such a way that the people you elect can’t take your vote for granted.
Only then will you have any power.
Sure just vote for the party that wants to throw anyone not like them under the bus instead.
Some choice, hateful morons, or incompetent pseudo liberals who still don’t actually care enough about future generations to do the right thing.
Maybe a silver lining is that it will force Democrats to finally confront the reality that the freeway expansion projects from 2017 are extremely fiscally irresponsible and should not be priorities at this moment.
I’m feeling that same thing Grant S. They really made the bed they are forced to lie in now when they tied their hands to those massive projects.
Also interesting to me that some of the same rural Republican lawmakers and lobbyists who pushed very hard for the I-5 Rose Quarter as an economic engine for their communities testified this week that their communities cannot afford any new taxes. Republicans and some Dems live in an alternate reality where they think they can simply force ODOT to be more “accountable” and suddenly a bunch of new money will appear. It’s very DOGE-like and I believe many Republican leaders are impressed by and inspired by that DOGE-type of thinking and approach.
I mean, several high profile Republicans like Sen Bruce Starr and Christine Drazan went on the DOGE Oregon podcast railing against ODOT and transportation spending in general in the weeks leading up to these bill negoations!
I’ve been developing a line of thinking about the only possible method behind the Dems’ madness: how it also denies Rs what THEY want, which is freeway expansion, wider roads to drive on, etc. In other words, if Rs won’t accept some progressive priorities (expanded transit, MUPs etc), then they will get NOTHING toward the stuff they want.
The failure of the bill means NO ONE gets anything, so drivers will grumble more loudly as potholes break their axles and they sit in longer and longer traffic jams. Dems can throw their hands up in the air and say, “Sorry but we tried! The Rs and Meek (the new Betsy Johnson) are the reason you can’t have Nice Things.”
The larger question is whether voters will punish Dems by voting them out.
I think there’s going to be an even deeper reckoning with the cost of transportation infrastructure. We’re all about to find out how fiscally unsustainable the road network we’ve built over the last century is.
We might be better off if we cede a large portion of the state to Idaho.
The roads – hell, our society – were affordable before the Reagan administration upended the tax system to benefit corporations and the wealthy. You can let the roads crumble back to dust, or tax the .05 percent like in Johnson’s era.
Get used to crumbly roads.
If there is no transportation bill, what is the status of the state match for the RQ and Columbia Bridge projects?
Great question! They’re even more screwed than they were before. With Trump uncertainty and now this, I could see major projects being paused or cancelled, but I can’t confirm anything yet. I’m sure a lot of folks are asking this same question.
The best way to get the Trump administration to cancel the bridge project would be if all us Portland lefties acted like we wanted the bridge. Trump would cancel it for sure.
I think at best Trump might be able to delay a Congressionally-funded project, but why bother? Oregon legislators are more that capable of making fools of themselves without Trump’s assistance.
Federal grant money is conditioned in a bunch of different ways. Failing to meet a funding obligation by a certain time will give the FHA all the excuse they need to pull the plug on the projects.
I’m hoping it means they are dead in the water (pun intended).
Wow! This is a striking display of the impotence and incompetence of OR dems. I can’t imagine how they could perform their legislative duties less effectively. JFC.
Pretty bleak that the Dems couldn’t get anything passed. On a technical note, why did everything have to be packaged into one bill? Why not vote on each item in HB 2025 in turn and tweak them accordingly? I feel like a transit tax increase wasn’t all that contentious relative to the other measures (or maybe it just was flying under the radar)
Also, I feel like this process shows how terrible the structure of the Oregon political system is. Why on earth does the legislature stay in session for such a short amount of time? It’s baffling and stupid, and invites bad actors to sabotage proceedings.
Bleak that a supermajority means basically nothing in practice, disappointed that nothing got done on critical issues I care about, hoping someone primaries my ineffective state Senator.
Many legislatures were formed at a time when members had agriculture-related lives and needed to be elsewhere; also before air-conditioning and central heat, and in many cases a desire to not have a permanent class of politicians who could afford to just have that job. Also, to limit the amount of time pinhead politicans could do damage…
Yep – same reason the school year still runs from Sep to June.
I think that Oregon requires that any new revenue raised has to have a set of projects lined up with the money being spent, that the state doesn’t allow surplus pools of cash for rainy days (reserves), that everything needs to be allocated to something.
Everything needed to be packaged in a single bill because it only survived (or failed) as a single compromise. That’s just the nature of parliamentary legislating. E.g, I’ll swallow your Rose Quarter project if you fund my transit expansion.
I can’t imagine Kotek will just let this go another year. Seems to me that passing nothing almost mandates a special session.
Agreed. The Gov needs to insist lawmakers do their jobs and set out a clear vision for what’s in and out. This will necessarily mean stepping up and taking responsibility for whether her party succeeds at fulfilling the mandate.
I see this a little differently. The Dems didn’t “lose the game to the minority party”. They lost because they failed to convince members of their own coalition.
From where I sit, a lot of that failure stems from the dems inability to articulate a vision for transportation that goes beyond just avoiding an apocalypse. Yes the need is great, and yes meeting the need will be expensive – but that alone does NOT mean voters will support you. I think this is particularly challenging right now, not just because of the economic uncertainty people face, but because of the general lack of positive stories and messengers. So much of politics right now is simply about how we must do hard thing X to avoid terribly thing Y.
It’s not like Democrats were handed this problem and are now trying to fix it. This happened on their watch, and they need to start by clearly explaining how we let this happen. Then they need to articulate a plan for transformation, not just avoiding apocalypse.
Yes good points William. I agree and wanted to be sensitive to that point that it was a Dem lawmaker whose vote killed this—- however at the end, the Dems relied on cooperation from the Rs to help move 3402 to a vote and the Rs didn’t give it to them.
Right, but can you really blame them? It’s sorta like the Dems asking the Reps out the night before prom after their first choice date felt through. Given the size of the rift between parties, passing any sort of bipartisan bill would have been an amazing effort. If they wanted to pursue this strategy, they needed to start a long time ago.
That part was a fools errand.
The R’s were NEVER going to help. Every single thing like this is a huge win for them no matter how destructive it is to both sides. They will cut off their nose to spite their face at all costs to burn the Dems.
Then later they will use it again to blame crush them more no matter how much it affects both sides.
That requires accountability, something the Dems in this state avoid.
Gosh! Why is car infrastructure so expensive?? And why do we have to pay for it?? Don’t our gas taxes pay for roads??
At long last, maybe car brain drivers will figure out the obvious: Freeways are not free.
I think they should be called Taxways, Costways, Moneyways, Not-freeways.
In Oregon there’s no limit on the profit a company can make on a tax payer paid project unlike other jurisdictions around the country. Padding the “cost” of a car infrastructure project to maximize profit is not unheard of. Depending on the project, companies have raked in close to 20% profit on public works in Oregon.
I can’t wait for a bridge or road to fail in Meek’s district and ODOT says, “Hmm sorry, there is no money or people to fix a problem that you voted no on.”
Who “gained” from a lack of a state transportation bill?
I’d like to take a moment to step back and appreciate the ridiculous situation we’re in. Not that the Dems fumbled the ball. Not that transportation agencies across the state are going to start layoffs and service reductions. Those are merely the consequences of the utterly asinine constitutional requirement to reach a 3/5 majority in both chambers to raise taxes. It’s easy to sit here and point and laugh at Democrats for “squandering their supermajority” or having a rushed legislative process, but the reality is that almost every Democrat was on board with the bill, and when you have that situation with supermajorities it should be super easy to gather a winning coalition. But because what, about a dozen senators out of 30 didn’t like it they got to spike the whole process? That’s a bad law that’s of course going to lead to ruinous situations, which is exactly what the Bill Sizemores and Tim Knopps of the state wanted when they led the 90s tax revolt.
A clear majority of the legislature wanted HB 2025 to pass. Hell, we may have seen an even better HB 2025 if the requirements for passage weren’t so stringent. In either case in any well-functioning democracy, that should have been enough to get it passed. But in Oregon democracy, the losers actually win while the majority begs for relief.
Rant over
Glad to see the largest tax hike ever proposed in Oregon didn’t make it out of the gate. The last thing we need in Portland is add fuel to the “Portland doom loop” fire with more taxes. People who pay the bills are getting tired of seeing their money wasted. This at least won’t make things worse.
That’s a bad take, Angus. The Portland HIEs I know are perfectly happy to pay more to have better transpo infra. What they can’t stomach is paying 5% when others pay nothing. And they’ll never benefit from those taxes since they don’t have young kids and they aren’t homeless.
You can laugh at their feelings of aggrievement, but feelings are what motivate people to take action. And rich people can take lots of action since money gives you a lot of options.
I know people will say boo-hoo, too bad you little Richie Rich whiners, but that doesn’t change the situation. The doom loop will continue for Multnomah County as long as HIEs pay everything and everyone else pays nothing. It’s the opposite of democracy.
The best chance to get to sanity is for voters to repeal the requirement for a supermajority for tax increases.
I mean, I didn’t say there’s a good chance, just that it’s the best chance.
disappointed
The moment they tried to pass a massive bill in the last weeks of the session I knew there was going to be a huge fail. But even I didn’t think they were so stupid as to fail this massively.
There will be a lot of finger pointing, but ultimately this failure lies with the ODOT fluffers.
– The members of Metro, like Peterson, Simpson and Gonzalez who know better, but have still given a green light to ODOTs massively over budget freeway expansions.
– The dems on the transportation committee over the years like Lew “Freeway” Frederick Susan McLain who have never made an attempt to hold ODOT to reasonable standards.
– Governor Kotek, who also has not ever really challenged ODOT’s massive budgetary demands, but clearly doesn’t mind wading into budgets, as she makes very public demands of accountability from the county on the preschool tax.
Elected officials have not managed ODOT or demanded ODOT leadership to control costs and be transparent. They haven’t even been critical when ODOT lies and presents false data. This debacle is the inevitable result.
The fluffers should be called out for their part in this. The 600-700 ODOT layoffs should start with the ODOT leadership that can’t prioritize maintenance and a transportation plan that meets the moment.