Karen Minnis

[July 20th, 2005] As Oregon's legislative session staggers toward an uncertain close, gay-rights groups are ratcheting up pressure on this week's Rogue, House Speaker Karen Minnis . They want her to allow a floor vote in the House on Senate Bill 1000, which would legalize civil unions and ban discrimination against gays and lesbians. Minnis, however, vows the Senate-approved bill will never see the light of day. And SB 1000 is just the most prominent example of Minnis' obdurate leadership style.

Beyond the civil-unions measure, at least a dozen bills that passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support are languishing on Minnis' desk. Critics question not only Minnis' decision to logjam House business-after all, that prerogative helps make the speakership one of the state's most powerful posts-but the way she's done it.

In addition to blocking floor votes and killing bills in committee, Minnis has the House running according to a system of "rolling recesses," three-day vacations for legislators that have the chamber meeting only one or two days a week. Some think this is a tactic to prevent Minnis' Republican colleagues from forging their own consensus with Democrats on the state's budget. (In the 2003 session, a band of moderate Republicans joined Dems in passing a tax deal abhorred by right-wingers and subsequently quashed by voters.)

Regardless of its intent, the reduced schedule keeps crucial negotiations off the public record and is part of the reason the legislation dubbed "the Undone Dozen" remains, well, undone. That package of bills includes measures dealing with health care, schools and transit improvements. All told, the Undone Dozen is far-reaching enough that House Minority Leader Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) says that if the session ended today, "it would not have done one important thing."

As for SB 1000, gay-rights advocates, some of whom are planning a demonstration tonight in Salem, insist they have the votes to pass it if Minnis allows a vote. At press time, however, the Speaker's office said she had no plans to do so.