News Last night marked a giant leap forward for proponents of the $3.5 billion Columbia River Crossing project, which will include a new Interstate 5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver, an extension of light rail to Vancouver, a fix for five major freeway interchanges. Lawmakers on a special CRC committee voted 14-2 to move House Bill 2800 to the floor of both chambers for votes. The bill commits $450 ...   More

News Although last night's results are not final, it appears that Democratic super-majorities in both houses (36 to 24 in the House and 18 to 12 in the Senate) will morph into deadlocks in both chambers. The Oregon House has never before been deadlocked. The Oregon Senate has been tied 15-15 just two times since Oregon became a state (1957, 2003). In the 2003 legislative session, Republicans and ...   More

News Judy Hall has worked in the Oregon Senate Secretary's office for 28 years but she says until Jan. 30, she'd never seen a conflict-of-interest complaint filed against a senator. "I like to think the Senate is a pretty civil place to work," says Hall, who became the Senate's secretary, or top administrator, in 1994. "This is the first complaint I remember seeing." But last Friday, Bob Tiernan, ...   More

News With an election battle likely over tax increases passed by the Oregon Legislature on corporations and the wealthiest state residents, four of the Legislature's most powerful lawmakers came to City Club of Portland today to discuss the session that wrapped up last month. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats defended the tax increases and Republicans attacked them in a precursor of the debate to come, ...   More

News Election night at the Wonder Ballroom on North Russell Street. At 8 p.m. when the polls close on Measures 66 and 67, the room is filling but by no means full. The normally ebullient Steve Novick, the public face of the Yes campaign, seems subdued. "For 78 years the people of this state have waited for progressive tax reform," Novick told the crowd from the stage. "And still we wait." But ...   More

News Oregon legislative leaders gaveled February's special session to a close at 2 pm today. Exactly 22 minutes and 33 seconds later, they started asking lobbyists for money (which legislative rules prohibit them from doing while the Legislature is in session). - ---- Forwarded Message ---- From: Senate Democratic Leadership Fund To: Evyn Mitchell Sent: Thu, February 25, 2010 2:22:33 PM Subject: ...   More

News Oregon is one of only five states in which lawmakers don't meet for scheduled annual sessions. But moving to those annual sessions has been a particular interest among the longest-serving lawmakers such as Senate President Peter Courtney (photo above), who argue that biennial sessions are an archaic practice insufficient for the complexity of managing the state's general fund budget — ...   More

News State Treasurer Ben Westlund died last night after a long battle with lung cancer. (Updated at 3:46 pm: statement from Westlund's spokesman follows at the end of this post.) Westlund, 60, first publicly disclosed in 2003 that he suffered from cancer. At the time, he was a Republican state senator from Tumalo, near Bend. After treatment, Westlund continued in the Senate and became the Legislature's ...   More

News Sometimes we get a nugget of information that surprises us during the 50-some endorsement interviews we conduct as part of the process in forming our election recommendations. Take yesterday for example. Our schedule included a morning interview with U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), who's seeking re-election to a second term in Congress. And our afternoon included an interview with state ...   More