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Governor Tina Kotek on Thursday afternoon vetoed a controversial public meetings bill that received bipartisan support in the spring legislative session, but which public-records watchdog groups said would greatly undermine transparency and accountability in local government.
Kotek warned late last week she might take the unusual step of vetoing a bill passed by the legislature; this is the only bill from the session that Kotek vetoed.
“I’ve heard from people on all sides of this issue—from advocates for transparency to public officials seeking clearer guidance to do their jobs effectively,” Kotek said in a Thursday statement. “While the goal of this bill is important, we must get the details right to ensure Oregonians can trust government is operating openly and ethically.”
The Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 4177 in the spring session in an effort to course-correct a 2023 state law that made sweeping, and in some ways highly restrictive, changes to public meetings law. The 2023 law prohibited local elected officials from engaging in “serial communications” to essentially operate as a quorum outside of the public eye. (An easy way to think of a serial communication is like a game of telephone.)
But as first detailed by WW in a May 2025 story, the 2023 law and how it was interpreted by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, which trained elected officials across the state how to comply, spread confusion among local governments.
The Legislature tried to reduce that confusion with House Bill 4177, but critics say they bungled it beyond belief. They specifically took issue with a portion of the bill that exempted serial communications “made for the purpose of gathering information relating to a decision that will be deliberated upon or made by the governing body.”
Critics say that provision created a huge loophole for elected officials to make coordinated decisions from outside of public view.
Lawmakers cannot take up the issue again until the next legislative session.
