Oregon’s bipartisan arts caucus wants structural changes and more money for public art

The bipartisan Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon legislatures has a slate of bills it’s pushing for this session.

One proposal would merge two major arts funding organizations: The Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Another bill would help owners of historic buildings by lowering their assessed tax, while others would allocate funds for grants to artists, art programs and organizations, along with money for museums, festivals and arts districts.

Democratic Representative Rob Nosse co-chairs the caucus, created in 2023. He joins us to share the progress the caucus has made since it began and what he sees as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the arts in Oregon in the current political moment.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller:  This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The bipartisan Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon Legislature is pushing for a slate of bills this session. One would merge the state’s two major arts funding agencies. Another would increase the amount of state money that goes to the arts. Democratic state Representative Rob Nosse’s district includes most of inner Southeast and a slice of inner Northeast Portland. He co-chairs the Arts and Culture Caucus. He joined us on Monday.

I asked him what the overall goal of the Caucus is.

Rob Nosse:  Well, it’s kind of continued the things that we started, Dave, two years ago, which is to have the arts and culture sector of this state be more celebrated and frankly more supported by the Oregon Legislature and the various budgets we pass around here.

Miller:  What can you point to in terms of accomplishments since we last spoke? We last spoke soon after that caucus was formed two years ago.

Nosse:  In [2024], we were able to get an increase to the capital construction allocation to budgets. In 2023, at the close of the session, there were 10, 11 or 12 capital construction budgets that were pushed forward. Basically, if your theater needs a new roof or a new stage, those sorts of things all around the state. We only got three of them funded. So we doubled down and I was lucky to get some help from the private sector philanthropy community. We huddled. The revenue forecast came in a little better and we were able to get the rest of those capital construction projects funded in 2024. We have a really good story to tell about the arts sector in the state.

In addition, the two large foundations, the Oregon Community Foundation and the Miller Foundation, stepped up and said that if the state would put in $6 million to fund large anchor arts organizations – things like the symphony, the Shakespeare Festival, the Portland Art Museum – they would chip in more of their largess to help with their operations as well. And we were able to pass that in 2024. And I think the Arts Caucus was a big part of that.

Miller:  I want to go through some of your big current priorities. One of your bills would make a structural change to the way arts and culture are funded, and organized in some ways, in the state. What’s the status quo and what, in your mind, is wrong with it?

Nosse:  It’s not so much that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just that I think this state is a little small to have two arts commissions operated by our state government. And the reality is, they share an incredible amount of staff and overlap. So House Bill 3048 just seeks to merge the Oregon Cultural Trust, which is mostly funded by taxpayer contributions, and the Oregon Arts Commission, which is mostly funded outright by the legislature and grants, I think, from the National Foundation of Arts at the federal level. [It would] bring the two entities and their staffs together to have, frankly, a more powerful and robust approach to supporting the arts in the state.

Miller:  The line I’ve heard in support of this is this would bring more efficiency to this system. When I hear “efficiency,” especially now, I think that it means job cuts. Would this merger mean that fewer people total would be working on arts funding and administration or commissioning at the state level?

Nosse:  I highly doubt it because both the Arts Commission and the Cultural Trust share a lot of staff. So it’s more about bringing a focus, than about major efficiencies. We’re not in a downsizing mode with regards to the arts sector in the state.

Miller:  This does sound similar to what happened in the Portland area with the city of Portland and the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), a move that a number of artists we talked to, or arts organizations, were nervous about and still have concerns about. That gets into the details of the way arts grantmaking happens. Is there a similarity between what happened in the Portland area and what you want to see at the state level?

Nosse:  No. I do not think there’s a similarity at all. Because with regard to the Regional Arts Council in the Portland area, the city council had concerns about the operations of the RACC and how it was sending out money … fundamental concerns, to the point where they said, that’s it, we’re not gonna continue to allow you to operate the way that you have. I mean the city council had, years and years ago, dedicated wholesale the granmaking apparatus of the city of Portland to RACC. That’s not what we’re doing here. At the state level, we’re consolidating two different state run entities that support the arts and just bringing them together.

Miller:  It does seem like there’s a fair amount, internally, of support for this from the governor’s office, from the unanimous votes of the boards of these current organizations. So have you heard of any significant pushback from any quarters so far?

Nosse:  I have not yet. Though, I think there are some folks who remember when the Oregon Cultural Trust was set up in the late ‘90s. They had intended it to be a little bit different than the Arts Commission. And I think they’re a little bit, despondent feels like a very strong adjective, but they would like to maintain that.

But as time has moved on, the Cultural Trust [was] never able to establish a base funding that they hoped that they would be able to live off of and thus just spend the interest. So as we’ve moved on and that has not happened, most of us think bringing these two things together is gonna be what’s gonna make for a stronger arts presence at the state level.

Miller:  Would Oregon’s cultural tax credit remain in effect?

Nosse:  Yes, it would.

Miller:  So it’s a mistake, in some ways, for people like me to focus too much on the minutia, the behind the scenes organization of councils and commissions, and to not talk about what this would actually mean for audiences or for the arts makers themselves. What are you saying this would mean for Oregonians who make or love art?

Nosse:  I mean, honestly, Dave, really what I hope is [that] this bill passes, these two entities merge and their staffs come together. But honestly, if we don’t pass House Bill 3189, which seeks to improve outright the budget for the Arts Commission, I don’t think Oregonians will see that much difference. I hate to say this, but it takes more resources, frankly, for Oregonians to see more difference. So I hope the bill passes. But I hope we also increase the Arts Commission budget – that gives them more to work with.

I hope we pass House Bill 3191, which is a capital construction bill. We’re back with, I think, 12 different projects who, again, need new upholstery, new roofs, structural changes to their theater operations. And then we have two other bills too, around historic preservation, and ticket and fan fairness when it comes to ticket purchases.

Miller:  Apropos of all of this, about state funding in particular, Bob Hicks, in a recent article in the Oregon ArtsWatch, had an interesting stat from the chair of the Oregon Arts Commission who said that Oregon is No. 1 in the nation per capita for individual arts and culture support, but No. 39 in state support.

Nosse:  That sounds right. Yes, I think I’ve heard that before.

Miller:  What does that tell you and what do you do with that information?

Nosse:  Unfortunately, it means that we have not had an increase in our arts and culture budget at the state level, the Commission that I’m merging with the Trust if that bill passes, in probably close to 20 years. So over time, we’ve just fallen down. We’ve fallen down in ranking, as other states have at least given a cost of living increase or at least increased by inflation. We have not even done that.

Miller:  At the state level. But then foundations and individuals, it seems, are picking up the slack. I guess I’m wondering what you think about that balance?

Nosse:  I think the one great thing about the art sector, broadly defined, is that it’s a good place for the private sector and the public sector to partner. And candidly, the foundations have been saying, “Hey, we’re doing our part. But government has always had to support the arts.” Whether it’s kings and queens, or when the Roman Catholic Church was the source of government for most part in Europe, art and artists have always relied on a little bit of support from governments, broadly defined. And the private sector foundation community is saying, “Come on Oregon, step up a little bit. We will, but in order to get us to do it, hey, how about you put a little bit of your largess in.”

Miller:  Is this going to be an even harder year for you to make that argument if there are gigantic concerns about a Medicaid-sized hole, billions of dollars of a hole that could be blown into our state budget, along with any other number of budget issues that could come from the federal government or our own internal questions, like how to pay for roads and bridges? Is this going to be a harder year for you to say to your fellow lawmakers, “put more money towards arts and culture”?

Nosse:  I can’t resist trying to answer the question this way because I’m also the keeper of Medicaid right now in the legislature. That is one of my responsibilities. And that is the thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night. But here’s the thing, Dave. All those big problems that you outlined, even if we take care of them to their most awesomeness, those problems are gonna be here. We’re still gonna have challenges with kids in school, with roads and bridges, and with paying for healthcare, even if we do the best job possible and we don’t have challenges from the federal government.

These bills in total, that I just regaled you with, are maybe in the neighborhood of $26 million, which is not very much money in state government parlance. We can shore up this sector. And I will say, even the working class and the poor deserve to enjoy the beauty that is human creativity. I think spending $26 million, if that’s what it takes, we can do that and still make progress on roads and bridges, try to do a better job for schools and save the Medicaid program, provided the federal government doesn’t screw us in the funding.

Miller:  Rob Nosse, thanks very much.

Nosse:  Thanks, Dave. I was glad to be here.

Miller:  Democratic state Representative Rob Nosse’s district includes most of inner Southeast and a slice of inner Northeast Portland. He co-chairs the Arts and Culture Caucus.

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