House Minority Leader Christine Drazan on Republican priorities in last 2 weeks of 2025 session

Oregon lawmakers have until June 29 to finish legislative business and adjourn the 2025 regular session. Although a number of bills remain in play, even at this late date, the only thing lawmakers are constitutionally obligated to do before they leave the Capitol is pass a biennial budget for 2025-2027. During the last five months, Democrats and Republicans have taken up issues related to housing, taxes, transportation and much more.

Sen. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, will join us next week to share his perspective on progress toward sine die. But joining us today to talk about cooperation and conflict in the Oregon Legislature is House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby.

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

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Oregon’s 2025 legislative session is about to come to an end. A lot of bills are still in play, even at this late date, but the only thing lawmakers have to do before they leave the Capitol, according to the state constitution, is pass the next two year budget.

We wanted to hear what Republicans and Democrats are focused on in these final days of the session. On Monday, we’ll talk to a Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Kayse Jama. We’ll hear from Republican Christine Drazan, the House Minority Leader, right now. Drazan represents Canby, Estacada, Sandy, and parts of unincorporated Clackamas County. We reached her yesterday. I asked her what budget issues she’s most focused on right now.

Christine Drazan: So, I want the budget to narrow its focus to core function and core mission. It’s a lot of conversation about new taxes, and I feel really strongly that Oregonians would want their government to be really kind of a lean, mean machine and to do our work well and efficiently and not to waste dollars. I think that we have this opportunity once every two years to go through these budgets with a fine tooth comb, so I’m paying attention to that. Are we spending dollars mindlessly, kind of casually, or are we really evaluating whether every resource we have is being put to its highest and best use?

I would say that’s not always the case. In particular for the Oregon Department of Transportation. That agency identified for us, House and Senate Republicans, where they are engaging in work that they view is not core to their mission. They identified for us areas where they could reduce spending and capture vacancies where people haven’t been in that job for a year and they’re just holding it in their budget, but there’s no one doing that work. Things like that, where you could achieve some efficiencies.

Most of those opportunities were declined by the majority party and they instead pivoted to a really lengthy list of new taxes. So on that side, I think that we’d absolutely have work to do and issues that are not yet resolved from my perspective on behalf of Oregonians. I think they’re gonna pay more, probably get less, and from my perspective, that’s never okay.

Miller: So, let’s stick with transportation for a second then. Just in case folks missed the final bill that was – I shouldn’t say final – the bill that was finally released. It can and probably will be changed to some extent in the coming days. It would fund road and bridge upkeep. It would finish repair of highway mega projects that are way over budget. It would also increase money for public transit, for rail, for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. It would do all of that, as you were alluding to, by raising the state’s gas tax by 15 cents, by creating a new per mile fee for electric and hybrid vehicles, a new tax on car sales, and a bunch of other taxes and fees.

You’ve been very clear in op-eds, at press conferences, just now, that you don’t support a lot of this. In particular, you’ve said that instead of raising a single extra cent for transportation, the state should stop investing in public transportation and bike infrastructure and focus on what you see as ODOT’s original mission of roads and highways for cars and trucks. But what do you see as your options now, now that this bill has been put forward and Republicans who were a part of the crafting of it are opposed to it? Where do you go from here?

Drazan: Unfortunately, that puts us in the position of opposing the bill. The reason for that is that I have been told that the Democrats are not going to accept substantive amendments on this legislation. In political speak, they call it a clean vote. They want to move the bill as they have proposed to the floor and roll the dice and let people vote how they’re going to vote or tell people to vote how they want them to vote. But it puts us in a position of having to vote no instead of having the potential of more than one bill, or an option to be able to do the efficiencies and accountability measures in something, and have the conversation where there’s a philosophical approach where you raise taxes in a different bill before the floor. That’s not going to be the option that we have. So what was released, based on my understanding, is what we will see come to the floor.

So, for Oregonians, that means, just specifically, like your car title fees. Right now they’re around $77, I think. This bill moves it to $182. You have a payroll tax right now and this will triple it. We have a used car tax that we don’t even have now. You’re gonna have a used car sales tax. You’re going to have a used car sales tax. I mean, the list is massive and they can’t even tell us yet exactly what it raises, but they think it’s about a billion dollars a year, and they do that with a pretty aggressive approach.

Every point of contact you’ll have with the transportation sector, you will be paying for it differently. It’s not just a gas tax. It’s your driver’s license test is going to go from $45 to $111. So, for those 15-16 year olds out there that are looking at their after school job being able to cover the cost of them getting their license, they’re going to have to work a little longer to get that pulled off. It’s an aggressive tax plan, and this is the one we are going to see come to the chamber floor.

Miller: Are there any tweaks or amendments that you think if Democrats would allow procedurally, that you think there might be some level of democratic buy-in for? I guess I’m wondering on some of these issues, what we’re looking at is just diametrically opposed viewpoints of what’s best for the state. These are issues that we’ve talked about a fair amount over the years and this session. But I imagine there are also some issues where it’s a little bit more purple, and I’m curious to get your thoughts on what those are.

Drazan: There’s a philosophical difference in whether or not we raise taxes right now. That is absolutely true. But I do think that there is support for efficiencies and there is, I believe, support for restructuring how they do accountability in the agency. I think that you would hear from Democrats — and I hate to speak for my colleagues across the aisle — but I don’t think that they’re opposed to accountability. I don’t think that they’re opposed to efficiencies. I just don’t believe that they want to balance the budget that way. I don’t think they want to cut non-essential programs. I think they want to do everything that they’re doing and add taxes to make sure that they continue to do that.

But philosophically, I do think that there’s very much purple in those kind of themes of: How do we achieve more accountability from an agency? How do we make this agency function better? 100%. I think that my colleagues across the aisle would like to see more accountability from those agencies. I think the difference is on our side of the aisle, we believe that they should show that they can be accountable before we pass these taxes for a billion dollars or more a year. This is an agency that has failed to actually build these roads. It’s been eight years now and these projects are not done. And not only are they not done, but the projects that are mid process went from… just Abernethy Bridge — which I’m sure you’re familiar with — [is] a couple 100 million. And now we know that project isn’t even going to be completed and the price tag is over 800 million. That’s unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. It’s not enough for Republicans for them to say, “we’re going to provide you some additional reports and we’re gonna put a new manager in charge of these major projects.” We don’t think that goes far enough.

So that’s again where we diverge. At what point are they accountable enough? At what point are they efficient enough? The Democrats didn’t even entertain our proposal, which when we were able to kind of create a secondary proposal, it was very balanced. It included efficiencies in the point of taxation for diesel. It included efficiencies for how we look at highway cost allocation, which is very much in the weeds. But structurally, when you talk efficiency, you end up getting in the weeds. And [in] accountability sometimes you end up getting in the weeds.

We believe that some of those proposals should advance. I think that some of the highway cost allocation might be included in their proposal. That’s encouraging. That’s a purple category where we can agree on that. But when you’re raising a billion dollars for an agency that has failed to perform for the last eight years, we just don’t have a stomach for it. We don’t think it’s the right thing to do and we don’t believe that bigger budgets produce better outcomes for Oregonians right now with this particular agency.

Miller: I want to go back to what you mentioned at the beginning: the policy side of this. You said a lot of things are happening now, which is both good and bad. What are the policy bills you’re paying the most attention to, yourself, right now?

Drazan: Yeah, I am watching the bills that would create more public union handouts. That has been one of the defining features of this session. And those measures continue to march forward in the committee process.

Miller: Are you talking about the one that would allow striking workers to collect unemployment benefits?

Drazan: That’s one. There’s actually a series. That is one and it just was finalized across the House and Senate floors today. So that’ll go on to the governor’s desk for her signature now.

Miller: And that’s down to 10 weeks of benefits as opposed to 26.

Drazan: Yeah, that is where that landed. We had opposition from our school districts. Local government saying, “we just can’t afford this.” Especially at a time where our budgets did not reflect the school district’s request to address costs for special needs kids. For kids that are on what are called Individual Education Plans that need more funding in our local schools to be able to provide supports to them. They didn’t get that. At the same time we passed a measure like Senate Bill 916 that increased costs on schools and they believe that that measure incentivizes striking. So their concerns… I mean, we’ve seen the strikes in Portland and we’ve seen the strikes in Albany. It’s a significant impact on student learning, but it’s also a significant impact on budgets. So that’s a challenge.

We also have an education bill moving through the process that I believe is problematic for schools that could actually take the final 25% of their budget and it ends up being directed through the Department of Education instead of locally. I want accountability. I want to have interim assessments. There’s some good stuff in the major omnibus education bill. But structurally, I don’t think that the state is better suited to direct a school for how to be successful than the local district is. I think that’s been part of the problem. The legislature’s been acting like a school board for the whole state, and it’s been a mess. It’s been just one mandate after another on our local school districts, and they have struggled to actually get the basics done because of it. I think this doubles down on that mindset, and I don’t think it improves student learning. So I’m paying attention to that one.

I would also just flag for your listeners that one of the biggest things from this session really will be cost increases. The shift from your income taxes that everybody pays over to fees for everything that you do is really going to be the other thematic part of this session where the largest portion of the budget is gonna be fees, what they call “other funds.” That’s the day to day stuff where living here costs more… to go to a park, to drive your car. If you own a business, your license fees are gonna go up to maintain your professional licenses. All those kinds of things are how the costs are going to drive this session, and that’s another thematic part of this session.

But I would say the failure of this session that bums me out and concerns me more than a lot of other things is that we really did miss an opportunity to address next steps on repeal of Measure 110. This session is going to potentially miss an opportunity to address homelessness in a cohesive way. We had an opportunity to repeal the measure that legalized camping in public spaces this year now that the Supreme Court has acted, and they didn’t take advantage of that opportunity. We had an opportunity this session to continue to support kids that are facing addiction and we are not fully addressing that challenge.

We are going to see an issue around the Oregon State Hospital. We were recently found to be in contempt of the Federal Court and hopefully that will drive that issue to come to a conclusion faster. What do we do with people that can’t aid in their own defense? That’s been a challenge for the state for years and years and years. We don’t have enough beds at the Oregon State Hospital and we don’t even have beds that are for civil commitment, as you guys have reported on at OPB. So there’s no quick fix for that, but there is the possibility that something could come out of this legislative session that could be positive on that front. I’m sort of waiting to see how those negotiations conclude. But that’s a possibility of something that’s positive for our state. Certainly positive for the people that are in distress and need to be stabilized.

Dave Miller: In the time we have left, I’ve heard that there is some talk about the possibility of a Republican walkout. Technically, if you or other members of the House or the Senate walked out starting on June 20th, you wouldn’t reach the 10 unexcused absences threshold that would prevent you from running for reelection. What would it take for you or your colleagues to use that tool?

Drazan: So, I’ve always viewed the walkout as an expression of just the last resort. Because it means that communications have broken down. It means that negotiations have broken down. It means that the supermajorities are just running roughshod over Oregonians. So I take very seriously conversations around walkouts. I have led a walkout and I absolutely believe that we had to do what we did at that time.

This session, I believe that this tax bill is going to be oppressive to Oregonians, and I absolutely would support making sure that that measure could be referred to Oregonians should they pass it, [so] that they have the opportunity to vote on it. So from my perspective, that would be a way to avoid a walkout, to have a conversation about let Oregonians decide if they can afford this approach at this price point. And certainly gun bills. Session after session after session we have measures come through this chamber that are not oriented toward data-driven best practices for what reduces gun violence in communities and instead ends up just being more restrictions on law abiding gun owners. That is a huge deal for us because we certainly support and defend access to people’s Second Amendment rights.

Those big issues that affect the vast majority of Oregonians deserve to be heard. The approach from the supermajority needs to be responsive to both sides of the aisle, not just their own side of the aisle. So I would hope that we can continue to be at the table and that these issues could be negotiated, that we could come to a place where the minority is heard, and I will continue to show up and extend a hand in that work.

Certainly House Republicans are here to stand up for Oregonians and advance their interests to maintain an affordable state or get to an affordable state. But we represent people that are just unhappy and frustrated and dissatisfied because they’re not the majority. In our districts across our state, they elected Republicans because they in fact don’t share the same mindset as the supermajority Democrat Party in the state and they believe that we need to get Oregon back on the right track and we want to empower communities across your state and families. We want to focus on those issues that impact their day to day lives and certainly when we want to stand up for their constitutional rights.

So a walkout is always a possibility, but it really is dependent on whether or not the supermajority recognizes the essential role that the minority voice has over the course of these next few weeks in moderating power, in moderating the power that exists in the hands of a few and restraining themselves to accommodate the concerns of those from across this entire state.

Miller: Christine Drazan, thank you very much.

Drazan: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Christine Drazan is the House Minority Leader. The Republican represents Canby, Estacada, Sandy, and parts of unincorporated Clackamas County.

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