Gov. Tina Kotek calls for special session, delays ODOT layoffs

Earlier this month the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it would need to lay off nearly 500 workers. This came after lawmakers failed to pass a transportation package to help boost the budget of the agency responsible for road maintenance around the state. Now, Gov. Tina Kotek has announced a special session will be held in late August with the hopes of finding the funds for the state’s transportation agency and has also shared she will delay impending layoffs. OPB politics reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to share more on what to expect from the upcoming special session.

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. Governor Tina Kotek will call Oregon lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session in late August. She wants them to take another crack at finding billions of dollars to pay for road funding in the state for the coming years. This is after Democrats failed to pass their transportation package in the regular session. Dirk Vanderhart is one of OPB’s political reporters. He joins me with the details. Good to have you back.

Dirk VanderHart: Fantastic to be here.

Miller: Can you remind us briefly how we got here, why it is the governor decided to call a special session?

VanderHart: As you mentioned, Dave, transportation and finding money for roads and bridges was sort of the issue of the last legislative session. Democrats worked for like a year to figure out what might be necessary to put together a package, but they were very, very late in actually releasing something, I think there was less than a month left or something. Things just didn’t come together. There was enough heartburn from Dems and Republicans that it could not pass, we found out on the last day of session. They tried to pass a stopgap band-aid bill that also failed.

So the package blew up. It was a major failure of this year’s legislative session. And as a result, layoffs were coming. The governor said something like 500 ODOT employees would be laid off at the end of this month if money wasn’t found – that’s like a tenth of their workforce. So obviously, as you can imagine, there would be a lot of impacts on state roads and things along those lines.

So Kotek’s calling people back. She says she has a plan to get this funding passed.

Miller: The model that I’m most familiar with … some number of years ago there was a so-called “Nike special session.” I think this fits that model: A governor has a particular piece of legislation all teed up and ready to go, they’ve whipped the votes, they basically know that it’s going to pass and that’s why the governor says come back to Salem. Is that the current situation?

VanderHart: Well, you’re right, there’s little drama typically in special sessions. It is not super clear right now if that is actually the case. But the governor did tell reporters today she is confident they will pass her legislation. Whether she’s saying that because she has everyone on a list that is going to vote yes and has agreed to do so, I don’t know. I will say, as I mentioned, there was that band-aid bill at the end of the session, the last day. The governor came in, was really pushing that, and said she had the votes for that to pass. I think she senses there is momentum for something because no one wants to see these layoffs. So she’s counting on lawmakers being willing to get behind this and I think she’s got some provisions in there that are going to get some of that work done.

Miller: The Democratic plan that failed – the bigger one, not the band-aid that was just going to be a relatively modest increase in the gas tax – the full plan would have hiked the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon. It would have raised taxes on vehicle sales and increased a variety of other taxes and fees. It would have cost Oregonians, or another way to put it is, it would have raised over a decade close to $12 billion. Do you have a sense for how much of all of that is on the table now?

VanderHart: So the governor held a call with reporters today and laid out the broad strokes of her plan. She is talking about a 6 cent increase to the gas tax. She is talking about some increases to registration and titling fees. She’s talking about doubling a payroll tax that Oregonians pay out of their paychecks – 0.1% out of everyone’s paycheck – that goes to public transit. That’s going to shore up some agencies that are really hurting. I think those are the big revenue generators.

We don’t know exactly what that will cost. I think her office said, ballpark, $325 million a year. It’s a lot less than what lawmakers had been teeing up in their big pie in the sky package. It would be enough, the governor says, to get ODOT the funding it needs to avoid layoffs, and get some money to the local city and county road departments that also say they’re really hurting, can’t fill the potholes, can’t do the stuff they need to.

Miller: So a lot less than the full Democratic package, but definitely more than that last-ditch, only increase the gas tax by a few cents a gallon.

VanderHart: Right, and that package really infuriated a lot of people because it was just tied to ODOT, it was only going to give ODOT money. Everyone else that was hoping and praying and expecting money from the big package was cut out. ASo Democrats made some enemies that day by trying to put that forward.

Miller: You mentioned on our show when we did a kind of end of the session wrap up that the governor seemed to have a relatively hands off approach throughout a lot of that regular session, the six months or so. Has that changed? Is she now leading these negotiations?

VanderHart: Yes, she is. She has said numerous times to reporters that she has canceled her plans for the summer, she’s not going anywhere. The implication being lawmakers who are on vacation need to get back here and help her solve this, I think she said that even once. She really has taken the reins and is leading discussions now, along with some of the Democratic legislative leaders.

I did tell you, in my perception and many people’s perception, the governor was pretty hands off on transportation. That is not her perception, let’s just be fair. She says she was working throughout, having regular conversations. So I will just get that out there.

Miller: What have you heard from lawmakers in the 24 hours or so since this session was announced?

VanderHart: People understood and have understood that something is coming. The governor basically said as much the day after legislators adjourned. So I think Democrats truly see passing nothing as a big black eye of the session, and many of them are certainly willing to come back and talk about what is necessary. Republicans, we have heard much of the same we heard throughout the session, which is that they believe raising taxes isn’t necessary. They would rather repurpose money the state is spending on other things. For instance, they want to gut money that goes to public transit or maybe money that helps people buy EVs, put that all into nuts and bolts roadwork instead of hiking gas taxes. They think Democrats are just sort of being profligate spenders. So we expect that to continue into the special session as well.

Miller: But as we’ve talked about a number of times in the past, Democrats didn’t need Republican votes at all. If they stayed in line, they had supermajorities in both chambers. It was because of a lack of full support among their own caucus that this bill didn’t pass. What have you heard from Democratic holdouts, people like Mark Meek from Gladstone, if anything in the last 24 hours?

VanderHart: I haven’t heard from Meek. But we should say that there is something in Kotek’s package that seems tailor-made to win his support. What it would do is cut some language out of state statute that allows the state to toll in places like I-5 and I-205. This was something that Meek raised major objections to in the session. State law, since 2017, has had this language in existence. Democrats weren’t talking about doing anything with it, but the fact that it was still in there became such a sticking point for Meek that suddenly he was on social media claiming that Dems were sneakily trying to reinstitute tolling, which was not the case. So the governor is saying “let’s make it clean, I’m not doing anything on tolling at present, I want to excise this language from state statute and just avoid the confusion and suspicion that’s involved.” I think that probably gets Meek there, I haven’t heard that from him personally.

But I also think there will be Republicans that find reasons to vote for this. I mean, they may not have liked the huge, big spending package, but my guess is at least one or two find a reason to vote for this one.

Miller: I’m curious about the timing here. As you noted, the governor has said that her package will mean that the 500 employees who were scheduled to be laid off at the end of this month won’t have to be laid off. She has said there’s urgency here, “cancel your vacation plans, I did.” Given all that urgency, why have this special session six weeks from now? Why have it be at the end of August?

VanderHart: It’s a great question. I don’t know that I have the exact answer. What I do know is that Democrats have been sort of feverishly hunting through everyone’s schedules over the past several weeks, trying to figure out when they could get enough people that would vote for this thing into Salem to do that.

Miller: “The right people” from their perspective.

VanderHart: Yeah, exactly. So apparently August 29 was part of that equation. We also know that the Capitol is still undergoing a major renovation project. Actually, I think it’s all closed off now until maybe August 10. Lawmakers were talking about meeting at Willamette University across the street or some high school in Salem, or somewhere not the capital. What I was told yesterday is that it appears by meeting August 29, there will be some access to the chambers and lawmakers will be able to have a more normal session – even though I’m sure things will still be dusty.

Miller: Since Oregon lawmakers adjourned, soon after it, Congress passed its huge tax and spending cut package. The Oregon Health Authority has estimated that the state could lose up to $1.4 billion in federal funding every year. Are lawmakers gonna be responding to that in the special session?

VanderHart: Everything we heard from Kotek today is no. She’s saying we need to come in, be laser focused on this, get in, get out and make sure there are not the layoffs.

To your point though, we will actually be getting a revenue forecast for the state a couple days before they meet. We may have a far more dire picture of what the state’s finances actually look like. Kotek said today, be that as it may, we are going to be talking about transportation and transportation only. Things change quickly in Salem, so we will see what transpires in a month or so. But that is what we heard from the governor today.

Miller: And just to be clear, for my own edification, the governor can call a special session and say, “I want you to focus on X or Y,” in this case, transportation funding. But lawmakers can do what they want, right? Once they get there, they’re in session?

VanderHart: They’re in session. There’s not even a set end date, so it can go as long as they want it to go. Typically, Oregon lawmakers are willing to play ball, get in, get out in a day. But you can never predict it.

Miller: Dirk, thanks very much.

VanderHart: My pleasure.

Miller: That is Dirk VanderHart, who is one of OPB’s political reporters, talking to us about the announcement yesterday that Oregon Governor Tina Kotek is going to be calling lawmakers back to Salem in late August to pass a transportation funding bill. 

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