Last Friday, Oregon lawmakers convened in Salem for a special legislative session called by Gov. Tina Kotek to pass a transportation funding bill. The special session will now likely not end until later this month to allow Democrats to muster the necessary votes to pass the bill in the Oregon Senate. On Monday, the House passed a bill that would raise gas taxes by 6 cents per gallon, hike vehicle registration and titling fees, raise costs for drivers of EVs, and temporarily double a payroll tax that funds public transit. The bill contains many elements of one introduced earlier this year by Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, who is currently recovering from surgery and is seen as a critical vote for the passage of the new transportation funding bill to avert mass layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation and cuts in the agency’s services. That earlier bill failed during the regularly scheduled legislative session, which ended in June.
OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us for the latest developments about the special legislative session and the political rifts that have emerged as it nears conclusion.
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. We start today with the ongoing saga of a transportation funding bill. As we’ve talked about before, Oregon Democrats failed to muster the votes to pass a transportation package in the regular session. That prompted Democratic Governor Tina Kotek to call a special session that started on Friday. Two days ago the House narrowly passed a revised package. It now goes to the state Senate, but they’re not expected to vote on it for perhaps a few weeks because, according to Senate leadership, a key Democrat is recuperating from complications following surgery.
OPB politics reporter Dirk VanderHart has been covering these twists and turns, and he joins us now. It’s good to have you back.
Dirk VanderHart: Hey, Dave.
Miller: I’m gonna start with the package that did narrowly pass the House on Labor Day. What is in it?
VanderHart: Yeah, there’s a lot, these things are big. Let’s run it down quickly. First, there are proposals that raise revenue. These are the things that are getting the most attention. Hiking the 40 cents gas tax in the state by 6 cents, so 46 cents a gallon. Registration entitling fees for vehicles in many cases would double, or in some cases even more than that. There would be a requirement that EV and hybrid drivers register for this program the state has where they pay a fee for the miles they drive.
Miller: That had been voluntary in the past.
VanderHart: Has been voluntary in the past, still is. A two year doubling of a payroll tax that funds transit – that’s actually a concession that Republicans recently won – Democrats wanted this doubling to happen indefinitely, but now it would be for two years. All that money is going to go largely for basic road maintenance, funding staffers at ODOT, and also helping cities and counties pay for roadwork, and then also help transit agencies stay afloat.
There’s also just a couple other things. There are increased audits of ODOT, some greater legislative scrutiny for big highway projects, and then simplifying and sort of adjusting the taxes that truckers pay, because the freight industry has long had concerns about that system.
Miller: So how is everything you just mentioned, this package, different from the one that Democrats had initially tried to pass unsuccessfully in June in the regular session?
VanderHart: It is quite a bit less ambitious and quite a bit less expensive. That package that failed in the session, it had higher taxes for car sales for instance. It had 12 or 15 cent increases to the gas tax, depending on which version we’re talking about. It had a bunch more spending for highway projects. I think in total that package was expected to raise about $11.6 billion over a decade. Here we’re talking about $4.3 billion, so almost a third.
Miller: Two representatives crossed their party lines in this vote. One Republican voted for this package, one Democrat voted against it. I’m curious how they explain their votes. Let’s start with the Republican, Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook. Why did he go against his party to say “yes”?
VanderHart: So Javadi had written a lot about this online before the vote. He had a couple of different speeches during the day of the vote. He said essentially this was a tough call, but the right call. He acknowledged that higher taxes are not popular with a lot of Oregonians, probably not popular with a lot of people in his coastal district. But he said he determined that money is necessary to avoid a lot of negative outcomes. ODOT is threatening to lay off 10% or so of its workforce if new money isn’t found. It’s threatening to forgo basic road plowing, not fill potholes, not be able to respond in some instances to emergencies on the highway. He said people need to be safe and this money is necessary to keep them safe. He didn’t buy the argument that a lot of his colleagues have made that the state needs to just shuffle the money needed to perform these tasks from other places, like funding transit. He said we need to be doing both things, so he voted in favor of this.
Miller: Meanwhile, Gladstone Democrat Annessa Hartman voted against the package. What were her reasons?
VanderHart: So Hartman has a pretty interesting district. In and around Gladstone there are a lot of highways. It’s an area that could have really, really been impacted if the state moved forward with tolling Portland area interstates, as it had been planning for a while. So people there have some very negative and raw feelings about ODOT.
Hartman said two things. She said she concluded families in her district, people in her district couldn’t afford these extra costs at a time [when] prices have been rising pretty quick. And she also said people just didn’t trust ODOT enough for the state to cut them another blank check.
Miller: Did either of these representatives talk about potential political blowback for going against the party lines?
VanderHart: Yeah, Javadi was very upfront that this vote might tank his political career. He essentially said that. He said he’s fielded phone calls sometimes at 10 o’clock at night threatening to vote him out of office if he supported this.
We saw something like this actually in 2024 when a Republican representative named Charlie Conrad took a vote that expanded transgender care in the state – very principled, knew he might face blowback and wound up not winning re-election. And I think Javidi, at this point, is coming to terms with the fact he might have a similar fate.
Miller: Let’s turn to the Senate side. As I mentioned in my intro, the vote is now on hold because Democratic Senator – this is according to leadership – is dealing with complications post-surgery. So what is the likely timeline right now?
VanderHart: All weekend we were told likely vote in the Senate on Wednesday, that’s when this thing is gonna wrap up. Suddenly on Monday and Tuesday, it became clear that Chris Gorsek was having some problems. At 6 p.m. yesterday, leadership said actually we’re going to postpone this thing two weeks. So right now we expect the final vote on this bill, likely the special session ending, on September 17.
Miller: We were told that ODOT workers would be laid off on September 15. That was a kind of sword hanging over the state, or Democratic lawmakers, on the governor’s part to get them to pass this, because there wasn’t going to be money in coffers to pay for a big chunk of ODOT workers. Initially, I think those layoffs were even going to be earlier. But now, the governor has said that she can put those layoffs off until October 15 because she trusts that the bill will be passed by the Senate. But where’s the money going to come from in the meantime?
VanderHart: This is always a question I’ve had on this, because the state has passed a two-year budget. ODOT is funded for two years at this point. Presumably, they can float the money to hire all these people and pay this workforce through October, probably far longer, right? But the agency has said there are cash flow issues. If it’s borrowing money that they’re not sure that they’re gonna have ultimately, maybe they’re throwing good money after bad and that can make them even worse off. What Kotek is saying is, I have assurances, there are the 18 votes that we need, we know we have them in pocket, this money is coming, so I feel confident in extending this a month further.
Miller: Are lawmakers taking anything up in this special session besides this transportation package?
VanderHart: No, they have been very clear that this is what they’re going to stick to. I know plenty of people would like to take up plenty of things in any special session. They have been very disciplined. They’re passing three bills, two of them related to transportation and the third to adjourn.
Miller: But what about this huge hit that state revenue is going to take from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” we’ve talked about in the past? And then even more recently, the latest revenue forecast that took Oregon from close to a $500 million surplus in reserves for this two-year budget, to the next two years having a projected $373 million deficit?
VanderHart: All of that is related to H.R.1, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” What we are hearing right now is that that is a problem for another day. I think Democrats are thinking this will be the big subject of the short session that convenes in February. It’s possible something happens, that another emergency session is necessary between them. But right now, we are told expect conversations about austerity, cost cutting, we have to do it in this February session we expect next year.
Miller: Dirk, thanks very much.
VanderHart: Yeah, Dave. Thanks.
Miller: Dirk VanderHart is a member of OPB’s political reporting team.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
