Working Hard For You
THE FEBRUARY SESSION
WHAT HAVE WE DONE FOR YOU
To be honest, the purpose for the last two February sessions has been to demonstrate the need for Oregon to change our Constitution to allow the Legislature to meet every year. In my opinion we have yet to demonstrate a valid reason. Today is Monday, February 22, and we should be adjourning sometime this week. The Senate was in Session Saturday, while the House took the weekend off. To date the Senate has had 84 bills come to our floor for a vote and with 3 to 5 days left we really have no idea how many more will come. We should be getting more information on what is on the agenda, but this session has been all about secrets and things showing up unexpectedly.
A good example of what I am talking about is a bill that showed up Friday in the Ways and Means Committee, with only a one hour notice (which is the way all bills have been showing up for two weeks). The bill, SJR 48, started out in the Senate Education Committee. It was a Constitutional referral that would have allowed sitting judges to serve on the faculty at state colleges as they currently can at private universities. As a member of the committee I thought it was a reasonable idea and I supported it. For some reason (which I questioned) it had a referral to the Senate Rules Committee, so we sent it there with a do pass recommendation. Friday the bill shows up on the agenda in Ways and Means with the original content of the bill having been totally removed and replaced with an entirely different bill (what is called up here a gut and stuff). The bill now would require asking the people to change the Constitution to allow the state to create debt (borrow money) in a different way.
While we were told this would be OK, and maybe it would be, I objected to moving the bill. I pointed out this was a bill that should have gone through the Revenue Committee, not Ways and Means, and additionally there was nobody present who could fully explain all of the ramifications of such a change. The bill was tabled for that meeting, but it will probably come back. The point is we are being asked to vote on issues without having the amount of time required to fully analyze the bill and even less time is being given for public input.
On February 1st the Democrat leadership in the House and Senate said this Session would be all about jobs. While it is true we are taking more federal money and creating more government jobs, I have yet to see anything come forward to help the private sector in any real, sustainable way. My real concern is the fact we are using more “one time money”, continuing to grow government, and are doing nothing to deal with the massive budget short fall we know we will be dealing with in 2011. We are still losing jobs and our economy is not in any type of real recovery.
If there was a reason for the Legislature to be meeting this month it would have been to prepare for the further economic hard times we will be facing next year. Because we have been doing nothing on this agenda, our time spent in Salem has been wasted. I think we should be doing more to restore faith in the Legislature before we ask the people to allow us to meet more often.
Sincerely,
Senator Jeff Kruse
Senate Republican Office
Oregon State Capitol
900 Court Street NE, S-323
Salem, Oregon 97301
Legislature has lots of 'jobs bills' but it’s unclear how many real jobs will follow
Michelle Cole
The Oregonian
February 20, 2010
Five words most often heard this month at Oregon's Capitol: "This is a jobs bill."
But a look at the proposals touted by Democratic leadership as "jobs bills" finds more job labels than actual jobs. Two bills study how to create jobs. Others create jobs but nobody can say how many. And some create no jobs at all but may help Oregonians who are struggling financially.
Critics say lawmakers talk a good game but have failed to focus on putting people back to work. Legislators have extended unemployment, subsidized day care for low-income workers and found a few extra dollars to help students pay for college.
But those aren't jobs. And jobs are what the more than 500 construction and building trades workers wanted when they rallied earlier this month on the Capitol steps.
"We take great offense to somebody saying extension of unemployment benefits is a 'jobs bill,'" said Paul Phillips, president of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council.
With more than 200,000 Oregonians collecting unemployment benefits, lawmakers returned to Salem at the beginning of the month keenly aware of the need to do something -- anything --to help fix the economy.
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