Legislators are set to present new bills while also tackling the effects of the tax measures.
If Measures 66 and 67 don’t pass, legislators will likely spend most of next month’s special session trying to fix the $727 million budget problem the failure would create.
If the measures do pass, the legislators still have bills of their own to introduce, which will largely have no fiscal impact according to Senate Majority Leader Richard Devlin (D-Tualatin).
This is legislators’ second carefully stage-managed effort to convince Oregonians the Legislature should meet more often. According to the Oregon Constitution, lawmakers are only supposed to meet every other year, except in cases of emergency. But many policymakers among the majority Democrats, led by Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem), want lawmakers to move from biennial sessions to annual ones.
Most states have abandoned biennial meetings as an historic relic from a simpler era: The National Council on State Legislatures says 45 states now meet annually and 30 prepare an annual budget.
Read the full story at Willamette Week.
{biztweet}Oregon legislature special session{/biztweet}
