Oregon lawmakers head to Salem Tuesday to start the 2025 legislative session

The start of the 2025 legislative session appears to be kicking off on a relatively harmonious note.

Lawmakers face a long list of daunting tasks this session; from passing the next two-year state budget to approving a multibillion-dollar transportation package to pushing for more accountability from state agencies. There are old wounds not far from the surface; the 2023 legislative walkout, the longest in state history, rendered 10 state senators ineligible to seek reelection. And the current House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, has reasons to feel misgivings with Gov. Tina Kotek who she ran against for the state’s highest office, after the then-Speaker of the House reneged on a deal.

Still, during a recent legislative preview in Salem when lawmakers shared their agendas for the next several months, they aimed to strike a more cordial tone. There was even some political banter.

“I think we’re trying to find common ground,” said Senate Republican Leader Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, who said he’s focused on relationship building with his Democratic counterparts, who hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

“We’re coming with a charm offensive,” Bonham said of his party’s approach to the session. “We want to get to know you. We want to go out to dinner with you. Ax throwing was mentioned, I think that’s a great idea. Maybe some cornhole, who knows?”

The 2025 legislative session officially begins on Tuesday.

Here are some key issues to watch:

TRANSPORTATION

Most lawmakers agree Oregon’s aging infrastructure needs help: Bridges are collapsing and potholes are growing.

But how to pay to fix the roads and plug a massive budget hole in the Oregon Department of Transportation’s budget will likely be one of the more politically tricky problems to solve this session. The state’s transportation agency warned in July their funding has gotten so low they couldn’t be counted on to plow mountain passes without more money.

“We’re at the place where you usually are at this point … a lot of information has been gathered. Now, we (have) to get down to brass tacks about how we’re going to pay for it,” Kotek said last week in the legislative preview.

Oregon has historically drawn from a wide variety of places to fund its roads. The federal government chips in, taxes on Oregon employee payrolls, car dealers and sales on bicycles go into the state coffers for transportation. But the biggest chunk of money comes from the State Highway Fund, which includes DMV fees, taxes levied on heavy trucks and dollars from Oregon’s 40-cents-per-gallon gas tax.

“We’re going to look at the things that we have normally looked at to fund transportation in the state, gas taxes, fees, things that are related to what it means to drive on our roads to help fund the system,” the governor said last week.

For Republicans, the idea of raising more taxes at a time when so many in the state are struggling to pay for basic services is already causing heartburn. And there are some misgivings about the lack of a clear proposal to look at and discuss.

“We’re talking about the possibility of raising two to $3 billion in new taxes and revenues in this session, and we don’t even know what it looks like. It’s hard to know which people need to get engaged,” Drazan said. “It’s hard to know which particular stakeholders should be at the table and that are affected by that if they don’t even know what the proposal is yet.”

Bonham, the Republican leader in the Senate, said he suggested the state tap the general fund, rather than try to raise new taxes. For the governor, it seemed that was a clear non-starter.

“I can tell you that’s not feasible unless someone wants to bring a bill that wants to take two billion out of the general fund for transportation, that is two billion out of education, that is two billion out of mental health services. That’s two billion out of housing. [The] general fund will not fill this gap,” Kotek said. “There needs to be a transportation related revenue conversation here.”

Bonham said he’s ready to hear specifics.

“I think the governor gave more time to her high school track career than she did to talking about a transportation package in her [state of the state] speech,” he said.

Democrats, who have a supermajority in both legislative chambers, don’t need Republicans' votes to raise taxes.

WILDFIRES

Another politically thorny yet necessary issue will be how to pay to fight the state’s increasingly costly wildfires. It’s an issue state lawmakers have grappled with for years, but have promised — after last year’s costliest wildfire season in modern history — to make progress this legislative session.

In December, lawmakers gathered for one day to approve spending $218 million in taxpayer money to cover the state’s most expensive wildfire session yet, in which more than 1.9 million acres burned. The state was so deep into the hole, it was unable to pay the people who helped combat the fire.

At the time, state Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, accused the forestry department of failing to keep lawmakers informed about the extent of its mounting costs.

“We have vendors in the state of Oregon that we, the state of Oregon, hired months and months ago, and we have not paid that bill,” said Findley, who said he only became aware of the fiscal crunch in mid-November. “If the tables were turned and it was the other way around, the attorney general would be throwing somebody in jail.”

Kotek said she plans to sit down with her advisory group in the coming days.

“I am going to be sitting down with my team to learn about where the wildfire funding advisory group has landed on recommendations for sustainable ongoing funding for wildfire suppression as well as money to help communities be more resilient in the face of wildfire,” she said. “So that is a priority for me.”

HOUSING AND BUDGET

Everyone knows the governor’s top priority: housing.

“We’re in a crisis and it is improving, but we need to stay the course,” Kotek said last week. “If I had more dollars, or if the federal government wanted to give us more money for rent assistance, I know where I would spend it.”

Lawmakers' primary responsibility in this legislative session is passing the next two-year budget. The governor kicks the process off by outlining her priorities. Her budget, released in December, called for about $138 billion in biennial spending, up roughly 13% from the budget lawmakers passed in 2023.

Kotek described the spending plan as a “stability budget,” one that neither made major cuts nor added major programs.

She carves out a big chunk of money, about $1.8 billion, for building affordable housing units, running shelters, helping Oregonians pay their rent, and transitioning people from the streets to housing.

The governor’s budget also calls for a more than 10% increase in funding to K-12 schools, from $11.36 billion up from the current $10.2 billion.

Republicans have made it clear they agree the housing and homelessness crises are still plaguing the state, but they are equally forceful in their pushback on how the dollars are being spent.

“With the billions of dollars and the two going on three years of a state emergency around homelessness, where’s the results?” Drazan said last week. “Where is it that we can look at that and say that that money has actually achieved enough of an impact given the scope and scale of how much we’ve invested?

“We’ve invested billions and we have succeeded in housing a few thousand,” she added.

In an exchange possibly foreshadowing differences to come, House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, pushed back, noting the state has created nearly 4,800 new shelter beds, rehoused 3,300 households and prevented 24,000 households from being evicted.

Drazan replied progress was still too slow.

“That is meaningful progress and there’s still more work to do,” Fahey responded. “And I think that that’s a theme on many of the really large challenges that we face as a state that we’re not going to solve overnight.”

OTHER PRIORITIES

Fahey, who took the speaker’s gavel in 2024, said tackling “affordability and cost of living” issues will be a primary focus of her caucus this year.

“That is something that is very top of mind for Oregonians right now. And so we know that although there are things that at the federal level or at the global level that we can’t impact, there are big ticket items at the state level that we can and will make a difference on housing, utilities, healthcare, for example, on housing,” Fahey said.

The House speaker said lawmakers are also preparing to tackle prescription drug affordability and figuring out how to renew the funding mechanism for the state’s Medicaid program.

They have also talked a lot about playing a larger role in state agency oversight.

House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, said he’s hoping to hold oversight hearings and wants to see lawmakers asking tough questions.

“What I’m not interested in is the DC style gotcha partisan oversight that you see regardless of who’s in power in Congress,” Bowman said. “Oregon has historically done things differently and I hope that our oversight and accountability will be focused on solutions.”

While Republicans have made it clear they are going to Salem “ready to fight,” they have also acknowledged they are very much in the minority.

“We have people in power that every single day are continuing on the path of status quo, not acting, not changing course, and they weren’t held accountable at the ballot box for that,” Drazan said. “Oregonians said, we’re OK with the way things have been going. We will take more of the same.”

Dirk VanderHart and Bryce Dole contributed reporting.