By Representative Rob Nosse
By the time you read this, I will still be traveling in Portugal trying to understand what we could do differently when it comes to Ballot Measure 110 (BM 110) and the addiction challenges that we are facing. I will focus my December column on what I learned. My column in January will focus on the February 2024 short session; this one does in a way as well.
Some of you may recall that in September’s column, I wrote about how a bill doesn’t become a law. I outlined how HB 3013, a complicated bill tackling PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Managers), ultimately failed on the Senate floor. I also went into a bit of detail about what PBMs do.
This month, I’m previewing how an idea (or rather ideas) become a bill, at the beginning of the legislative process. Think of this as a bit of a preview of the upcoming February session.
Unlike the long session, I am only allowed to submit two bills. When the short session was established by ballot measure in the last decade, the idea was that we only tackle smaller issues, things we didn’t get right in the long session or make budget adjustments. It is constitutionally limited to five weeks.
That said, we have always tackled at least one “big” issue in every short session that I have served, apart from 2020, when the Republican walkout just before the pandemic started prevented Democrats from passing a bill to address climate change. In the 2022 session, the big contentious topic was farm worker overtime pay. For this coming short session, it will most certainly be changes to BM 110, though maybe the process we are engaging in right now with the newly created Joint Committee on Addictions and Community Safety means it will not be as contentious as we try to land on something before we start.
In one of my two bills I am trying to get a bunch of construction and renovation projects for arts organizations that were proposed and vetted for all corners of this state funded, like the Oregon Film Museum in Clatsop or the Southern Oregon Historical Society, to name two of the 14. Traditionally, the Cultural Advocacy Coalition receives a couple dozen applications for capital improvement projects, vets those applications, and then asks for funding from the legislature. The total funding ask is fairly low, compared to other big-ticket items. However, during the 2023 session, the Ways and Means Committee only funded two requests, both in SE Portland, leaving $7.8 million in capital projects unfunded.
A lot of these projects are in rural parts of our state, but there are a few in Portland. My plan is to introduce a bill asking for the $7.8 million for all 14 unfunded projects. I am doing this in my capacity as the leader of the arts and culture caucus in the legislature.
My other bill is likely to be an “omnibus” bill relating to behavioral health and health care. As chair of the Behavioral Health and Health Care committee, I solicited topics from legislators, lobbyists and activists relating to all things health care.
Now I’m going through the task of vetting these topics with my staff and the staff of the committee. The goal is to piece together a bill that addresses several issues in health care all at once. The idea for this is to avoid the two-bill limit by putting a bunch of ideas in one bill, but I have to do it in a way that I am not loading up my bill with controversial or new initiatives. Screenings for postpartum depression at a pediatrician’s office, mandating coverage for continuous glucose monitors and adjusting licensure requirements for counselors and therapists when it comes to professional disclosure agreements are three of the things that made the cut so far.
A key piece to the puzzle that is the omnibus bill are things that are not included or left out simply because of the scope of the topic. Either a potential topic is too big (and should be its own bill) or is too expensive. I imagine I will be finalizing the details in this bill right up until the November 9 submission deadline.
That’s the long and short of what I am planning for the 2024 short session so far. I picked these two areas to focus on because passing both bills will result in a healthier Oregon and a stronger economy. Arts and culture are a solid driver of economic activity. They are also fun. When people pay for a ticket for a show, they often end up spending money at surrounding local businesses. The forthcoming health care omnibus bill is an attempt to tackle some of the myriad of issues in health policy in one fell swoop, and frankly give more chances to more advocates with concerns and ideas.
Hopefully I am giving you a sense that a lot of work goes into this process–more than I have the space to share in this column as these are not the only things I am working on; but these are the things that are taking a lot of my time right now. As I always say, more to come and stay tuned.
