The Liftoff: Will there be a special session?
The Liftoff: Will there be a special session?
PLUS: Who will be the next speaker?; Novick and Tapogna write op-eds; ten years of legalized weed in Oregon; heartwarming Portland story in the Washington Post; and more!
Welcome back to The Liftoff! Merry Christmas! We know it’s a holiday, so we’ll make this edition brief.
But, as always, thank you. We are so thankful for our dedicated readers, emails pals, and contributors!
1. Measure 110, cannabis, and psilocybin dominate the headlines this week
CBS Mornings featured Measure 110 this week with an almost 5-minute feature story.
From the segment: “After grappling with soaring fentanyl overdose rates, Oregon pioneered a 2020 law called Measure 110 that partly decriminalized the possession of certain drugs. Oregon's Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act aimed to prioritize treatment over criminalization. However, this approach has been met with criticism from members of law enforcement who argue that the lack of serious legal consequences doesn't incentivize treatment for addicts — especially given fentanyl's highly addictive nature.”
According to informal data gathered by Healing Advocacy Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for legal psilocybin programs in Oregon and Colorado, at least 715 people have accessed services in Oregon since the program officially launched this year, reports The Oregonian.
Oregon has handed out an estimated $261 million in grants for drug treatment and recovery services under Measure 110—a fraction of the amount brought in—reports a new Oregon Secretary of State audit. Service providers spent $95 million between July 2022 and June of this year, representing only one-third of what the state had handed out in grants, reports The Oregonian.
Next year marks the 10th anniversary of legalizing the sale of recreational cannabis in Oregon. To mark the anniversary WW looked at Oregon’s epicenter of illegal weed: Cave Junction, Oregon (a town of 2,000 people near the California border).
Eye opening stat from the article: “Hundreds of thousands of pounds of black market weed are harvested each year in this part of the state and shipped to dry states like South Carolina and Wisconsin.”
2. Portland soccer coach makes national news (and more Portland area news)
Since it’s Christmas, we wanted to highlight a feel-good story in the national media (!) about Portland. The Washington Post has a touching story about a Portland youth soccer coach, Kaig Lightner, whose pay-what-you-can model provides social services for local families.
From the article: The Portland Community Football Club is “an outlier in a youth sports landscape that is ruled by pay-to-play, an industry through which billions of private equity dollars flow, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Lightner offers an alternative: a pay-what-you-can model that provides Portland’s marginalized youths an affordable soccer program and helps players and their families navigate social service systems.”
WW reports that Portland City Commissioners Rene Gonzalez and Dan Ryan are exploring whether to place an $800 million bond on the November 2024 ballot to fund Portland Fire & Rescue and Portland Parks & Recreation. The property tax bond would be used to repair aging facilities and infrastructure within both bureaus.
“Ryan says in order to get voters to approve a new bond, the city will need the overall tax burden to drop. That would require changing or repealing one of the area’s current taxes, including either Multnomah County’s Preschool for All tax or Metro’s supportive housing services tax.”
Multnomah County’s annual homelessness report, called Domicile Unknown, showed that 315 people died while homeless on Portland streets in 2022. That’s a 63% increase from 2021, when the county reported that 193 people died while homeless, itself a record, reports Willamette Week.
Portland’s campaign financing program doesn’t have enough money to operate at full capacity ahead of this year’s historic city elections. Under the program, candidates who received donations from at least 250 Portlanders could receive up to $100,000 in matching funds, those who collect 750 donations could collect up to $200,000, and those with more than 1,250 donations would be limited to $300,000 in matching city dollars. A mayoral candidate can rake in up to $750,000 in matched contributions. OPB reports that due to a lack of money in the city’s general fund, those caps will shrink.
More Portland headlines:
Two Multnomah County jail deputies are facing misconduct charges over the deaths of two inmates at the Multnomah County Jail. Prosecutors say they failed to perform their job duties, contributing to two inmate deaths, reports The Portland Mercury.
From The Oregonian: “Absences mount throughout Portland Public Schools’ makeup week”. Nearly 1 in 3 Portland Public School students missed school on Thursday as student absences in the district surged before a delayed winter break.
3. Sponsored Message from Harrang Long P.C.: Harrang Long’s Political Law Practice
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4. How does civility foster healthier politics?
In the second half of this conversation with George Fox's Civility Project, the Oregon Bridge is doing a deep dive on what civility means in the context of politics and how creating a more civil political environment can lead to more productive, bipartisan policy and discourse.
5. Three big stories in the legislature
First, intrigue is starting to mount about who will be Oregon’s next Speaker of the House.
From OPB: “House Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) has told colleagues he’s considering stepping down from his role at the end of the 35-day session that starts in February — a move that would allow him to focus on his campaign for attorney general and give Democrats a more permanent leader heading into next year’s elections.”
Two names that have been floated for Speaker include:
Majority Leader Julie Fahey of Eugene
Rep. Tawna Sanchez of Portland, co-chair of the powerful Joint Ways and Means Committee.
Second, the Oregon Capital Chronicle examined several of the trips Oregon lawmakers made to Taiwan, Portugal, Denmark, and tech hubs in California, most of which were paid for by industry associations and companies. From the article:
“The groups that paid for the trips have a vested interest in legislative actions. The Taiwanese government and foreign companies want to keep Oregon as a trading partner. The Health Justice Recovery Alliance, formed by backers of drug decriminalization law Measure 110, paid for a trip to Portugal to observe its drug decriminalization efforts as part of its push to preserve Oregon’s law. And tech giants like Apple and Google, which backed trips to California, are wary of bills to regulate artificial intelligence or guarantee consumers the right to repair damaged electronics,” writes reporter Julia Shumway.
Finally, two Republican lawmakers, Rep. Anna Scharf and Sen. Brian Boquist, are attempting to force a special session to deal with an imbalance in how heavy trucks are taxed. OPB calls their attempt “unlikely to succeed.”
6. The Way: Novick, Tapogna, and Conkling weigh in
We’ve got a jam-packed Oregon Way for you this Christmas.
First, we have Gary Conkling who argues that Portland’s come back may be through enhancing its night life.
Next, we have Steve Novick who argues that progressives need to find a time to to glamorize from the past — and suggests the 1970s as a place to start.
Lastly, we have John Tapogna who argues that Portland has a lot going right for it, and that 2024 has all the makings of a turnaround story for the city.
7. News roundup: Court strikes down climate program, OSU’s new home, and more!
The Oregon Court of Appeals decided Wednesday that Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Climate Protection Program, which is meant to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is invalid.
From The Oregonian: “The brothers of slain Oregon prison director Michael Francke have asked the state to reopen the investigation of his 1989 fatal stabbing in Salem now that the man prosecuted for the crime has been freed and won’t be retried.”
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear two cases challenging the president’s authority to create national monuments on public land without congressional approval, reports The Baker City Herald.
From The Oregonian: “Nike stock plummets 12% in steep one-day drop”
The Oregon Department of Human Services has agreed to pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit filed by four former foster children who were sexually and physically abused in a foster home, reports the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
Not Good: “Oregon has the highest rate of homeless families in the country”
From Willamette Week: “La Mota Is Crumbling, the Feds Are Circling, and CEO Rosa Cazares Appears to Be Out”
Washington State University and Oregon State University wrapped up an agreement to halt litigation from departing schools from the PAC 12. This ends most of the drama after the PAC 12’s de-facto collapse.
A foster care lawsuit ended in a settlement of $40 million dollars for victims from Oregon’s foster agency — the largest in agency history. Ben Botkin has the full story for the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
Tips? Feedback? Ideas? Corrections? Email benjaminwbowman@gmail.com or kristinaedmunson@gmail.com.
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About the Authors
Ben Bowman is the state representative for Oregon House District 25 (Tigard, Metzger, and South Beaverton) and a member of the Tigard-Tualatin School Board. In his day job, he works as an administrator for a public school district. Previously, he worked as a legislative aide for former Reps. Margaret Doherty and Val Hoyle. He also co-hosts The Oregon Bridge podcast. In the newsletter and podcast, he speaks only for himself.
Alex Titus is a small business owner and consultant to businesses, nonprofits, and associations. Previously, he served as an Advisor in the Trump Administration and as a Policy Advisor to President Trump’s Super PAC. His writing has appeared in National Review, Fox News, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, and other publications.
Kristina Edmunson has been everything from press assistant for Gov. Kulongoski, media advance associate for VP Biden, and communications director for AG Rosenblum. Born and raised in Eugene, she has been involved in some of the biggest policy and legal decisions in Oregon over the last decade. Today, she runs her own communications practice, and sits on Multnomah County’s Community Involvement Community. She speaks only for herself in The Liftoff.