Like the battered spouse grateful for token kindness, eastern Oregon voters will again be settling for crumbs from the state’s 2025 legislative session.
In the session’s final days, a controversial $11.7 billion transportation department spending spree dominated the debate. Even a normally unified Democratic supermajority couldn’t choke that one down, and the biggest tax increase in state history failed in the session’s final hours.
But maybe the transportation bill kerfuffle was simply a distraction while the legislature quietly handed other agencies and nonprofits a 12% increase over the last budget. When taxpayers balked early in the session at the legislature’s spending habits, one representative chided taxpayers as petulant children.
With over 2200 bills introduced, it’s difficult to put our arms around what eventually passed. But, the Democratic supermajority made sure that funding and policy decisions favored K-12 education, social equity programs, and affordable housing.
Education
SB 5516 handed a record $11.4 billion to the K-12 education system, continuing the trend of ever growing education budgets. Oregon’s investment in education, however, has only resulted in falling fourth and eighth grade math and reading scores that trail national averages further every year. Legislators attempted to address Oregon’s poor outcomes by passing SB 141, which bolsters accountability through metrics and additional testing. School districts that don’t show student improvement on these statewide metrics risk direct intervention by the Oregon Department of Education. Since metrics track scores specifically for disadvantaged groups like students with disabilities or non-English speakers, teachers will be incentivized to help disadvantaged students learn basic skills, rather than attending to the rest of the class.
School districts are wincing at the passage of SB 916 which makes Oregon the first state in the nation to grant unemployment benefits to striking public employees. Get ready for school district budgets to strain as teachers’ unions dominate contract negotiations since taxpayers will now cover salaries for striking teachers for up to 10 weeks.
Another challenge to school district budgets comes from passage of HB 2081A, which instructs the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) to invest its funds in clean energy. With national policy moving away from clean energy subsidies, PERS investments could create unfunded liabilities for school districts if clean energy investments tank.
Social Equity Programs
School boards will take a back seat to the state regarding books by or about classes protected from discrimination. Sexual orientation is a protected class in Oregon, and some books depicting gay sex acts have been shielded under this category. According to SB 1098, school boards may no longer remove protected books from school or classroom libraries. Parents may restrict access to specific books for their own child but not for other children. While school boards retain the ability to curate libraries for age-appropriateness, their decisions are limited to moving protected books to another section of the library rather than removal altogether. Books like Gender Queer are here to stay in Oregon’s school and classroom libraries.
Anticipating federal program cuts, the legislature gave an additional $10 million to Oregon Health Authority for abortion programs and another $2.5 million to Seeding Justice, a pro-abortion advocacy group.
SB 844 will grant abortion and sex change industry providers special protections. If a medical board discovers criminal negligence while reviewing complaints against these providers, the board may no longer refer that information to law enforcement or prosecutors.
The Oregon Health Authority budget was increased by 12%, which includes the Healthier Oregon Program. Initiated in 2021 this program currently gives free medical, dental, mental health, and prescription coverage to over 105,000 illegal aliens.
HB 2586 adds asylum seeker to the list of illegal aliens that qualify for in-state tuition at Oregon colleges and universities.
HR 3 was passed in honor of Oregon’s black drag queen heritage. The bill’s passage featured a drag show performance on the house floor that attracted national attention.
Housing
Affordable housing, or public housing projects, were made yet easier with HB 2138 and SB 974. Efforts to insert taxpayer-funded four-plexes into the middle of traditional single-family neighborhoods will move forward with more funding and fewer obstacles. Building timelines for middle housing developments inside the urban growth boundary will be accelerated by cutting public review opportunities and streamlining the review process for home design, planning and engineering. Funding programs are already in place which favor placement of illegal aliens and the homeless into these units.
Oregon’s homeless industry will continue to be funded, although lower than last session’s record level. Assistance programs continue to assume that victims of a complex stew of untreated drug abuse and mental illness will voluntarily leave a lifestyle of taxpayer-funded open camping and adhere to the rules and regulations of a housing unit. While that approach has brought little success so far, the 2025 legislature doubled down on it by funding $205 million for homeless shelters, $50.3 million for rapid re-housing, $87.4 million for long-term rental assistance, and $33.6 million for eviction prevention.
With HB 2005, the Legislature lowered the state’s standard for forcing people with mental illness into treatment while approving $65 million for new residential treatment centers. Cities will have little influence on where those facilities are established since the legislation says that zoning regulations cannot be used against their placement.
Another limit on landlords was added with SB 599, which prevents a landlord from asking about or disclosing whether a renter is an illegal alien.
Other Assorted Legislation
Gun owners will face new regulations from SB 243, which made rapid fire actuators illegal and gave cities, counties, and districts new authority to prohibit gun owners from packing at public meetings, even if they have a concealed handgun license.
Under HB 2982, boats less than 10 feet in length are no longer exempt from the requirement of a Waterway Access Permit. This includes non-motorized boats like kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, and rafts. At its most absurd interpretation, two inner tubes lashed together could require a permit.
Considering the potential for Oregon’s aging United States senators to retire or die while in office, legislators worked around the current law that allows voters to select a replacement through special election and instead gave that power to Oregon’s governor in SB 952.
The legislature also gave Oregon’s governor hiring and firing power over the Department of Forestry head, previously the job of the Oregon Board of Forestry. Subject to senate approval, the forestry department head must not simply be a practical forester, but must have executive management or operational experience in forest and wildfire management. The Department of Forestry just grew more political.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Dan Rayfield is actively working against the interest of eastern Oregon voters (who voted strongly for Donald Trump) by joining at least 25 lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions such as imposing tariffs on imported goods, reversing California’s clean vehicle emission standards, terminating federal grants, reducing federal spending, and eliminating federally funded sex changes. As federal actions against sanctuary states like Oregon continue, expect more contrarian legal action from Rayfield.
Where are the Crumbs?
If you haven’t found any crumbs to enjoy yet, eastern Oregon voters can take some solace in reversal of the controversial Wildfire Risk Map created by the 2021 legislature But the win was unsatisfying since homeowner insurance premiums are skyrocketing for other reasons, with many rural landowners facing outright policy cancellation. The legislature conceded to rural interests by tying funding for fighting wildfires to a new tax on oral nicotine products, but it’s a far cry from funding stability.
Ranchers celebrated a victory when SB 777 passed, increasing compensation rates for wolf predation of livestock herds. But it was short-lived when the legislature failed to pass SB 985 which would have funded the compensation program.
Eastern Oregon voters will need to take most of their consolation from measures that failed to pass this session, although these fights will likely reappear in future sessions.
As mentioned, the $11.9 Transportation Funding Bill was defeated.
A bill to enact gun control measures from Ballot Measure 114, which is currently before the courts, failed to pass.
Last year’s campaign finance reform bill was challenged by those who would like to change its implementation date from 2027 to 2031. The bill did not pass, so campaign finance limits remain scheduled for implementation in 2027.
A bill to substantially limit water rights transfers died in committee.
A bill to ban cellphones in schools also died. Although, Governor Kotek recently issued an executive order banning cell phones in schools.
HB2321 would have overturned property tax limitations that voters passed in 1990 with Ballot Measure 5 and in 1997 with Ballot Measure 50. Fortunately, it died in session.
What’s happening in Idaho?
Dare we peak over the border and see what Idaho’s legislature accomplished in 2025? Idaho focused on fiscal restraint, low taxes, and protecting rural industries like agriculture. One political analyst called it the most conservative legislative session in living memory.
Stay tuned for a future post here on Substack for a description of specific legislation passed by Idaho in 2025.
Join Us
If you’re tired of living with crumbs from the Oregon legislature, join our efforts to move the border for a Greater Idaho. As of now, 13 eastern Oregon counties have voted to begin discussions with Idaho about moving the border so we can become part of Idaho and have our voices represented in Idaho’s legislature.
Visit our website at greateridaho.org where you can sign up to receive our newsletter, donate, and learn how to petition your local representatives for relief.
A fine analysis and reflection of the dumpster fire called the Oregon Legislature.
Very informative piece on the pros and cons of the recent Oregon legislative session! Oregon is obviously continuing to self-destruct which is another huge reason that the Greater Idaho effort will succeed. Oregon is obviously going to cease to exist as a united state in the not-too-distant future.