SALEM — The Senate and House met Monday morning, Jan. 9, at the Oregon Capitol in Salem to organize for the 2023 session of the Legislature. Later in the day, Gov.-elect Tina Kotek was sworn-in during a joint session in the House chamber.

Republican Rep. Greg Smith of Heppner said the opening of the 2023 legislative session signals a generational change in Oregon politics.

The longest-serving Senate president, Democrat Peter Courtney, Salem, is retired, and the longest-serving House speaker, Democrat Tina Kotek, now is the governor of Oregon. Smith said this opens the doors to opportunities for lawmakers to try to work together and advance positive agendas.

To that end, Smith said he made a motion Monday, Jan. 9, on the first day of the session that the House has not voted on since 2005.

“Today we actually passed a vote of acclamation,” he said. “All 60 members voted for it.”

Smith said he moved for a vote of acclamation for the new House speaker, Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, as well as the speaker pro tempore Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene.

“I hope it sends a message to Oregonians that the Legislature wants to work together for the betterment of both rural and urban Oregon. This is just a small gesture as we kick off the session that we have faith that we can work together.

As the longest-serving member of the House, it fell to Smith to give opening remarks. He said his message boiled down to “lift where you stand.”

“If we can lift where we stand,” he said, “we can do some pretty heavy things.”

Hansell takes on estate tax

Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about Democrat Rob Wagner of Lake Oswego as the new Senate president after the two met for several hours.

“He said, when you’re a caucus chair, you by nature have a certain priority and a certain focus, but you need to make that focus more middle of the road, if you will, more bipartisan, more for everybody because you’re the president of the whole Senate, not just one party of the Senate,” Hansell said. “So I saw that as a positive statement, a positive sign that he wants to work across the aisle.”

Hansell said Wagner took the initiative to reach out to Republicans.

“Proof is in the pudding,” he said, “but I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to get some bipartisan stuff done and things that maybe aren’t so good for our part of the state, we might be able to either moderate them or they don’t move forward. So we’ll see.”

Hasnell’s district, Senate District 29, grew as of Jan. 1 with redistricting.

“I now have Wheeler County, I have North Jefferson County and I have the rest of Wasco County with the exception of The Dalles. And a little wedge comes over up on the northwest side. And so, but whether it’s timber or cattle or crops or irrigated agriculture, fisheries, they’re just a wide range of natural resource things. So generally speaking, whenever, if something is viewed as detrimental to the ag community, I’ll be opposed to it … And the reverse is true.”

He said he has 31 bills the legislative council has returned with another five or 10 still under review. Three of those deal with the estate tax.

“One of them is to repeal it all together like a lot of states have already done,” he said. “The other one is to modify it, and the third one is to just bring it up to code or whatever they call it, the same as the federal inheritance tax.”

Hansell said he divides his work into the “two Ps” of projects and policy. When it comes to capital construction projects, he said he is going to be working on childcare and early childhood development. He also said he met with a group from the city of Umatilla last week about a clinic. Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande is looking to expand, he said, and Ukiah is in the process of reestablishing its historic rodeo and could use some help reconstructing grounds.

Hansell also said he was pleased with his committee assignments. For the 11th consecutive year he is on Ways and Means, the state’s budget committee. He also is on two Ways and Means subcommittees — Transportation and Economic Development and Capital Construction.

Hansell also is on Senate committees on Rules, Semiconductors and Labor and Business.

Levy bills have key state support

Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, said she anticipated a good session and expressed positivity about Rayfield, calling the Democrat “a reasonable person.”

She added Rayfield put her on the committees she requested — agriculture, land use, natural resources and water; climate, energy and environment; and semiconductors. Also, she continues her work on the House Revenue and Tax Expenditure Committee.

Going forward, wolf-related issues and mental health are among her top interests. Levy said she would talk more about legislation once it becomes more public in committees.

“I can tell you that we have worked hard in my district with (the) Oregon Department of Fish And Wildlife, and with the Oregon Department of Agriculture to come up with the wording for all of my bills,” she said. “They are both behind them and have been very helpful in helping me craft all my wolf legislation bills.

With the swearing in of new lawmakers, she is one of two Levys in the House. The other is newly elected Rep. Emerson Levy, a progressive Democrat whose district in northern Deschutes County includes parts of Bend and Redmond.

Smith proposes use for the kicker

Smith also mentioned a few bills he is submitting for consideration, but the biggest challenge could be starting a conversation that could get him kicked — requiring money from the state’s corporate income and excise tax kicker to fund school construction projects and infrastructure improvements. That would mean changing the Oregon Constitution. Smith said those dollars, though, would be a boon to capital improvements in local schools.

“I know it’s going to be controversial,” Smith said. “But at the end of the day, I do believe we have to have a conversation about whether our kids have appropriate and adequate space for their education. Let’s have the conversation.”

And he said the Legislature is going to be looking hard at enterprise zones, which abate local property tax for a number of years as an incentive to new business investments. The law is about to sunset, Smith said, and he has a proposal that would allow any combination of cities, counties and ports to designate enterprise zones together.

“Enterprise zones are not mandatory,” Smith said, “and if local officials don’t want to participate in it, they don’t have to.”

Sticking it out

One of Levy’s concerns for the upcoming session, she said, was Measure 113, the law Oregonians passed in November that bans state senators and representatives from reelection if they have 10 or more unexcused absences from floor sessions during a legislative session. Levy called it a “big problem,” as a walkout is “a great tool for bringing very onerous legislation to a grinding halt.”

She added that Democrats will want the ability to walk out when they are in the minority.

Hansell said he sees Measure 113 as a way for the majority party to try to solidify its power. Walkouts, he said, are a tool that have been part of parliamentary procedure as long as there has been parliamentary procedure.

“There’s a reason you have a quorum, there’s a reason why, on rare occasions you deny quorum,” he said. “And it just so happens that one party was in charge of it when the other party denied quorum.”

The majority does not like denying a quorum, and the majority wants to keep that in the toolbox.

“So I don’t think it’s gonna affect anything very much,” he said. “We didn’t use it all that much.”

Smith said there is a portion of his constituency that wants him to walk out at times.

“At the same time, Oregonians had the chance to vote on that issue and said ‘You need to stay and work,’” he said. “That’s what they said they want us to do, so that’s what I intend to do.”

Voters in every county except Sherman and Lake counties passed the measure, according to Oregon’s official election results. Umatilla County supported it 13,249-11,201 and Morrow County passed it 2,272 to 1,725.

Smith said for him, there are a couple of issues significant enough to consider walking away over — the 2nd Amendment and abortion; Smith is in the anti-abortion camp.

But the voters are clear, he said, that lawmakers need to stay and work out differences.

Lawmakers get to put that to the test starting Jan. 17 when committees start meeting.

“That’s really the first day,” Hansell said.

— Gary A. Warner of the Oregon Capital Bureau contributed to this report.