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Jun 30, 2025

Only a fraction of bills made it through the meat grinder of the 2025 Oregon Legislature. Here's a taste of some that failed • Lincoln Chronicle

June 29, 2025 By AIMEE GREEN/The Oregonian/OregonLive This is a list no state lawmaker wants their work to end up on: Bills that failed. But it is a reality of the job. For 158 days — from January to

June 29, 2025

By AIMEE GREEN/The Oregonian/OregonLive

This is a list no state lawmaker wants their work to end up on: Bills that failed.

But it is a reality of the job. For 158 days — from January to June — Oregon senators and representatives toiled to try to push through a record 3,400-plus pieces of legislation. Only a fraction of their efforts succeeded.

One of the biggest and most obvious failures for Democrats was the inability to pass before the session’s end Friday any sort of new funding mechanisms to fix the state’s roads, bridges and interstates.

High priority efforts to find ways to pay for the ballooning costs of fighting ever-more-menacing wildfires also flopped, only coming up with a sliver of the money sought.

Among some other big blows to stakeholders were bills that would have allowed police drones to respond to 911 calls and chase suspects without first obtaining a warrant; relief for upper-income Oregonians weary of Portland’s Preschool for All tax and taxes on their estates when they die; and banning “forever chemicals” from consumer products like dental floss.

Also bills that never would have passed the Democratic supermajority in both the House and the Senate — like a Republican attempt to forbid transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports — predictably died.

RIP bills. Or not. Some legislators have vowed to try again — either in the 2026 short session that is expected to last just over a month or the 2027 session which will span five months.

In the meantime, here is an accounting of just some of the 2025 bills that withered this session, organized by subject area:

Gun control: Democrats passed the gun-restriction measure Senate Bill 243, which would ban devices that convert regular guns into the equivalent of machine guns. But the bill lost some of its original teeth, including provisions to require gun buyers to wait 72 hours before picking up their purchases and raising the legal ownership age of most guns to 21. Meanwhile, Republicans defeated House Bill 3076, which would have required gun dealers to register with the state.

Police drones: Measures that would have allowed police to use drones to respond to 911 calls for everything from car crashes to burglaries, as well as search for suspects with “eyes in the sky,” caused extensive upset at the ACLU of Oregon. Opponents stopped Senate Bill 238 and last-minute amendments to another bill from passing.

Cash for unjust imprisonment: A 2022 “Justice for Exonerees Act” promised wrongly convicted people compensation for the years they spent in prison. But many of them say the state has fought tooth and nail to stop them from prevailing. Senate Bill 1007 would have removed roadblocks. Despite its powerful bipartisan backers, Eugene Democrat Sen. Floyd Prozanski and Keizer Republican Sen. Kim Thatcher, the bill never made it out of committee.

Intimidating public officials: A bill that would have created the crime of “threatening a public official” unanimously passed the Senate but stalled in the House. Senate Bill 473 was supported by testimony from an Oregon Court of Appeals judge who said he was intimidated by a disgruntled man who has appeared in court before him, then later stated he knew where the judge lived and emailed the judge maps showing the route the judge walked his dog. The judge said he lost 35 pounds from stress.

‘Forever chemicals’ in consumer products: An ambitious measure, House Bill 3512, would have banned the sale of many products — including carpets, cleaning products, food storage containers, cosmetics and dental floss — containing PFAs. Also known as “forever chemicals,” they are believed to be linked to cancer. A different bill that bans the use of PFAs in firefighting foam and equipment, except when required by federal law, was signed into law.

Flavored tobacco and children vaping: Senate Bill 702 would have banned flavored tobacco that health advocates say encourages kids as young as in elementary school to start vaping. It failed to make it out of committee, despite an extensive advertising campaign.

Vaping at school: Proposed by a high school student, Senate Bill 544 would have required vapor detection devices in high school bathrooms, but it died in committee.

Education

Student absenteeism: House Bill 3199 was heavily scaled back. An early version would have required the state to publish the numbers and percentages of students who are “chronically absent” within a district four times a year, instead once a year after the school yearends. The version that passed both chambers largely focuses on studying the problem and making recommendations for improvement.

Legislation to flip the formula for local use of lodging taxes passed the House the week before the Legislature ended but never made it out of a Senate committee in time for passage Friday night. It would have changed the 70/30 percent tourism promotion versus general fund formula to 40/60 percent promotion/general fund apportionment. It was supported by virtually every city, county and law enforcement organization in popular tourist areas but vehemently opposed by the lodging and restaurant industry and tourism organizations.

Estate taxes: Oregonians spoke up in droves about several bills that would exempt more heirs or more property from estate taxes. One Republican lawmaker noted that some believe the tax — which kicks in on estates worth $1 million or more — makes Oregon “the most frightening place to die.” Estate taxes in other states kick in at much higher thresholds. The federal government’s starts when estates reach approximately $14 million.

Though attempts to reduce estate taxes on a broad swath of Oregonians sank, two other bills, Senate Bill 485 and House Bill 3630, await Gov. Tina Kotek’s signature. They would give more relief from estate taxes to owners of natural resource or forest lands.

Preschool for All: An 11th hour proposal to end a Preschool for All tax on higher income earners in Multnomah County made a splash, after the governor in early June slammed the tax that starts at 1.5% for individual residents making more than $125,000 per year. The bill petered out within a day or two.

Banning octopus farms: A bill that would have forbidden octopus farms in Oregon deeply resonated with cephalopod fans who appreciate their intelligence. But opponents of House Bill 2557 noted that there are currently no food-producing octopus farms in the world. Some opponents also questioned why it’s acceptable to farm other sentient animals, like pigs, but not octopuses.

Protecting ‘Fluffy and Fido’: A measure dubbed the “Protect Fully and Fido bill” that would prohibit public money from funding pain-inducing lab experiments on cats and dogs for the benefit of humans won a 24-3 vote in the Senate but fizzled in the House. Backers of Senate Bill 181 acknowledged no such publicly funded research is currently being done in the state, though Oregon Health & Science University is using private money to experiment on dogs.

Experimenting on monkeys: Although the bill protecting cats and dogs failed, a provision of it survived when it was tucked into a different bill, said a chief backer, Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis. The new omnibus spending bill forbids any state money from going to OHSU’s Oregon National Primate Research Center, Gomberg said. It also calls for the development of a plan to shutter the facility.

Money for combatting wildfires: Though lawmakers from both parties deemed this a priority, the Legislature came up short. The urgency is clear. A record 2 million acres burned last year, which left a more than $200 million budget hole that lawmakers rushed to fill during a special session. One revenue stream that did pass and is awaiting the governor’s signature — House Bill 3940 — will generate some of the money necessary through a tax on nicotine pouches.

Five-cent tax on beverage containers: One bipartisan wildfire funding idea went down in flames: tacking on 5 cents to each bottle and can of soda, beer and other beverage Oregonians buy.

Reducing greenhouse emissions: Nine Democrats signed onto House Bill 3477, which called for Oregon to do its part to reduce global warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius. It required the state to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and by 95% by 2050. It was granted one public hearing before dying in committee.

Protecting farmland: Attempts to help farmers who say they’re being priced out of their land by city slickers paying top dollar for rural acres to build multimillion-dollar mansions or $800-a-night B&Bs failed to make it out of committee. Republicans opposed what they saw as an infringement on the rights of landowners to use their acreage however they wish. The Democratic chief backer of Senate Bill 77 and Senate Bill 78 — Sen. Jeff Golden of Ashland — said he’ll reintroduce the bills in 2027.

Avalanche of bills: A record number of bills filed this session meant some members of the public were given as little as 90 seconds to testify. But what started as a bipartisan effort to address the problem ultimately died after running into strident opposition from some Republicans. House Bill 2006 would have limited individual lawmakers to 25 bills during legislative long sessions. Because Republicans are far outnumbered, they said the bill would give Democrats the upper hand.

Delaying campaign finance reforms: In 2024, lawmakers enacted strict limits on the dollar amounts of campaign donations in order to head off ballot measures that could have imposed even greater restrictions. Secretary of State Tobias Read, however, said he didn’t think he could adequately implement the requirements of the 2024 legislation by its deadline in the next few years. House Bill 3392 would have given him until 2031, but that bill failed to pass this session.

Trump’s power over the National Guard: This bill would have drawn a “line in the sand” to try to prevent President Donald Trump — or any of his successors — from ordering the Oregon National Guard to act as law enforcement, like Democrats say he did in Los Angeles earlier in June. Democrats say allowing Trump to overpower Oregon’s governor could inhibit her ability to deploy troops where they’re needed most, like responding to wildfires, floods or earthquakes.

Keeping journalism alive: Lawmakers didn’t move forward with a bill that would have mandated that tech giants Google and Meta pay local journalism organizations for the stories they pluck from the newsrooms’ websites.

Legal notices: Identical legislation introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City and in the House by Gomberg would have given local jurisdictions the ability to place legal ads and public notices in online, digital news sites if they felt their local newspapers were no longer the best choice. The legislation faced heavy opposition from newspaper owners and organizations and never made it out of House or Senate committees.

— Aimee Green covers the Oregon Legislature. Reach her at [email protected]

Filed Under: Oregon News Tagged With: Oregon Legislature