It’s barely even October, but Jimmy Jones is already making out his wish list.

Some housing would be nice. So would groceries, utilities, health care, child care and transportation.

“Those pressures are connected, but they are not experienced equally,” he said. “For households already living close to the margin, there is very little room to absorb another increase in costs or the loss of one source of support.”

Jones is the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, located near the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. With only some 100 shopping days until the Oregon Legislature convenes for its odd-year regular session Jan. 12, 2027, Jones is already looking ahead.

As much as anyone can.

All 60 seats in the Oregon House of Representatives are up for election Nov. 3. Half of Oregon’s Senate seats are also on the ballot. Combined, most of these 75 seats are uncontested, but 35 of them are up for grabs.

Democrats hold an 18-12 majority in the Senate and a 37-23 majority in the House (after state Rep. Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook switched parties and became a Democrat).

Although those majorities could shift come November, many legislative races are in solidly blue or solidly red districts where voters are unlikely to change their stripes.

However, Oregon could have its first Republican governor since Vic Atiyeh left office in 1987. Gov. Tina Kotek remains neck-and-neck with her Republican challenger, state Sen. Christine Drazan of Clackamas, according to polls.

‘Somewhat better than we feared’

Such partisan horse races concern Jones less than the issues the governor and lawmakers face when they arrive in Salem next year — regardless of party affiliation.

“Affordability will be one of the defining issues of the 2027 session,” Jones told Street Roots. “The August revenue forecast is somewhat better than what we feared earlier in the year, but it does not change the broader picture of the budget.”

Carl Riccadonna, Oregon’s chief economist, reported Aug. 26 that Oregon’s economic growth is keeping pace with the rest of the country. During the first quarter of the year, the state’s economic output increased 2.4% over the past year, compared to 2.7% for the national economy.

Riccadonna said high fuel prices, increased inflation and a slow job market continue to hamper Oregon’s economic progress. He also pointed to tariffs and layoffs at Intel and Nike as causes.

Oregon continues to face persistent inflation, unemployment above 5%, weak hiring and considerable uncertainty, Jones added.

“There may be somewhat more room than we expected several months ago, but the coming session will still involve difficult budget choices,” he said.

A regular amount of uncertainty goes hand-in-hand with politics and economics even in the best of times. Clearly, these are not the best of times. And the Trump administration throws the infinite improbability drive into ludicrous speed.

In other words, it’s hard to know the scale of economic difficulty legislators will face in January: troubling uncertainty or utter chaos.

‘Oregon is fighting to lower costs’

Members of the House Committee on Human Services and Housing received fresh numbers from the Oregon Department of Human Services in September. More than 38,000 Oregonians lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits between January and July this year because of reduced eligibility.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law July 4 last year, could cause 200,000 Oregonians to lose insurance. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under Trump continues to pursue changes in federal homelessness policy.

HUD officials announced in June they would be abandoning the long-standing and evidence-based “housing-first” model that provides housing immediately without strings tied to sobriety, treatment or employment.

Instead, they prefer “treatment-first” or “recovery-first” models, where people have to get addiction or mental health treatment before receiving stable housing or other public assistance.

At stake is over $4 billion through the Continuum of Care homelessness assistance program. Jones said Trump-brand chaos makes it difficult to challenge the HUD changes in court.

HUD officials play a bureaucratic shell game, constantly moving grant timelines, rescinding frameworks and issuing rapid Notices of Funding Opportunity that leave short windows for legal actions before funding cycles are disrupted.

“None of this is the Legislature’s agenda by itself, but it increases the pressure on Oregon’s budget and safety-net systems,” Jones said.

Oregon leaders have spent several years building shelters, rehousing people, preventing evictions and providing rental assistance.

“There is evidence that those investments are producing results,” said Jones. “Since 2023, the state reports creating or maintaining more than 6,000 shelter beds, rehousing more than 5,500 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and providing prevention assistance to nearly 26,000 households. In comparable counties, unsheltered homelessness declined 6.4% from 2024 to 2025.”

Oregon also moved into a new regional model this summer with the Statewide Shelter Program, which now supports more than 5,000 shelter beds statewide. 

“Maintaining that progress requires more than preserving beds,” Jones said. “The full continuum has to function together, from prevention and shelter through rehousing and longer-term rental assistance. Each part serves a different purpose, but weakening one puts more pressure on the others and jeopardizes the effectiveness of the system as a whole.”

House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard) said in a prepared statement that Oregon lawmakers must do everything possible next year to provide a bulwark against Trumpism.

“With a dysfunctional federal government, state and local leadership has never been more important,” Bowman said. “While the Trump administration cuts healthcare and food assistance and jacks up prices with an endless war and reckless tariffs, Oregon is fighting to lower costs and protect vulnerable people.”

‘We stand up for each other as Oregonians’

While Jones focuses on people experiencing homelessness and others forced to the margins of society, the Legislature also faces a dizzyingly broad range of issues.

Lawmakers have already met in Salem to draft bills during the time between this year’s short session and the upcoming regular session.

State Rep. Farrah Chaichi (D-Beaverton) serves on the House Judiciary Committee and plans to spend much of her time next year working on criminal justice reforms. During the interim, she convened an informal working group of advocates, legal experts, average citizens with personal experience and fellow legislators to form a Criminal Justice Reform Round Table.

“This group is tracking both upcoming legislative concepts proactively focused on progressive criminal justice reform, as well as bills to defend against in the upcoming session,” Chaichi’s chief of staff Anne Marie Bäckström told Street Roots.

Specific policy objectives include limiting the use of solitary confinement, securing voting rights for inmates and providing safer pregnancy and birthing policies for prisoners.

Their additional goals include providing identification and vital documents for prisoners upon release and creating a statewide rental registry.

Beyond criminal justice issues, Chaichi and other progressive members of the Legislature want to lift local preemptions on rent control and create regulations to allow people to cancel subscription services with a single click.

“Rep. Chaichi remains committed to passing policies that uplift and empower working class families and Oregonians as a Democratic Socialist and progressive elected official,” Bäckström said.

Elizabeth Cronen, communications director for the Senate Democratic Caucus, told Street Roots that Oregonians are already seeing the benefits of the work Democrats did during the 35-day short session between February and March.

Dozens of laws passed during the short session went into effect June 5, shielding Oregonians from the Trump administration’s brutality and keep more money in their pockets, according to Senate Majority Leader Kayse Jama (D-Portland).

“We stand up for each other as Oregonians in challenging times,” Jama said. “While national Republicans violate your individual rights and wreck our economy, Oregon Democrats are pushing back on federal aggression and working for prosperity that includes everyone.”

Democrats particularly touted:

  • Senate Bill 1518, requiring that domestic and home care workers earn at least minimum wage.
  • Senate Bill 1587, preventing state agencies from turning over information on Oregonians to data brokers if those brokers sell data to immigration enforcement agencies.
  • House Bill 4013, maintaining modern safeguards for minors in the workforce, even if the federal government moves backward on child-labor protections.
  • House Bill 4123, prohibiting landlords from disclosing immigration status and other personal information.
  • Senate Bill 1523, allowing tenants to pay rent using whatever reasonable method they choose, not just online portals that can collect data and trigger huge fees
  • House Bill 4116, closing loopholes allowing consumer lenders to charge interest amounting to 100% or more.

“Oregon communities are strongest when every person can live in safety and dignity, whether they are working, seeing a doctor or renting a home,” said state Sen. Wlnsvey Campos (D-Aloha). “That’s the future Oregon Democrats are working to build.”

‘Oregon cannot be a cheap date for data centers’

The future, of course, comes with a giant elephant in the room. And it may have two trunks because it’s the result of artificial intelligence.

AI, and the data centers needed to feed the giant beast, have already caused commotion at the Capitol. 

With the public’s apprehension about AI in general and data centers in particular, Kotek announced Sept. 7 she supports a statewide moratorium on new centers. She made her announcement at an anti-data center rally on the steps of the Capitol.

“I support a moratorium until we make sure that any data center development is done on our terms,” she told protesters. “We must protect our communities, our clean air and water, our utility rights. We must protect Oregon.”

Kotek previously said she supports local governments’ right to issue their own moratoriums on data centers. Now she has issued an executive order to state agencies to immediately pause unapproved land-use requests for data centers.

“This is what I can do right now under Oregon law,” Kotek said at the rally. “But we need to do more, and the Legislature needs to step up next year.”

Kotek also praised the passage of House Bill 3564 during the 2025 session, requiring local utilities to charge large data centers and cryptocurrency operations higher rates to shield residents and small businesses from grid expansion costs.

“Oregon cannot be a cheap date for data centers,” she said at the rally.

Whether or not data centers are good for Oregon communities is a debate that threatened the cohesion of the Democratic caucus during the short session.

The fault lines were particularly visible during a Feb. 16 public hearing held by the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue on Senate Bill 1586.

The bill, which died in committee March 6, would have given tax credits to semiconductor and biotech manufacturers to operate research and development facilities. It also would have added 373 acres to Hillsboro’s urban growth boundary for advanced technology industries as well as permanently rezone approximately 1,400 acres for industrial use over the next 50 years.

Ben Unger, the state representative for Hillsboro from 2013 to 2015, told committee members the bill was deeply flawed.

“This bill is a competition race-to-the-bottom approach to global competitiveness,” Unger told the committee. “Give away all of our taxes, give away all of our land to developers. We think that’s going to allow us to keep up with the Idahos and the Texases of the world. We know from trying this before that that just doesn’t work. Idaho would be willing to put a nursery ward on top of a toxic chemical waste site if they needed it in order to get a job. We aren’t going to be able to compete with that.”

Mary Nolan of the Oregon Metro Council voiced similar opposition to the bill. 

“Senate Bill 1586 looks kind of like fool’s gold to me,” she said.

U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, who represents Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, told committee members she supported the bill.

“Our current business environment and job market is standing in the way for too many young Oregonians,” Bynum testified. “We’ve lost thousands of jobs in the last year. Expenses are rising. We’ve been warned of a recession.”

‘Oregonians should continue asking hard questions’

Jones said organizations like his are braced for more economic quakes.

“Agencies were directed to work within a tight fiscal framework, and many one-time investments do not automatically carry forward,” he said. “The governor’s recommended budget, which will be available in December, will give us a much clearer picture of what the administration intends to preserve and where the Legislature will face the hardest choices.”

With hard choices come hard questions, Jones said.

“Oregon should continue asking hard questions about performance, accountability and where these systems can improve,” he said. “At the same time, we need to be careful that short-term budget decisions do not weaken systems that have taken years to build, particularly as families face greater affordability pressures and federal support becomes less reliable.”

State Rep. Willy Chotzen (D-Portland) said many of the challenges Oregon faces are the result of federal mismanagement by the dysfunctional Trump administration.

“Oregon lawmakers are fighting back against Trump’s reckless and harmful actions,” Chotzen said. “But that alone isn’t enough. Oregonians are struggling. They need all the relief they can get. As we gear up for the legislative session next year, Oregonians should expect this work to continue. We’re not done.”

This article appears in October 7, 2026.