Oregon legislative session adjourns

Raul Grimes of Lincoln City had a lot to say about masked thugs rounding up people like himself.

“Stop the profiling of individuals like me who have darker skin because I am of Hispanic descent,” he told members of the Oregon Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 11.

As a veteran, Grimes told lawmakers he finds racial profiling particularly galling.

 “In 1967, I took a solemn oath to protect the Constitution and did that in an Army uniform for 23 years while the so-called president of our country was a draft dodger,” he said. “Bone spurs, my ass!”

Many Oregonians sent their hopes for a more just world to the Oregon State Capitol when lawmakers met for 35 days for their even-year short session from Feb. 2 to March 8.

Some of those hopes made it out of the building to become reality. Others simply died there.

‘We will not sit back’

Survivors included House Bill 4149, one of the few that directly affected housing and homelessness this session. The bill directs school districts to enroll students experiencing unsheltered homelessness and provide them with services.

The bill passed with only three dissenting votes in the House (Republicans Jami Cate of Lebanon, E. Warren Reschke of Crater Lake and Gregory Smith of Umatilla) and two in the Senate (Republicans Fred Girod of Stayton and Noah Robinson of Cave Junction).

Numerous bills reflected Democrats’ intent to shield Oregon from the excesses of the Trump administration, particularly the administration’s hostility toward immigrants.

Wielding their supermajorities (36-24 in the House and 18-12 in the Senate), Democrats passed such bills as:

Senate Bill 1507, disconnecting the Oregon tax code from select provisions of the federal tax code. The bill promises to return some $300 million of the $1 billion lost for state services due to the tax cuts Trump pushed through Congress last summer.

Senate Bill 1594, directing the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement to respond to federal immigration raids.

House Bill 4079, requiring officials at public schools, colleges and universities to have policies in response to immigration raids.

House Bill 4114, allowing civil action against ICE agents in some circumstances.

Democratic lawmakers patted themselves on the back for their efforts.

“Oregon Democrats made it clear that we will not sit back and allow our communities to be harmed,” Senate Majority Leader Kayse Jama, D-Portland, said in a statement released after the session. “That is why we are investing in Oregon families to lower the cost of living and giving Oregon new ways to stand up to the Trump administration.”

State Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, is an outspoken advocate for the rights of immigrants and people experiencing homelessness. She issued a statement that also congratulated her colleagues on their accomplishments this session.

“At a time when our communities are seeing our national government turning away from fairness and justice, Senate Democrats are clear-eyed about the responsibility before us,” she said. “We will continue defending Oregon’s values and protecting vulnerable communities during a challenging time.”

Still, the bills that died did not go unmourned.

Among the dead was Senate Resolution 203. Grimes was among those who urged lawmakers to pass it so voters could be presented with an amendment to the Oregon Constitution to require police — from local cops to federal agents — to show their faces and IDs.

The resolution didn’t get very far.

After a public hearing Feb. 11, committee members held a work session five days later. They sent the resolution to the Senate Rules Committee, where it died of neglect.

House Bill 4001 met an even quicker death than the Senate resolution. It would have required the Oregon Department of Justice to study ways for the state to confront ICE. It was referred to the House Judiciary Committee Feb. 2, and like many ICE victims, it simply disappeared.

‘We will continue to advocate’

 Reyna Lopez, the executive director of the farmworkers union PCUN, told Street Roots she and other union leaders were particularly disappointed by the death of House Bill 4150 to prohibit state contractors from assisting ICE agents.

The bill died in the House Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection.

“The majority of bills that we and partners across the state championed as part of the Immigrant Justice Package ultimately passed with the exception of HB 4150,” Lopez said. “While we would have wished to see HB 4150 pass as well, we will continue to advocate for our legislators to use any avenue necessary to stand against the federal administration’s efforts to intimidate and oppress our immigrant, farmworker and Latinx neighbors and loved ones.”

Another casualty, House Bill 4091, sought to ban armed forces from other states from entering Oregon for military duties unless approved by the governor or under the authority of the president.

The bill made it as far as a Feb. 19 vote on the floor of the House, where it passed 34-21. It was sent to the Senate Committee on Veterans, Emergency Management, Federal and World Affairs. Committee members voted 3-1 five days later to send it to the floor of the Senate.

It never got there. The Legislature adjourned without taking any further action.

The dead bills nonetheless made their presence known during the sessions. Lawmakers may not have had much to say about them, but they generated a lot of comments among rank-and-file Oregonians.

‘Officers should not be masked’

On Senate Resolution 203, the amendment to rid Oregon of secret police, 333 people submitted written testimony. Of those, 19 people opposed the resolution.

Cindy Mahoney of Grants Pass was one of them.

“I oppose this measure because we have protesters such as Antifa who hide their faces, and it’s to ‘protect’ them,” she wrote in her testimony. “Our officers are trying to keep the peace. Unmasking them puts them at risk for doing their job. It puts them at risk of doxxing and their families at risk of harm.”

Most people’s testimony was more along the lines of Jan Blair of Joseph.

“It seems necessary in 2026 to make it clear that law enforcement officers should not be masked and should also wear some form of identifying information,” Blair said. “Submitting this to the voters for their approval of a proposed constitutional amendment is probably the most efficient way in which to permanently memorialize in Oregon’s Constitution the desires of its citizens.”

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Grimes directed his anger squarely at Donald Trump.

“My generation lost more than half a million real Americans while this person played tennis, golf and other sports,” Grimes told lawmakers. “Do not let this tyrant spit on the blood of so many good men and women who gave their all.”

‘It is not a waste of tax dollars’

Some testimony smelled of Astroturf — a fake grassroots, where different people say the exact same thing.

House Bill 4001, requiring the Department of Justice study, drew testimony from 34 people — with 13 of them in opposition.

Lellaniah Adams of Keizer and Victor Lehr of Prineville were among those who offered identical testimony. “A better idea would be to work with immigration by allowing the jails, prisons and parole and probation to actively work with them … stop wasting tax dollars,” they wrote.

Testimony from Nathan Corbett of Portland reflected the majority viewpoint.

“It is not a waste of tax dollars to ensure our public officials, government workers and state law enforcement have clear guidelines for curbing abuses and right violations of Oregonians at the hands of federal agents,” Corbett said.

Janice Zagorin volunteers with Rapid Response Lane County and testified that she works with immigrants on their way to appointments with ICE at the Eugene field office.

“I have witnessed firsthand the unnecessary enforcement behavior of Homeland Security personnel,” Zagorin said. “Since we are a sanctuary state, we must act in every way we can to rein in their unlawful actions.”

‘Clarity of mission is important’

Although House Bill 4091 died before it could get a Senate vote, its attempt to keep other states’ military forces away from Oregon drew a lot of support from lawmakers — especially those with military experience.

State Rep. Shannon Isadore, D-Portland, one of the bill’s 29 sponsors, served in the Marine Corps.

“One of the things that you learn really early on as a Marine are two things — that clarity of mission is important and a chain of command,” she testified Feb. 3 before the House Committee on Emergency Management and Veterans. “This helps keep us safe, disciplined and ready when it matters most.”

State Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, is a retired Oregon Air National Guard member who served for more than 20 years. He has also served on the veterans committee for the past decade.

“We’ve agreed far more than we’ve disagreed, and in fact, I often agree with this committee more than I do my own caucus,” he told his fellow committee members Feb. 3.

He echoed Isadore’s comments about the need for clarity in a military mission.

“Generally, where there are problems is where you have people put into a situation with an unclear mission without the appropriate training with a whole lot of expectation and perhaps a little bit of fear,” Evans said. “I don’t want another Kent State. I don’t want another situation where folks have to live with the decisions they made because they were scared and untrained in the wrong moment.”

‘There are critical threats to our future’

Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, told Street Roots that even-year short sessions generally focus on short-term fiscal stabilization rather than structural reforms.

By that measure, he said, the Legislature did its job.

“Lawmakers maintained funding for essential services — including education, housing, health care, public safety and transportation — while avoiding immediate layoffs or significant program cuts,” Jones said.

However, he added, underlying fiscal pressures persist. 

“Potential federal cost shifts in Medicaid and SNAP, economic slowdown and possible ballot measures related to recent tax and transportation decisions could bring back budget volatility before the 2026 elections and the 2027 legislative session,” he said.

Jones said his and other community action agencies dodged cuts to their core funding, but it was disappointing that lawmakers left without adding funds for eviction prevention. (See related story An Ounce of Prevention, pages 6-7.)

“Statewide advocates will probably pursue a revenue measure to generate additional eviction-prevention funds, as the fiscal landscape in 2027 is expected to be equally challenging,” he said. “Right now, we are in a good place. But there are critical threats to our future in 2027.”

Overall, Reyna Lopez of PCUN told Street Roots she’s not displeased with how the session went.

“We thank our representatives for prioritizing the safety and rights of our immigrant communities, especially given the moment we’re in, and keeping Oregon true to its promise of being a sanctuary state,” she said.

This article appears in March 18, 2026.