Oregon lawmakers adjourned their 2024 "short" session Thursday March 7th, three days before constitutional sine die.
Although quite bipartisan in nature, there was not a walkout that many had feared, and that has characterized most past sessions in recent history. This was particularly surprisingly given the Oregon Supreme Court announcement days before session started, upholding the legality of a new law that is barring 9 Republican and 1 independent legislators from running for reelection in November.
At the start of session, leadership declared that there would be two major priorities that would be the focus of session, housing, and Measure 110 reform. Both of which were addressed and resolved in a bipartisan manner, though not without plenty of debate. Under an increasing threat of a ballot measure this November, both parties came together to recriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs and responded to the state’s addiction crisis with a $211 million appropriation for treatment, as part of new programs to allow people to go through treatment and avoid jail time or a criminal record.
Lawmakers also approved $376 million for infrastructure and incentives to build houses and gave cities the option to more easily add new land to build housing. They gave Oregonians the right to repair their own electronic equipment and directed the Oregon Treasury to divest from companies that make their money from coal production." In addition, the legislature enacted campaign finance limits that will prevent an additional ballot measure this fall.
American Heart Association priorities faired okay this short session. While we were unable to secure an additional $1million for the Double Up Food Bucks Program to be able to maximize a federal match in the fall, the state did fund the summer EBT program which will help close the summer hunger gap when kids are on summer break and not getting nutritious school meals.
Beyond our nutrition security portfolio, we were able to make some great strides in our systems of care work with the passage of HB 4081, championed by Rep. Dacia Grayber, which will start to modernize the state EMS system and allow for future improvements like data registries and hospital designations that will help ensure patients get the right treatment in the right hospital as quickly as possible.
The American Heart Association Oregon advocacy team will now focus our efforts on tracking the admin rule process for EMS modernization while we also continue momentum building for the 2025 legislative session, with coalition building to support tobacco flavor restriction policy, universal school meals and cardiac emergency response plans.
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