State senator to come up with accountability recommendations for ODOT funding bill
The announcement was made days after the Statesman Journal published an investigation, which found, among other things, that touted accountability measures in a 2017 transportation funding bill were not met.
Senator Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, is a co-vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation and will lead creation of a draft accountability plan to be presented to the committee in March.
"I know that we have a credibility problem," Starr said.
"We can't just throw more money at the Department of Transportation and assume that they're gonna perform better," he said.
Wagner said accountability is a key piece of a successful transportation package.
"For me, it's a little bit of a lessons learned," Wagner said. "I wasn't in the Legislature (when HB 2017 was passed), but sometimes you have to trust that you need to shift focus and you need to put additional attention on this space, so that's really what we're gonna do."
Accountability has been part of the committee's focus all along, said Rep. Susan McLain, D-Hillsboro, a co-chair on the committee.
"As far as I can see, it's business as usual and we're gonna do a good job of making sure that we review what we've done in the last package and see where we are gonna make even better choices and better investments in the things that our public have told us that they want," McLain said.
The Statesman Journal was told Gov. Tina Kotek, Fahey, D-Eugene, and co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, were unavailable for comment.
Starr was elected to the House in 1998 and served as a state senator for District 15 from 2003 until 2015. He was a city councilor in Dundee before being reelected in the Legislature in November 2024 to represent Senate District 12, which includes parts of Polk and Yamhill counties and communities such as Dallas, Sheridan and McMinnville.
He co-founded a Christian preschool and has worked as a fence contractor.
Starr's seat was previously held by Brian Boquist, who was a co-vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation and Modernization when HB 2017 was created.
Details about the accountability recommendations, including who will make up the group that makes them, are not yet decided, Starr said, but he emphasized a role for Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany.
"She's been there over the last few years," he said. "I'm coming back into the process. She's put in the work and our staff have put in the work."
Boshart Davis is a co-vice chair of the committee.
"We know that cost of living is paramount. It's our job to one, take that to heart and know that that's important, so we cannot in good conscience say revenue raising is our only option," Boshart Davis told the Statesman Journal. "Even if all of this had not come to light, and even if we didn't know that there was accountability problems, we still know that cost of living is top priority."
Anastasia Mason covers state government for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at acmason@statesmanjournal.com or 971-208-5615.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Lawmakers call for Oregon Department of Transportation reforms
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
24 minutes ago
- The Hill
Here's what comes next in the Texas redistricting battle
Texas Democrats are entering the third day after fleeing the state to block Republicans from passing a gerrymandered map that would offer the GOP five pick-up opportunities in the House next year. After a Texas House committee advanced new congressional lines during their special session last week, Democrats left the Lone Star State to deny Republicans a quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers needed to conduct business. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has called for Democrats' arrest and has ordered the Texas Rangers to launch a probe into the lawmakers for possible bribery and other violations. Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) declared he would 'seek judicial orders declaring that runaway Democrats who fail to appear by the Speaker's deadline have vacated their office.' But for now, the two parties are locked in a standoff. Here's a look at what comes next in the Texas redistricting battle: How long can Democrats stay out? Essentially, they can stay out of the state as long as they want. Texas Democrats have broken quorum before. In 2003, they fled the state to try to stop Republicans from passing GOP-friendly maps. They also left the state in 2021 when Republicans worked on largely restrictive voting and election legislation. Both times, Democrats eventually returned to the state, and Republicans passed their priorities each time. Democrats are likely on a similar trajectory because Republicans control the state legislature and the governor's mansion, and there's a conservative majority on the Texas Supreme Court. The question this time is how long will Democrats remain away from the state. Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, expects Democrats to at least run out the clock of the first special session. Rottinghaus noted that the key to Democrats' endurance is about 'stamina, resources and unity.' If 'they can hold all those things, then they can be successful. If not, then they'll start to see some dribbling of support from the members who've fled the quorum and they'll ultimately kind of lose that support,' he said. What other means of pressure can Republicans exert? Republicans don't have many options in terms of forcing Democrats to return to the state for their special session, though Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who's in a competitive reelection battle against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), has pressed the FBI to help Republicans bring the lawmakers who fled back to their state. Rottinghaus noted that Democrats could face some pressure from their constituents who want to see them back in the state; they might also face pressure to return to the state to deal with some of the more pressing issues, including disaster relief following the deadly Texas Hill Country flooding. Republicans face the same kind of pressure to deal with disaster relief and other agenda items, meaning the situation is not tenable long term for either party. How are both sides trying to win the situation? Republicans are trying to oust the Democrats who fled the state from their House seats. Paxton announced on Tuesday that he would seek 'judicial orders declaring that runaway Democrats who fail to appear by the Speaker's deadline have vacated their office.' While Texas Republicans will almost certainly pass their new House map, vacating state Democrats' seats would be problematic for Republicans because the state House still wouldn't have a quorum and would then need to wait to fill those seats in an election. Even if this is legally allowed, there's nothing to stop newly elected Democrats from breaking quorum and doing the same thing. 'The courts basically have been sort of been unwilling to intervene in other quorum breaks to require wayward members to come back,' Rottinghaus said. 'Basically, what they said in these rulings was that the House needs to police itself, so it actually doesn't say anything about what the governor or attorney general can do.' Texas Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to stall Republican efforts as long as possible. They've traveled to New York, Massachusetts, California and Illinois and appeared alongside some of those governors and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin to bring national attention to the issue. Long-term, Texas Democrats will have to return to their state, so it's not a lasting solution. Democratic governors have also said they're exploring their options over how to redraw their own maps in response to Texas. What does Trump do? Trump has said little publicly about Texas Democrats' decision to break quorum and the larger redistricting tit-for-tat, though that could soon change. One question is whether Trump directs the FBI or other agencies to force Texas Democrats to comply and return back to the Lone Star State, though that would ramp up what has already become a very tumultuous situation playing out nationally — and one that could help galvanize Democrats further. That doesn't mean his team is on the sidelines, though. Punchbowl News reported that Vice President Vance is weighing heading to Indiana to speak with Republicans there about congressional redistricting. Other states could move forward with redistricting Several governors and top state officials have said they're exploring their options or signaling they'd like to redraw their House maps. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said last month that it would be 'appropriate' for the state to consider mid-decade redistricting based off the Florida Supreme Court's analysis of the state's more recent battle with its congressional maps. Missouri Lt. Gov. David Wasinger (R) also signaled in a statement that the state may redraw its map. 'Missouri is a solidly conservative state, consistently electing Republicans to every statewide office and sending strong supermajorities to Jefferson City. Despite this, our current congressional map still sends two progressive Democrats to push a liberal agenda in D.C., misrepresenting the will of Missouri voters,' he said. 'We missed the chance to secure a 7-1 map in 2022, a mistake President Trump rightly calls on us to fix,' he continued. 'Missouri's next congressional map must protect Missouri values and ensure our representatives in Congress are as conservative as the voters who send them.' In California, it appears that lawmakers are leaning toward redrawing their map and putting it before voters for a vote. The new map would reportedly hurt five House Republicans in the state. New York and Illinois leaders this week also said they were exploring their options over how to proceed.
The Hill
24 minutes ago
- The Hill
Paxton says he'll begin removing ‘runaway' Texas Democrats from office if they don't meet deadline
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Tuesday he would begin the process of removing from office Democratic lawmakers who have fled the state amid the redistricting battle if they do not meet the state House Speaker's deadline to return to the state Capitol by Friday. 'Democrats have abandoned their offices by fleeing Texas, and a failure to respond to a call of the House constitutes a dereliction of their duty as elected officials,' Paxton said in a statement. ' Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office. The people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for headlines. If you don't show up to work, you get fired,' he continued. Democratic state lawmakers fled the Lone Star State beginning on Sunday to travel to blue states including Illinois, New York and Massachusetts to deny Republicans quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers needed present to conduct legislative business, as the GOP tries to pass the new congressional district lines. Gov. Greg Abbott (R), in turn, called for the arrest of the Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state. Texas Republicans released a new congressional map last week that would result in five new seats for Republicans ahead of next year's midterm elections. Paxton is challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for his seat in what has turned into one of the most closely watched Senate primaries ahead of 2026. On Tuesday, Cornyn called on the FBI to intervene to help Republicans bring back the state House Democrats.
Politico
33 minutes ago
- Politico
The UK triggers a global internet argument
The United Kingdom is testing the limits of how far a single country can go to enforce its laws in a borderless internet — and triggering transatlantic political and legal waves in the process. The UK's Online Safety Act was passed in 2023 to protect users, particularly children, from harmful online content. The law puts age verification limits on a whole range of material — pornography, hate speech, content promoting drugs and weapons, online harassment and depictions of violence. The act's verification provisions went into effect in late July. As soon as it did, UK internet users found themselves having to upload IDs and selfies to prove they were old enough to access certain content. Large platforms restricted everything from X posts on Gaza to subreddits on cigars, and blocked content entirely in certain cases. Quickly, the U.S. got involved as well. Online speech laws in other countries have long annoyed U.S. tech companies; now with the White House's ear, they've been pushing officials to press the matter in trade talks with the European Union, which seems to be working. And content moderation (especially the excesses of left-leaning content moderation) has been a bugbear for Republicans for years. Politically, it's already turning into a fertile issue. A bipartisan House delegation traveled to the UK last week to discuss the law's possible impact on the speech rights of Americans. It was led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who has spearheaded the conservative 'free speech' case against numerous tech platforms in the U.S., but also included Democrats worried about First Amendment rights. 'When foreign governments try to export their speech codes to the United States, it undermines our First Amendment values,' Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), who was on the trip, told DFD in a comment. As my colleague Anthony Adragna reports, this diplomatic effort did not go entirely smoothly: UK Reform party leader Nigel Farage called Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) 'pig-headed' during one such meeting. The OSA has also triggered American-style arguments around chilling speech within the UK as well, POLITICO's Mizy Clifton, who's been covering the OSA from London, told DFD. 'Now the right-wing insurgent populist party Reform UK has taken up that argument,' he said. Does the law really have such global implications? Well, yes. The UK's Office of Communications, which is enforcing the OSA, has already sent letters to at least three websites operating outside the country, demanding that they conduct harmful speech audits. The letters note that failure to comply could result in 'imprisonment for a term of up to two years, or a fine (or both).' (The U.S.-based platform Gab, which hosts Nazi and other extremist content, responded by going offline in the UK.) Ofcom's initial enforcement efforts implicate one of the thorniest questions in internet law: How can a country impose its online speech standards beyond its territorial bounds? 'This is one of the first cases in which a national legislature of a major, important country really forced the issue,' said James Grimmelmann, a Cornell Law School professor who specializes in internet law. Since the rise of the internet, there have been other cases of governments extending their speech laws outward. Australia's highest court ruled in 2002 that its defamation laws applied to a suit that a citizen brought against Dow Jones over an online article. In 2017, Canada's Supreme Court ruled that Google had to remove a website selling counterfeit products from its worldwide search results, after its proprietors fled the country. Large U.S.-based websites have generally been willing to play ball for these one-off cases, either following courts' orders or sending lawyers to other countries to litigate. What makes the OSA different is that it imposes ongoing duties on websites to self-regulate according to its terms. And the law applies to more than just porn sites. So big platforms like Meta — as well as more freewheeling forums like Reddit and smaller discussion boards — are expected to more actively seek out hateful and violent content that needs to be age gated. A source familiar with the House Judiciary Committee's investigation into the matter told DFD on background that, based on conversations with platforms, it would be impractical for them to develop separate content moderation systems based on the country. If a U.S.-based site does violate the OSA, the act has measures to stymie websites without a presence on English soil. Ofcom has the authority to force third parties, like payment services or app stores, to stop doing business with the sites. For American tech companies, there are a few paths out — besides, of course, just obeying the law. One is political — asking the White House to pressure the UK in trade talks to just roll the rule back, as it's been doing with tech laws in the European Union. However, UK officials have said the OSA is not up for debate in tariff negotiations. Another runs through the courts. Preston Byrne, managing partner at the tech law firm Byrne & Storm, says he wanted to force the issue: He's planning to file a lawsuit soon on behalf of websites to get a U.S. federal court to declare that the Online Safety Act is unenforceable in the country. Obtaining such a ruling from an American court is rare: Yahoo previously mounted a similar effort, but the case was dismissed. Byrne says it's still worth trying. 'You could also get symbolic declarations from the court,' he told DFD. 'It communicates to other American companies that these orders that you get from Ofcom [...] they're just letters.' NASA wants a nuclear reactor on the moon Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is serving as NASA's interim administrator, is expediting plans to install a nuclear reactor on the moon, POLITICO's Sam Skove was the first to report. While NASA has previously floated such a project, Duffy is setting a concrete timeline in his first major action as the agency's administrator. His directive calls on NASA to solicit industry proposals for a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor to launch by 2030, around the same time that China plans to send its first astronaut to the moon. Such a reactor could enable longer-term exploration by generating energy during lunar nights, when solar power isn't available. The initiative fits into the White House's ambitions to send astronauts to the moon by 2027, and Mars thereafter, despite major cuts to NASA's budget. The electricity industry wants in on AI The power sector is eager to capitalize on the AI boom, though it isn't a sure bet, POLITICO's Debra Kahn reports. Data centers require a huge amount of energy, presenting an opportunity for an industry that's seen underwhelming growth over the past two decades. However, the White House has sent mixed signals about its dedication to spur the infrastructure needed to power data centers. The administration is trying to prevent federal lands from being used for wind energy and is cancelling loan guarantees for transmission lines. Yet, the industry still has hope given President Donald Trump's proclamations about competing with China's rapid rate of electricity construction, and the growing energy needs of the AI industry. 'The size and the scale of what we're seeing now is unlike anything we've seen,' Pacific Gas & Electric executive Mike Medeiros told Kahn. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
