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Measure expanding foster youth rights passes Oregon Senate again, overriding Kotek veto
Measure expanding foster youth rights passes Oregon Senate again, overriding Kotek veto

Yahoo

time9 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Measure expanding foster youth rights passes Oregon Senate again, overriding Kotek veto

Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, speaks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. She is the lead author of a bill that the Senate passed again on Wednesday that would expand rights for foster youth in the state. (Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Oregon senators rebuked Gov. Tina Kotek on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to override her veto of a bill that would strengthen and expand protections for Oregon's foster youth. Lawmakers voted 21-6 to repass Senate Bill 875 after the chamber learned of Kotek's veto, in which she said the policy exemplifies 'the risk of fragmented policymaking in this area.' The governor's perspective holds particular sway over the area of foster care investigations, with the office of the Children's Advocate housed in a governor advocacy office within the Oregon Department of Human Services. The issue of foster youth and care has been a contentious issue for Kotek, who unsuccessfully sought to push the Legislature this session to enact another bill lowering regulations around the transfer and seclusion of children in residential care and treatment centers. Senate Bill 875, meanwhile, would require a court order for blocking or limiting contact among foster children and their siblings. The measure also lists out several rights for foster kids, including being assigned an attorney, maintaining access to personal belongings like toys and being given appropriate luggage to carry their belongings. The bill's lead author, Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, took to the floor minutes after legislative staff announced the veto to contest Kotek's points and argue for the bill's urgency. 'We really want to do everything we can to just prevent moving kids from their families, and we want to keep them up together,' she told her colleagues. 'Our current law says that that right exists as long as it's appropriate, but it doesn't say who makes that determination, and it doesn't really provide the youth who will be understanding why they are being denied that access.' The bill would also expand the definition of a child in care to include any child under custody of Oregon's Department of Human Services, encompassing children who live with parents during in-home safety plans or reunifications upon a trial. Kotek, however, saw that as ripe for misunderstanding. 'This means the law would expand the child abuse investigation framework for specialized child caring agencies to parents' homes,' she wrote Tuesday. 'It also shifts the standard from the type of placement to the legal status of the child without clarifying who is considered a perpetrator under the law.' Gelser Blouin, however, pushed back on Kotek's veto as a last-minute decision that sought no input from the bill's supporters. While the human services department wrote to the Legislature with questions and concerns about the legislation's language, she said Kotek's veto was 'a surprise.' 'We made adjustments to the bill. It has bipartisan sponsorship,' she said Wednesday. 'It passed both chambers with more than the two-thirds threshold, and at no point prior to that were the issues in this letter ever brought up to me by the governor's office.' The problem of child abuse and neglect in Oregon's foster care system has long been on the mind of foster youth advocates and state officials, with a 2024 oversight report from a Kotek-appointed watchdog finding that cases involving child welfare complaints were the most common type of case dealt with by the Oregon Department of Human Services. In 2023, Oregon's foster care system held custody of 7,282 children for at least one day in various facility placements such as family homes, professional treatment programs, psychiatric residential treatment, preadoptive homes, developmental disability-accomodative homes, or independent living, according to the state's most recent data published in October 2024. The bill was also amended in committee amid concerns over a provision that would also allow foster children the ability to decline to attend or participate in religious activities, which some conservative lawmakers feared would restrict families who are religious from adopting and fostering kids. The only lawmaker who spoke out against overriding the veto, Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, said he had questions about how the bill of rights would be provided to younger children who don't know how to read. He was wary of going against Kotek's wishes, pointing to an ongoing workgroup passed by lawmakers last year that is studying legal concerns over the definitions of victims, perpetrators and abuse involving children. 'I'm very concerned about overriding what the governor's recommendations are, and we are the body in which we produce these laws, produce these bills of writing,' he warned his colleagues. 'We have a chance to step back, take into consideration the governor's concerns, or maybe dig into those policies and see how we can fix them.' Another bill sponsor, Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Falls Creek, urged lawmakers to get all of the Legislature's current work supporting foster youth 'over the finish line.' On Wednesday, he shared with his colleagues his own personal experiences struggling to work with the human services department while seeking custody for two children that were once abandoned with him. 'Because of the unfortunate circumstances of these children's early lives, the state is the de facto parent for these children,' he said in a statement following the vote. 'That means it's our job to provide them a safe, secure home, health care, and an education. It means we cannot stand for them to be abused.' In order to be passed, the bill would still need to clear the House with a two-thirds majority vote. In her Tuesday veto, Kotek also blocked Senate Bill 736, which would have enhanced communication between law enforcement, the human services department, and parents and guardians undergoing child abuse investigations. The Senate voted 18-9 to retain that bill in the chamber with no further official action. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Updated at 5:53 p.m. with comments from bill sponsor Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Falls Creek.

Oregon lawmakers regulate guns, public defense, while crime victim, exoneree funding stall
Oregon lawmakers regulate guns, public defense, while crime victim, exoneree funding stall

Yahoo

time9 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Oregon lawmakers regulate guns, public defense, while crime victim, exoneree funding stall

Bills meant to reform and direct more money to the state's criminal justice system had a mixed bag this 2025 Legislative Session. (Photo by Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Bills meant to reform and direct more money to the state's criminal justice system had some major wins and some major losses during the 2025 Legislative Session. Much needed funding for public defense lawyers, new gun control measures and new civil liberties protections overcame budgetary challenges and some strong opposition, while efforts to ensure financial compensation for victims of crime, and those who say they've been wrongfully incarcerated, remain in limbo. Addressing the state's ongoing public defender shortage was among the most pressing issues for lawmakers during the six-month session. The matter reached a fever-pitch in April, when Gov. Tina Kotek fired and replaced the head of the Oregon Public Defense Commission, calling it 'unacceptable' for thousands of Oregonians to go through the justice system without a lawyer. Under House Bill 2614, she will be allowed to fire the commission's executive director for 'just cause.' Lawmakers sought to expand the capacity for experienced lawyers' to take on cases by allocating in House Bill 5031 a nearly 15% funding increase to the commission's more than $700 million budget. But missing is more money to be used directly to support hiring more trial attorneys statewide, as Kotek requested in June. Perhaps the biggest blow to justice reform advocates was the failure of lawmakers to pass Senate Bill 1007, which would have streamlined the payout process to Oregonians found innocent after being wrongfully convicted and serving time in prison. The bill's passage would've likely called into question the state's handling of dozens of cases, and its failure 'only further harms exonerees and their families,' according to Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gun control also rose to the top of Democrats' agenda by the end of the session. They passed Senate Bill 243, banning bump stocks and rapid-fire devices, and allowing local governments to ban the concealed carry of guns in public buildings. But, House Bill 2076, seeking to create a statewide gun licensing program, died in the House Revenue Committee in the face of staunch Republican opposition during the last week of the session. A bill to increase pay for state judges — House Bill 2712 — passed, but another — House Bill 2469 — that would have given them more discretion to lower penalties for some minor offenses, turning some misdemeanor crimes instead into 'violations,' failed. Oregonians who plead guilty to crimes on the grounds of insanity will navigate new legal guidelines under House Bill 2471, which clarifies circumstances under which a mental disorder can be used to absolve a defendant of full responsibility for committing a crime. District attorneys advocating for the bill argued that the clarity is needed in the wake of ongoing legal debates around using insanity pleas. The safety of public officials gained urgency in the wake of the fatal shootings of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman at their home June 16, and the near-fatal shootings of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, at their home the same morning. A day before the politically-motivated attack by 57-year-old Vance Boelter, Oregon lawmakers voted in favor of a bill that would conceal their home addresses from the public, as well as other candidates for office, Senate Bill 224. Another bill that would have made it an official crime to threaten a public official, Senate Bill 473, passed in the Oregon Senate but did not make it through the House. The Oregon Legislature passed several bills meant to offer justice to victims of abuse and sexual assault. Senate Bill 180 confers greater protections from defamation lawsuits for victims of sexual assault. Advocates say such suits can have a chilling effect on victims' willingness to bring criminal charges against perpetrators. House Bill 2975 restores courts' ability to impose distinct sentences for acts of violence like assault and strangulation that have been committed in the context of domestic violence. But when it comes to funding agencies that work with sexual assault victims, lawmakers came up short. House Bill 3196 would have allocated $18.5 million to the Oregon Department of Justice for awarding grants to nonprofits that help victims of abuse find safety and access shelters. House Bill 3070 would have allocated an additional $400,000 for the Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, which certifies sexual assault nurse examiners. Neither effort advanced out of the powerful budgeting Joint Committee on Ways and Means. The act of doxxing has now become a misdemeanor under Senate Bill 1121, building on a previous law that empowered victims to sue. It is also now a misdemeanor to distribute AI-generated nude images under House Bill 2299, which prohibits sharing such images. To curb illicit sex trafficking in spas and massage parlors in the state, Kotek signed House Bill 3819 which raises fines for operating facilities that violate state trafficking laws, and allows the State Board of Massage Therapists to post signs on businesses that violate such laws. But in amendments, the bill was scrubbed of language empowering district attorneys to prosecute businesses based on testimony from victimized women who grow reluctant to share that testimony in court later on, a change that critics worry gives the law now less teeth. A bill conferring new rights for foster kids — Senate Bill 875 — hit unexpected speedbumps when Kotek vetoed it after raising concerns that the bill did not clearly define perpetrators, abuse and the definition of custody and a child in care of the state. The bill would have required a court order from a foster parent seeking to block or limit contact among foster children and their siblings, and provided kids in the foster care system with a public attorney. The bill also guaranteed them access to personal belongings when being moved between new foster placements, and required they be given appropriate luggage to carry their belongings. The Senate moved to override Kotek's veto of the bill, but the House opted to concur with Kotek after she raised concerns about the bill's specificity. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Trump breaks historic Columbia River deal between U.S. government, tribes, Northwest states
Trump breaks historic Columbia River deal between U.S. government, tribes, Northwest states

Yahoo

time12-06-2025

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Trump breaks historic Columbia River deal between U.S. government, tribes, Northwest states

(Left) Powerlines above the Columbia River move electricity from the Bonneville Dam to customers across the region in Hood River County, Oregon, on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Right) Portrait of Farley Eaglespeaker, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, sitting atop a fishing scaffold along the Columbia River, in Cascade Locks, Oregon on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle) This is a developing story and may be updated A 'historic' deal made two years ago between the U.S. government, four tribes, Northwest states and environmentalists to put legal battles aside and invest in restoring endangered Columbia River fish runs is now off. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing the U.S. government from a Dec. 14, 2023 agreement to help restore salmon, steelhead and other native fish being decimated by federal hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin. He also revoked a September 2023 presidential memorandum signed by former President Joe Biden meant to send Northwest tribes $200 million over 20 years to reintroduce salmon in habitats blocked by dams in the upper Columbia River Basin, calling the commitments 'onerous,' 'misguided' and saying they placed 'concerns about climate change above the nation's interests in reliable energy resources.' The 2023 agreement was reached after decades of legal battles that pitted the federal government against four Lower Columbia River tribes and environmental groups backed by the states of Oregon and Washington. Groups behind the suits said they would forge on, and legal battles will likely reopen. 'This move by the Trump administration to throw away five years' worth of progress is shortsighted and reckless,' said Mitch Cutter, a salmon and energy strategist at the Idaho Conservation League, in a statement. 'The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement was a landmark achievement between the federal government, states, Tribes and salmon advocates to find solutions for salmon and stay out of the courtroom. Now, it's gone thanks to the uninformed impulses of a disconnected administration that doesn't understand the Pacific Northwest and the rivers and fish that make our region special.' The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe were part of the deal. In negotiations, the tribes, along with the states of Oregon and Washington, are referred to as the 'six sovereigns.' Gov. Tina Kotek's office did not respond to a request for comment by Thursday afternoon, nor did representatives from the four tribes. Groups representing utilities, farmers, ports and others who rely on Columbia River dams for power, moving goods and irrigation, celebrated the executive order. 'As demand for electricity surges across the nation, preserving access to always-available energy resources like hydropower is absolutely crucial,' said Jim Matheson, CEO of the trade group National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, in a news release. At the heart of the issue are four Snake River dams that provide irrigation and emissions-free hydropower for nearby communities, but have also contributed to the near extinction of 13 salmon and steelhead populations that return to the Columbia Basin from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. The fish are important to tribal health and sovereignty and to basin ecosystems, and the declines are hitting southern resident orcas off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that rely on salmon for food and that are federally listed as endangered. Environmental advocates, tribes and others have pushed to remove the four dams – Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River between Kennewick, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho – to help the fish, including filing lawsuits. Earthjustice, an environmental law group, has led litigation against five federal agencies, seeking changes to dam operations in the Columbia River Basin to help protect salmon. The 2023 agreement, coupled with Biden-era climate and clean energy funding, was meant to pour more than $1 billion in new federal investments for wild fish restoration into the Columbia River Basin over the next decade, along with clean energy projects on tribal lands. It also included potentially breaching the four Snake River Dams to restore natural flows that could revive native salmon populations. Earthjustice Attorney Amanda Goodin said in a statement that they would not give up fighting in court to prevent salmon extinction in the Columbia River Basin. 'The Trump administration is turning its back on an unprecedented opportunity to support a thriving Columbia Basin — and ignoring the extinction crisis facing our salmon,' she said. 'Unfortunately, this short-sighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Oregon bill would make landlords give back rent deposit or pay fee if home found defective
Oregon bill would make landlords give back rent deposit or pay fee if home found defective

Yahoo

time12-06-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Oregon bill would make landlords give back rent deposit or pay fee if home found defective

Sen. Deb Patterson, D-Salem, at the Oregon Legislature on Feb. 12, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Oregon rental applicants who haven't yet signed a lease could soon get their security deposits back if they find the home they've applied to is defective. House Bill 3521, now headed to Gov. Tina Kotek's desk, would let Oregon renters get their security deposits back if the home they've applied to has mold, unsafe electrical wiring or other defects making it uninhabitable. The bill already passed the Oregon House in a 33-18 vote in April, and on Thursday it passed the Oregon Senate in a 20-8 vote. Under the bill, landlords would have five days to return deposits or face a fee equivalent to the deposit they charged. Landlords would not face penalties if natural disasters or emergencies keep them from complying, and they could still choose to return deposits at their place of business rather than through mail. Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, spearheaded the bill after hearing from renters across Oregon who lost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to hold deposits for homes they couldn't move into because of mold, broken plumbing or pest infestations. Renters in Oregon represent 51% of all low-income households, according to Oregon Housing and Community Services. And nearly 37% of Oregonians rent their homes, according to the U.S. Census. That's higher than the national average, and renters are in the majority in cities including Eugene, Corvallis, Monmouth, Beaverton and Seaside. 'Landlords can still enter into whole deposit agreements, collect deposits and keep them when applicants back out without a good reason,' Senate sponsor Deb Patterson, D-Salem, said on the floor. 'That doesn't change. What does change is that applicants will have the right to walk away if the unit is substantially uninhabitable.' No senator debated against the bill on Thursday. If enacted, the bill would apply to deposits received on or after Jan. 1, 2026. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Data centers and their neighbors
Data centers and their neighbors

Yahoo

time12-06-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Data centers and their neighbors

QTS Data Centers in Hillsboro on Oct. 11, 2024. (Rian Dundon/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Oregon has a big and (relatively) new kind of business it doesn't really know how to deal with. It should start soon to figure that out. This new sector consists of its mass of data centers, more of which are likely to pop up in coming years. But the state has no overall strategy for dealing with them. It should, because data centers, economically significant and technically important as they are, are a business unlike any other. Governments need a separate and specific set of policies to deal with them. One reason the state (like many others) has been behind the curve may be inadequate information about the sector, but more is becoming available. Organizations that track data centers aren't in agreement about exactly how many the state has: 131 according to Data Center Map, 84 according to The timing of their surveys could have affected the difference in numbers, but so could questions about how you count them. Data Center Map, for example, says that the largest grouping of centers in the state is at Boardman, with 30 centers listed. All, however, are Amazon AWX PDX, bunched in five different campuses. How many distinct units of these should be counted comes down to a matter of definition. Regardless of the exact numbers, Oregon clearly is among the state leaders for data centers. It has fewer than California and about the same as Arizona, but more than any other state west of Texas. About 2,500 data centers are estimated to exist in the United States, so Oregon's share is above average per capita. One attraction for the state is cheap hydropower: Most of the centers are located not far from the Columbia River. Oregon's moderate climate and relative safety from natural and human-caused disasters are pluses as well. For some purposes, data centers are classified as large industrial operations, which they are — but they're also distinctive from most businesses in that category. They not only use unusually large amounts of electricity but water as well, and they employ far fewer people than most industrial businesses usually do. The tracking site said 'Oregon, with its strategic geographical location, offers several advantages that make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to store their data. The state boasts a robust technology infrastructure, including reliable power supply and high-speed internet connectivity. Additionally, Oregon's temperate climate ensures optimal cooling conditions for data centers, reducing energy consumption and associated costs. These factors contribute to the overall efficiency and reliability of the colocation services available in the region.' Several private data companies dominate the service provision in Oregon: Lumen Colocation appears to be the largest. But Google has a large center in The Dalles, Amazon in Boardman, Hermiston and Umatilla, and both Meta (Facebook) and Apple have substantial operations in Prineville. Besides those well-known locations, Oregon has data centers in Portland, Eugene, Medford, Bend, Hillsboro, Corvallis, Baker City and Bandon. It's truly an industry with statewide reach. They are significant economic players, but they have been walled off from much of the rest of the state's economic and social picture in ways most businesses are not. Their impact on the state and on their neighbors in the areas of electric power, water use, and much more may become large, and it's not entirely predictable. How should we interact with them? What should we fairly expect of them? That's a broad debate begging for a legislative airing. The Oregon Citizens Utility Board, a consumer-oriented nonprofit, said that 'utility investments to serve data centers have been pushing up billing rates to residential, small business, and even other industrial customers. We've seen the dire impact of data centers' rapidly rising energy costs — in 2024, Oregon's for-profit utilities disconnected a record number of households because they could not afford their electricity bills.' The Oregon Legislature has taken note of this specific issue.. This year's House Bill 3546, sponsored by Reps. Pam Marsh, Mark Owens, and Dacia Grayber and Sens. Janeen Sollman and Jeff Golden, covers a narrow though significant segment of data center impact: Electric power rates. It passed the Senate on June 3 and the House cleared amendments from the other chamber on June 5, in both cases with generally Democratic support and Republican opposition. The bill goes to the governor next for final action. That bill raises sensible questions, but it should be the foot in the door to a broader discussion of how these centers should relate to the rest of us. Data centers should be put in a new category by themselves, for utility, regulatory and service purposes. Working through that effort should be a long-term project starting now. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

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