CAPITOL GAINS: Who's winning and losing in
Salem
Let the political games begin
By Oakley Brooks
Like the start of the baseball season each spring, hope also
seems to spring eternal at the opening of a new legislative
session. Oregon’s Senate and House are called into
session Jan. 8 and, for now, among those with an economic
agenda, all is forgotten after the pitched battles and
frustrations of 2005. Salem’s electeds and lobbyists seem
to have gotten the message that the public is fed up with their
obstructionist carrying on (while snagging all-expense-paid
trips to Hawaii). Heading into this year’s session, the
name of the game for business lobbyists is to compromise and
smile on the governor’s agenda.
LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH
On the surface it looked like the newly re-elected Gov. Ted
Kulongoski rubbed the losing constituents’ nose in it a
bit with two of his staff appointments: Chip Terhune, the
Oregon Education Association lobbyist, took over as chief of
staff and Tim Nesbitt, the former Oregon AFL-CIO chief, joined
as Terhune’s deputy. But the consensus is that Terhune,
at least, is a political professional, not an ideologue.
Although he’s spent a lot of time in recent years working
on behalf of teachers and ballot measures to increase the size
of the state budget pie, his background also includes time
working alongside the tenured professor of Salem lobbying
— Mark Nelson. “He has a broad background and
I’m comfortable with him heading up the governor’s
staff,” says Bill Perry, government relations chief for
the Oregon Restaurant Association.
Perry is a little more wary of the former labor lobbyist
Nesbitt. But John Ledger, Associated Oregon Industries’
VP and one of its lobbyists, thinks Nesbitt, too, will check
his ideology at the door: It’s been a tradition for
lobbyists who take on new government posts. “It’s
dangerous to assume that what people have done in a past job
they’ll bring to their current post,” Ledger
says.
WHAT’S ON THE BUSINESS AGENDA?
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There’s a growing school of thought among business
lobbyists that corporate leaders will agree to the state
keeping the $275 million corporate tax refund or
“kicker” if it’s spent on business
priorities. Putting the kicker in a reserve fund is one
option. But some groups are also looking hard at investing
the corporate kicker in higher education or transportation.
If the kicker-to-reserve option fails, the Oregon Business
Association (OBA), the self-described “moderate”
business voice, will be pushing for a one-time capital
investment either for state universities and community
colleges, or on non-highway transportation projects similar
to those backed by last session’s Connect Oregon
program. “We want the rainy-day fund to succeed but we
just don’t think the kicker is the best way to do
it,” says OBA President Lynn Lundquist, who says the
organization favors placing the state’s unspent balance
at the end of each funding cycle in a reserve fund.
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OBA will push for more money dedicated to K-12, though
Lundquist says he realizes it might not be the 14% increase
Kulongoski has proposed. AOI’s Ledger says he’s
encouraged by more dollars in Kulongoski’s higher
education budget. On K-12, Ledger wouldn’t comment
(AOI’s board hadn’t finalized its agenda by press
time), but issued a reminder that “the Legislature has
always been tighter with the purse strings than the
governor.”
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The state farm bureau plans to rein in the state’s
minimum wage, which rose 30 cents to $7.80 an hour Jan. 1 to
keep up with inflation. Farmers typically pay laborers right
at the minimum and farm bureau lobbyist Don Schellenberg says
a new study from University of California-Davis due out
around the first of the year will document how cost-of-living
raises burden farmers. “We have to mitigate this and
we’ll be pushing for that,” says Schellenberg.
Meanwhile, restaurant reps say they have struck a deal with
labor commissioner Dan Gardner to smooth the way for
legislation allowing wait staff to forgo mandatory breaks in
the midst of lunch and dinner rush periods. Bill Perry
describes that as a potential win not only for restaurant
owners frustrated with juggling staff but also servers
dependent on tip income. “They’re losing income
at the busiest times,” he says.
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Minimum requirements for sales of biofuels and subsidies for
ethanol and biodiesel look to have a better chance this
session. Industry backers now have a trade group, the
Northwest Biofuels Association, several refineries in the
works in Oregon and a sea change in public opinion on
renewable energy since a renewable fuels bill died because of
partisan squabbling in 2005. The change in House leadership
and continued backing from the OBA and farm bureau should
also help biofuels’ case in the Legislature.
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Kulongoski still has a lot of work to do to sell his plan to
boost renewables’ portion of electricity generation to
25% by 2025. Business groups have so far been lukewarm to the
plan because of potential electricity rate increases; despite
private investments in wind generation in Oregon, cheap
hydroelectric power here generally has made solar, wind and
geothermal energy less competitive than in California, for
instance, where a substantial renewable policy has been
adopted.
BUSTING THE METAL PIRATES
The most intriguing bill likely to get attention this session
is the stolen metals legislation being hashed out at press time
by reps of the nursery, construction, railroad, metal recycling
industries and law enforcement officials. A robust, meth-fueled
underground trade has developed around stolen sprinkler pipes,
housing materials, tools and railroad equipment. Union Pacific,
for instance, budgets $1 million a year in the region for
stolen metals and equipment. The new bill would place reporting
requirements on metals recyclers and stiffen the penalties for
metal thieves and recyclers who don’t comply with
reporting standards or are caught trading stolen
goods.
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