It was a rough start to the Labor Day weekend for members of SEIU Local 503 and the Association of Engineering Employees, the labor unions representing hundreds of Oregon Department of Transportation workers slated to lose their jobs Sept. 15.
On Friday morning, about 100 members of the unions rallied on the steps of the Capitol. They came to press lawmakers, who are convening for a special session on transportation funding for the state, to pass a package that can cover the agency’s $350 million budget deficit and save their jobs.
Instead, they waited. By day’s end, just about 20 were left. Not enough members of the Oregon House of Representatives showed up to work Friday to reach the quorum of 40 members. House Democrats, who expected to have 36 members, instead had 35, and House Republicans offered only four members of their 24 members. State Rep. Andrea Valderrama, D-Portland, arrived late from a delayed flight, and state Rep. Hoa Nguyen, D-Portland, who has been battling cancer and has made few floor appearances since February, came to cast a vote. It wasn’t enough.
A meeting of the House scheduled for 11 a.m. was not held until 8 p.m. The House met quorum when Reps. Reps. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, and Vikki Breese Iverson, R-Prineville, who had been absent throughout the day, joined their colleagues and approved procedural rules. The House is adjourned until Sunday afternoon.
The union’s executive director, Melissa Unger, was angry and frustrated.
“In two weeks, 500 people will not have a job. They will not have income. They will not be able to know if they can live in the house that they live in. They don’t have any idea what’s happening,” she said. Gov. Tina Kotek called the special session in July to try and spare 500 layoffs at the transportation agency and find sustainable funding for emergency and critical infrastructure projects across the state.
“When they get called,” Unger said, pointing to about a dozen transportation workers behind her, “they don’t get to choose not to come, because that’s not a choice any worker gets. That’s not a choice any person gets to make. Except it seems like legislators today get to choose whether they show up and look these folks in the face and tell them whether they get to have a job in two weeks.”
Democrat and Republican lawmakers are at odds over how much should be spent and for what when it comes to the transportation agency’s needs, and money needed for other transportation projects across the state.
House Democrats earlier this month proposed a package that would raise $5.8 billion in revenue for the shrinking transportation agency, local transportation agencies and public transit agencies during the next decade through an increase to gas and payroll taxes, and vehicle licensing and registration fees.
Republicans on Friday offered a counter proposal that would instead rewrite existing state law to allow the transportation department to re-prioritize for jobs and road projects roughly $500 million in existing funds obligated for other purposes. Those include rerouting millions from pedestrian and bike safety programs, expanding electric vehicle charging networks, the state’s Climate Protection Program, and passenger rail services.
It is unclear for now when the Joint Committee on Transportation, which was meant to meet Friday after the House approved its rules, will meet. It was originally scheduled to meet Friday afternoon.
Procedural rules would require any proposal, once passed by the committee, to spend two days in the House and two days in the Senate before receiving final votes in both chambers. Lawmakers can suspend those rules with a vote of 20 senators and 40 representatives.
This story originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle and is republished here under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Read more stories at oregoncapitalchronicle.com.
