For generations, Oregon’s government was known as accessible, open and citizen focused. Anyone could come to the Oregon Capitol to testify on legislation or an issue before legislators. It was not uncommon to see a CEO of a major company testifying at the same table as a regular citizen. This mentality made Oregon a national leader and showed how democracy can truly work.

Unfortunately, this open and accessible process is going away.

The 2023 legislative session has exposed a shifting mentality in the Legislature. The public’s input is often not sought, and many so-called “public hearings” have invited testimony with only a fraction of the time allocated for testimony from the general public.

A good example of this approach would be the recent hearings held by the Joint Committee on Semiconductors. Legislative leadership did take the right approach to place this important issue under a specific committee. Such streamlining should have created an open process where a strong piece of legislation could be put together. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

For most meetings, the agendas were not finalized until the day of the meeting and “place holder” agendas met the requirements of public meeting law. Members of the public were repeatedly told that the committee had “run out of time” for public testimony and couldn’t testify. Instead, they were told to submit written testimony. Based on the package that was eventually passed, I don’t think much of the testimony was read.

The restraint on testimony came to a head during the final public hearing on what became Senate Bill 4. The bill upended 50 years of precedent in Oregon land use law by giving Gov. Tina Kotek the authority to bring land into the urban growth boundary (UGB) by executive order. The potential sites identified in presentations to the committee impacted hundreds of landowners, many with homes and farms. Understandably, people were confused and upset that they weren’t notified of this potential zoning change on their property. Normally, local governments would send impacted property owners a notice of land use discussions involving their properties. The Legislature was not required to do this as they were bypassing this long held process.

After an hour and a half of committee discussion and invited testimonies, the committee then allowed a fraction of their time for public testimony. The committee co-chair, state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, abruptly cut off the testimony to end the meeting. Thankfully, a person who happened to be a constituent of Sollman’s spoke up and said, “come on, Sollman, this isn’t fair, give us more time.” Visibly shaken, Sollman mistakenly said that citizens would have another opportunity to testify before being corrected by staff. Since this was the last public hearing, there would be no more opportunities for testimony. It would be up to the governor to determine which specific land would be brought into the UGB for this effort.

SB 4 then passed out of committee, went through the budget process where it was allocated $210 million and was on track to go to the House and Senate for final passage. At this time something bizarre and unprecedented happened again. At Sollman’s request, the Senate President added language to the bill that excluded land with property owner support, leaving only one site with around 25 homes as the only viable option for the governor to select. This occurred after Sollman had discussions with officials from the City of Hillsboro who needed this site to potentially include property that is currently owned by the city.

The bill passed without any opportunity for these impacted homeowners to testify. Much of the committee material had identified other sites that were not prime farmland and that bordered the UGB as open land, with minimal homes. Even with much pleading from business leaders and impacted landowners, the governor went ahead and signed the bill.

These lawmakers made decisions on people’s livelihoods and homes without any regard to land use history, information or first-hand testimony. That is wrong and it could very well happen again under these leaders.

At this time, it is unclear if this semiconductor initiative will be successful. Several of the impacted homeowners have no plans to sell, as many of them are senior citizens or relocating isn’t a viable option for them. This will no doubt end up in court and is a textbook example of a legislative failure. The politicians may call this a success, but we’ll let history and the courts be the judge of that.