Session ends. Senate GOP lists bills passed

2024 SESSION RECAP: Senate Republicans Prioritized Emergencies Like Measure 110 and Housing Supply; Lowered Costs for Oregonians, Protected the Kicker
By Oregon Senate Republican Caucus,

SALEM, Ore. – This evening, the 2024 Legislative Session adjourned sine die. Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) released the following statement:

“Since the first day, Senate Republicans have been consistent: this 35-day short session must be focused on bipartisan work to tackle emergencies, fine tune technical fixes, and make reasonable budget adjustments. With few exceptions, the 2024 short session met these criteria. I am proud our Caucus remained dedicated to delivering on these promises by recriminalizing hard drugs, giving law enforcement the tools necessary to crack down on drug dealers, unleashing builders and funding critical infrastructure to boost housing production, strengthening services for children who are victims of abuse, and giving needed financial relief to wildfire victims.”

Republican accomplishments include:

Boosting Housing Production

SB 1564: Allows cities who do not have the bandwidth to create and administer their own model ordinance codes to adopt a code created by DLCD that is aligned with that city’s population.

HB 1530, HB 1537: A bipartisan package of housing bills aimed at boosting housing production, funding critical infrastructure in communities across the state, developing an innovative revolving loan fund, and focusing on workforce housing levels.

Addressing Drug Addiction, Homelessness, and Crime

HB 4002, HB 5204: A bipartisan proposal to give law enforcement, district attorneys, and local government leaders many of the tools they say are needed to get people off the streets and into life-saving addiction treatment. It signifies an end to the nationwide decriminalization movement.

SB 1579: Begins the work of funding and expanding access to underserved, historically marginalized, low-income areas of the state while offering needed services to children who have been abused through Child Advocacy Centers. This critical investment will help ensure equitable access and services for children who have been abused and neglected. It will give all of Oregon’s CACs the opportunity to be accredited with the standards and best practices of the National Children’s Alliance, leading to better standards of care and services.

Defending the Kicker, Growing the Economy, Lowering Costs

SB 1520: Allows Oregon wildfire victims to recover and rebuild their lives without the additional strain of taxation or settlements related to their wildfire losses. The measure proposes to exempt legal settlements from state income taxes for wildfire occurring after January 1, 2020, that were declared state and federal emergencies.

SB 1545: Authorizes a county to allow a homestead rebuilt by the same owner on the same lot to replace the homestead destroyed by the September 2020 wildfires to have a specially assessed value equal to the destroyed homestead’s real market value for the 2020-2021 property tax year, to the extent of the square footage of the destroyed homestead.

SB 1562: Increases the limit for transferring funds from the General Fund to the Rainy Day Fund from 7.5 percent to 12.5 percent of revenue received in the prior biennium. This will allow the state to increase the reserves in Rainy Day Fund as compared to current law.