Good Jobs
1	SB 5-B	Baseball Stadium Financing. This bill authorizes the state to back bonds for construction of a major league baseball stadium with income tax revenues from the salaries of players and team executives – subject to agreement on an overall financing package at the city level and a firm commitment from a major league baseball team to locate in Portland. The Oregon AFL-CIO supported the bill on the condition that the local financing package not divert revenues from schools or other local government services. Conference Committee Report passed the Senate 16-11. Passed the House 31-24. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
2	SB 899	Made in Oregon License Plates. This bill extends a “Made in Oregon” preference to manufacturers of license plates. This preference should enable a Portland company and the Graphics Communications union to regain a dozen family-wage jobs lost when the state’s business went to a Canadian firm last year. Passed the Senate 28-2. Passed the House 53-2. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
3	HB 2041-B	Transportation Funding Package. This bill will provide funding to repair Oregon’s broken bridges and rutted roads from increased vehicle registration and license fees. It will create and sustain 4,700 family-wage construction jobs in each of the next ten years and accelerate economic recovery. Passed the Senate 23-4. Passed the House 45-10. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
Taxes and Revenue
4	HB 2186-B	Disconnect from Federal Tax Code. This bill temporarily suspended the state tax policy of automatically adopting federal tax law changes (usually tax giveaways) in Oregon’s tax system. Passed the Senate 17-12. Passed the House 41-16. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
5	HB 3183	Corporate Tax Giveaway. The original bill approved preferential tax rates and special credits for corporate exporters and businesses that invest in research and development. It was scaled down and delayed in a later version. Originally passed the House 38-18. Later version, not counted, passed the Senate 21-9. Passed the House 44-14. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: No.
Health Care
6	HB 2537	Reduced Health Care Offered by Small Employers. The original bill required insurers to offer substandard benefit plans to small employers. It was later amended to retain current requirements and allow the state to experiment with low cost plans. Original bill passed the House 32-25. Later version, not counted, passed the Senate 20-7. Passed the House 56-1. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: No.
Jobless Benefits
7	SB 2	Unemployment Insurance (UI) Extension #1. This bill restored a UI extension approved in 2002. It provides up to 13 weeks of additional benefits for Oregon’s jobless families, not to exceed $29 million. Passed the Senate 25-0. Passed the House 57-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
8	SB 903-A	Unemployment Insurance Extension #2. This bill provided 7 weeks of additional benefits, 6.5 weeks of contingency benefits, and continues benefits for dislocated workers in training programs. Passed the Senate 27-0. Passed the House 54-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
Workers’ Rights
9	SB 232-A	Redefines Workers As Independent Contractors. The original version of this bill would have loosened protections for workers so that more could be treated as independent contractors and allowed exemptions from withholding taxes. A Conference Committee later approved an interim task force to tackle the question of who is and is not a worker and delayed the effective date to 2006. Originally passed the House 31-24. Later Conference Committee version, not counted. Passed the Senate before amendments 17-6. Passed the House 37-18. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: No.
Minimum Wage
10	HB 2624	Eliminates Minimum Wage COLA. This bill would have eliminated the annual cost-of-living adjustment to the minimum wage that was approved by voters in November 2002. Passed the House 34-24. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.
PERS
11	HB 2003-A	Rollback of PERS Benefits. This bill cuts public employee pensions by as much as a third. It is now being challenged in court as a violation of contractual retirement obligations. Passed the Senate 19-10. Passed the House 39-20. Right vote: No.
12	HB 2020-A	New Defined Contribution PERS Plan. A sub-standard PERS replacement plan was proposed for new employees, but was later changed to a better plan in the Senate. Originally passed the House 32-26. Later version, not counted, passed the Senate 25-3. Passed the House 43-15. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: No.
Injured Workers
13	SB 757-A	Increase Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) Benefits. This bill increases PPD benefits based on the loss of bodily functions and earnings capacity. It also provides future increases in PPD benefits based on the average weekly wage in Oregon. Passed the Senate 29-0. Passed the House 57-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
14	SB 932	Extends Workers’ Comp Claims Filing Deadline. This bill allows Workers’ Comp claims to be filed from 90 days to up to one year for “good cause.” Passed the Senate 24-0. Passed the House 52-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
15	HB 3622	Exemption From Workers’ Comp. This bill would have set a harmful precedent by excluding from the state’s Workers’ Comp requirement a low-wage employer who threatened to move his business to China. Passed the House 37-23. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.
16	HB 3669-A	Authority of Nurse Practitioners. This bill allows Nurse Practitioners to treat injured workers for up to 90 days. This will give injured workers more options for treatment and reduce costs for employers. Passed the Senate 27-0. Passed the House 58-1. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.
Elections
17	HB 2825-A	Reduce Days to Vote. The original bill would have reduced from 18 to 10 days the period of time allowed for vote-by-mail elections. It also would have restricted carrying ballots to ballot sites. Passed the House 31-29. This bill was later used to “gut-and-stuff” an unrelated elections issue (not counted). Right vote: No.
Environmental Protection
18	HB 3632-A	Ignore Forest Management Plan. This bill would have scrapped the forest management plan for Tillamook and Clatsop forests and harvest trees “as rapidly as possible.” Passed the House 44-13. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.