Oregon AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education

2005 Legislative Voting Record
For the Seventy-Third Legislative Assembly

Representative Mark Hass D-27
Right Votes—94%

Good Jobs
SB 71-C	Transportation Projects. Funds Gov. Kulongoski’s “Connect Oregon” package with $100 million in lottery bonds for improvements to railroads, airports and other non-highway projects. Passed the Senate 30-0. Passed the House 57-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
SB 477-B	Prevailing Wages. Updates and improves the state’s prevailing wage law for publicly-funded construction projects. Raises the exemption threshold from $25,000 to $50,000 per project. Requires payment of the higher of state or federal rates on projects subject to both state and federal prevailing wage laws. Requires contractors to post a $30,000 bond that can be used to pay wage claims on a project. Passed the Senate 28-0. Passed the House 53-1. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
SB 1006-A	Lowest Responsible Bidder. Requires public contracting agencies to document the determination of the lowest responsible bidder and submit the information to the Construction Contractors Board. Passed the Senate 25-1. Passed the House 53-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
Right to Organize
HB 3258	Farm Worker Bargaining Rights. Would have prohibited the use of secondary boycotts by farm labor organizations and forced farm workers to accept rules for union representation that are unworkable for seasonal workers. Passed the House 33-24. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
Fair and Adequate Taxes
SB 887-B	Special Tax Shelter for Nike. Would establish a special 30-year exemption from annexation and taxation by the City of Beaverton for four corporations on the borders of that city -- Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Tektronics and ESI. Would apply to no other taxpayers on the city’s borders. Passed the Senate 17-13. Passed the House 44-14. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: No.	WRONG VOTE
SB 1083-A	Tax Credit for Minimum Wage Jobs. Would provide a tax break for farmers and ranchers for complying with the state’s minimum wage law. Started out as an apparently modest tax break to reduce labor costs for agricultural employers, with a price tag of $6.6 million over four years, but turned into a hastily amended and far-from-modest giveaway to those employers that would cost the state treasury $137.8 million. Passed the Senate 25-4. Passed the House 33-27. Vetoed by the Governor. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
HB 2332-A	Tax Cut on Investment Profits. Would have reduced the state’s income tax rates on investment profits to one-half of the amount that working families pay on their paychecks. Would have cost the state treasury more than $200 million per year when fully implemented – enough to pay for two weeks of school for every K-12 student in the state. Passed the House 34-25. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
HB 2450-A	K-12 School Funding Formula. Would have established a ceiling on future state support for schools at an amount school funding advocates called inadequate for Oregon’s school districts. Would have shifted more of the obligation for funding schools to working families by excluding corporate taxes from its funding formula. Passed the House 33-26 and was later amended in the Senate to deal only with facility grants from the State School Fund. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
HB 2542-A	Corporate Tax Breaks. Would have applied new corporate tax breaks enacted by the U.S. Congress to Oregon’s tax system at a cost of $19 million over four years. Passed the House 37-23. This bill was in Conference Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
Health Care
SB 1	Mental Health Parity. Requires health insurers to provide the same level of insurance coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical ailments. Passed the Senate 23-6. Passed the House 59-1. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
SB 329-A	Oregon Prescription Drug Program. Would have allowed private sector employers/employees access to lower prescription drug prices through participation in the Oregon Prescription Drug Program purchasing pool. Passed the Senate 19-11. A motion to withdraw this bill from committee for an immediate vote on the House floor failed 26-32. In House Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
Jobless Benefits
HB 2127	Unemployment Insurance Funding. Reduces Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax rates for employers and boosts funding for employment services through the Supplemental Employment Department Administrative Fund. Passed the House 58-0. Passed the Senate 28-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
HB 3305-A	Unemployment Insurance Extension. Provides 6 ½ weeks of additional Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits for some 20,000 jobless workers who had exhausted their UI benefits. Passed the House 51-0. Passed the Senate 26-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	E
Workers’ Rights
SB 323-A	Workers and Independent Contractors. Revises and updates the definitions that distinguish an employee from an independent contractor while retaining key requirements that must be met to be considered an independent contractor and allowing for greater consistency among state agencies. Passed the Senate 30-0. Passed the House 59-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
Injured Workers
SB 311-B	Medical Exams for Injured Workers. Provides state oversight of the Independent Medical Examination system used to determine injured workers’ eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits, sets ethical standards for the doctors, and creates a certification process for the program. Passed the Senate 29-0. Passed the House 58-0. Signed by the Governor. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE
Voting Rights
HB 2583	Voter Registration Requirements. Would have established new requirements, and barriers, to registering to vote in the form of passports or copies of birth certificates. Passed the House 31-25. In Senate Committee upon adjournment. Right vote: No.	RIGHT VOTE
HB 2583-A	Payments for Voter Registrations. Would have prohibited individuals from receiving payments based on the number of signed voter registration cards they collect. Failed in the House 26-31. Right vote: Yes.	RIGHT VOTE

[Voting Records Home Page]   [2005 Senate Voting Records]   [2005 House Voting Records]

Oregon AFL-CIO
www.oraflcio.org