Hey, Everyone!
Much progress has been made but things are down to the wire to get our bill passed before this legislative session wraps up on June 30, 2019. We need all fingers crossed that we can get everything done before this legislative session ends on June 30, 2019.
The MH Coalition leaders are hopeful that we can still accomplish the voting required, but time is of the essence and it will be challenging.
Here is what has happened since April 1:
- April 8, 2019 (rescheduled from April 1): Senate Bill 586, our MH Coalition bill, passed out of the Senate Housing Committee on Monday, April 8, unanimously. Chuck Carpenter and John Vanlandingham were present to answer questions. There were none. The only drama was whether the required fiscal impact statement (“FIS”) would be done in time, and whether it might indicate that there would be a fiscal impact (on MCRC/OHCS). The hearing started at 3 pm; the FIS was filed onto OLIS at about 4 pm. And it showed a “minimal” impact – which spared us a referral to Ways and Means.
- April 17, 2019: Sen. Prozanski carried our bill on the floor of the Senate and it was passed UNANIMOUSLY 30-0!! THIS IS THE POWER OF THE COALITION!! When you get two sides of an issue together to work through solutions agreeable to both sides, you get legislators who feel comfortable supporting your bill because they have trust in the process and know that our solution is agreeable to both sides of the arguments.
- April 29, 2019: Our bill is now referred to as SB 586A (with our amendments added) and held a hearing in the House Human Services and Housing Committee. John VanLandingham and Chuck Carpenter testified in support and there were no questions from committee members.
- May 22, 2019 (rescheduled from May 20): This was nearly the last possible date that our bill could be worked before the May 24th deadline where out bill would have died if it had not been worked. Thank you to John VanLandingham for pushing and pushing to get our bill session in time.
- Things got very hairy in terms of meeting deadlines for this session. In the end, the amendments are as close as we could get them to the MH Coalition’s original intent, but they aren’t perfect. We are keeping track of some language we will pursue changing in the 2020-2021 legislative session.
- At the House work session, we provided brief written testimony in support of the bill. Chuck Carpenter and John VanLandingham spoke in support of the bill. There were a few questions.
- The bill passed unanimously, 9 to zero.
- But about 30 minutes before the work session, we got the LFO analysis and our bill was referred to the Ways and Means Committee to sort out some funding questions around the park/marina Mandatory Mediation portion of the bill. So…delayed again.
- May 31, 2019: Finally our amendments have been incorporate and printed – our bill is now SB 586B.
- It is now 71 pages, largely because of our marina abandoned property changes – which is a necessary component to our bill!
- We were able to lear up some of the funding issues that had arisen.
- June 10, 2019: The Ways and Means Transportation and Economic Development Subcommittee recommended passage of our bill to the Full Ways and Means Committee, with another amendment, the Dash-B5 amendment. This amendment simply adds some additional expenditure authority to OHCS’ budget to reflect the programs in our bill. Chuck Carpenter and John VanLandingham were present. There was no discussion of the substance of our bill. The vote was unanimous.
- June 14, 2019: The Full Ways and Means Committee, after a brief presentation from Senator Manning, the co-chair of our TED (Transportation and Economic Development) Subcommittee, also passed our bill, with only two dissenters, Sens. Girod and Thompson. (The vote was 18 to 2 in favor.) There was no discussion or questions. (Keep in mind that the committee worked through more than 50 bills in two hours that day, and they had just spent 20 frustrating minutes discussing whether a bill requiring more “wing space” for chickens used by Oregon egg producers would interfere with egg buyers in Oregon cities bordering other states.) Chuck and John VanLandingham again were present. We can only guess that Sens. Girod and Thompson, two conservative Rs, voted “no” because they heard, in the summary of our bill, language about raising taxes (that would be the annual $10 special assessment) on floating homeowners. If true, what is ironic about this is that they may have voted against floating home owners having to pay $10 so that we can ACCESS services and resources far-more VALUABLE than that AND WHICH we currently cannot access! Those of you who participated in the floating home owner tenant meetings last year can attest that the perceived VALUE of what we will get in return for this $10/year is well worth the investment. In any case, we had enough votes that it passed.
NEXT STEPS:
- The bill will now be reprinted as C-engrossed, with the addition of the Dash-B5 amendment (bill printing can cause unexpected delays so we are hoping this goes smoothly).
- After its official reprinting to incorporate all amendments, our bill will go to the House floor for a vote were it is expected to pass.
- Once the House passes it, the bill will go back to the Senate floor for concurrence on the House amendments where we don’t anticipate any issues, other than the clock.
- Once the Senate passes it,, Governor Kate Brown will, hopefully, sign it into law.
FINGERS CROSSED EVERYONE – THIS TIMELINE IS TIGHT!!
Even though the legislative session does not officially end until June 30, 2019, rumor has it that the legislative leadership hopes to end the session by June 21 – and everybody is frantic about funding and bills dying without being heard.
Our MH Coalition leadership is doing everything in their power to make sure the bill can clear these hurdles in time. They, too, have 2 years of work at stake.
There is nothing we can personally do other than send positive vibes, prayers, good juju, whatever you believe in – send rainbows and unicorn thoughts!!
I’ll keep you posted as soon as we have news to report.