The Joint Interim Committee met December 11 in preparation for the second Special Session in 2021. The primary reason for the session was a push by Tina Kotek to help renters who face eviction. She is waging for an opportunity to put her leadership skills upfront and center to boost her visibility as a governor candidate.

However, the meeting Saturday only proved what Representative David Brock Smith said, “to get resources to Oregonians that need them and condemns the purely political fanfare of a Special Session as their hail mary attempt to cover up their disasters in leadership.”

As the meeting neared the two-hour mark on LC 9 related to emergency rental assistance, testimony was halted to the end of the hearing, but it was clear that Kotek’s reasons for her push was blowing up. Testimony after testimony spoke of the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department failure to process the applications that were already submitted.

It was stated that only four percent of the applications had been processed. Testimony from both rental owners and tenants were of unprocessed applications waiting for payment.

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Department and their failure to get needed checks to workers that lost their jobs due to her closing businesses and industries in Oregon. “Businesses continue to be crippled by a lack of workforce and data from other states clearly shows that an end to their eviction moratoriums had evictions lower than pre-pandemic numbers.

An extension will only increase existing fraud within the system, hasten inflation, perpetuate a lack of workforce and add to the looming recession facing Oregon. What we need is Oregonians to have the ability to get back to work, not this political posturing by the Governor and her Democrats. The Speaker’s Gubernatorial campaign doesn’t need another headline of broken promises,” said Rep. Brock Smith.

There may be other more important reasons for a second special session. Potential legislative concepts that were discussed are:

• Drought Relief Policy
• Illegal Cannabis Grows Policy
• Emergency Rental Assistance Policy
• Related Appropriations

Monday’s session will tell whether any of the testimony impacted the proposed bills.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-12-12 10:38:37

Last Update: 2021-12-12 10:52:18