The Oregon Senate has once again delayed its final vote on a proposal to raise transportation taxes and fees that had been expected to take place Wednesday.
The package, crafted chiefly by Gov. Tina Kotek, is tailored to prevent widespread breakdowns across Oregon’s state and local road networks and avert severe cuts to public transit services.
Senate Democrats said they now plan to hold a vote on the package at the earliest on Sept. 29, giving Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, more time to recover from back surgery. It takes 18 votes in each chamber to pass a tax hike, so Senate Democrats need all 18 of their members to show up to pass the bill.
Gorsek’s medical team told Senate President Rob Wagner, a Lake Oswego Democrat, that it would be “medically unsafe” for him to leave the hospital in time for Wednesday’s vote.
“The stop-gap transportation bill before the Senate is important for all Oregonians who rely on our roads and the maintenance workers whose jobs are at risk,” Wagner said in a news release. “At the same time we are not going to do anything that would put the health of our colleague at risk.”
The delay means the package won’t be up for a vote until a full month after Democrats hoped to usher it through the Legislature in a special session Kotek called into action on Aug. 29.
“We just pray that the Senator gets better and can join us,” Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr, a Dundee Republican, said Tuesday night.
The House passed the transportation package on Labor Day, after some procedural glitches. But a Senate vote expected shortly afterward was postponed until Sept. 17 because Gorsek’s health complications rendered him unable to attend.
On Tuesday night, Senate leaders announced they were delaying the proceedings again, for the same reason.
Hundreds of workers face potential layoffs if the transportation package doesn’t get through. After the first Senate delay, Gov. Tina Kotek directed the Oregon Department of Transportation to postpone its worker layoffs, originally slated for Sept. 15, to Oct. 15 to give the Senate time to vote on the funding stream.
Lawmakers are expected back in Salem at the end of September for Legislative Days, an interim gathering to discuss policy ideas and formulate plans for the upcoming session. The vote will happen during that three day gathering.
Though Oregon’s lawmakers are on a break from their work, they keep drawing per-diem payments theoretically designed to cover housing, meals and travel while they need to be in Salem. Had the special session ended on Sept. 17, the likely cost of per-diem for the full 20-day special session would have been about $180,000, most of which lawmakers would have received during the days they were not in the Capitol.