Democrats finally advanced Gov. Tina Kotek’s plan to fund road maintenance and public transit on Sunday afternoon, two days later than expected.

But the package of tax increases didn’t move forward without a notable concession – and a noteworthy political absence.

After jockeying with Republicans to ensure they’d have enough members to hold a vote in the Oregon House, Democrats slashed funding for public transit agencies contained in Kotek’s initial proposal.

Under the version of the bill that moved forward, a 0.1% tax that Oregon workers currently pay would be doubled to 0.2% for just two years – not indefinitely as the governor proposed.

As a result, the transportation funding bill, House Bill 3991, is expected to raise around $4.3 billion over the course of a decade. The bill had an estimated $5.8 billion price tag in its original form.

The change was a win for Republicans, who have argued all year that Democrats shouldn’t rush to raise taxes as they try to find millions more for routine road upkeep and other priorities. The party was unable to influence a raft of other cost increases laid out in the bill, including a six-cent hike to the state’s gas tax and higher vehicle registration fees.

“It really is something that I just continue to hear relentlessly and persistently from voters,” Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, said during a lengthy committee hearing Sunday afternoon. “They just can’t afford more tax.”

But the concession, hammered out after Republicans declined for hours to provide enough members for the House to conduct business on Friday, came as a bitter pill for transit agencies and their supporters. Agencies around the state have warned of looming service cuts if lawmakers didn’t approve a funding bump.

“We’re setting ourselves up for another fiscal cliff in this really vital public service,” said state Sen. Khanh Pham, D-Portland, the only lawmaker on the legislative committee who voted against the amendment.

Democrats offered another concession, too. A separate change adopted by the committee ensures that state bureaucrats will not be able to automatically raise transportation taxes in the future. The original bill created an opening for small raises, if analyses showed that passenger vehicles or freight carriers were paying an unfair share of road costs.

With those changes, HB 3991 passed out of committee on a party-line vote. In a floor session shortly after, Republicans provided enough members to achieve a quorum in the Oregon House. The bill is slated to get final consideration in that chamber on Monday, before a vote in the Senate at some point this week.

The vote capped a dramatic week, as Democrats rush to pass an emergency transportation funding bill they say is necessary to avert hundreds of layoffs at ODOT.

For the second time Sunday, lawmakers took hours of testimony from Oregonians who offered a mix of support and deep disdain for the bill.

But they did not hear from Kotek, who, despite authoring the bill and insisting lawmakers meet in special session over a holiday weekend, didn’t appear at the hearing. Her absence didn’t go unnoticed by Republicans.

“We’re all here doing this work,” Bonham said. “It is important enough for us to have given up our Labor Day weekend. Here we are. And she’s not here.”

One of Kotek’s aides, Kelly Brooks, told Bonham she wouldn’t divulge the governor’s whereabouts, but said she was “fairly confident” Kotek was watching the hearing.

The governor’s office said Sunday that Kotek had cancelled a planned Labor Day vacation because of the session, and was “closely monitoring proceedings” from somewhere in the state. A spokeswoman would not say where.

While Republicans agreed to changes narrowing the scope of HB 3991, they failed to convince Democrats to make far larger modifications.

Bonham and House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, both introduced amendments they said would free up ODOT to use hundreds of millions of dollars on basic maintenance without raising taxes. But that money would have been diverted from purposes like bicycle and pedestrian safety projects, public transit, and programs that attempt to address climate change.

Democrats voted in lockstep against the proposals. “I cannot support this amendment because what it aims to do is take money from things that are also critical services,” said state Sen. Wlnvsey Campos, D-Aloha.

HB 3991 gets its next test in the House. Democrats hold three-fifths supermajorities in each chamber of the Legislature, enough to pass new taxes on a party-line vote. But whether they can win unanimity among their members – or convince a few Republicans of the bill’s worthiness – remains a question.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/08/31/oregon-road-funding-bill-slightly-slimmer-moves-forward/