Legislators left a mess that demands a prompt cleanup

The Oregon Legislature opened this year’s session with three tasks towering over the rest:

- Balancing the budget in the face of worrisome economic slippage and continued economic uncertainty.

- Developing an adequate wildland firefighting reserve in the face of relentless global warming.

- Raising the money to meet growing road and bridge needs in the face of auto electrification serving to steadily eat away at gas tax revenue.

So the Democratic leadership waited until the dying days, after first addressing such pressing needs as providing striking workers with up to 2 ½ months of public unemployment compensation, to take them up.

The budget was balanced in the end. But the Legislature met less than one- third of its $150 million firefighting target. And it failed to pass any new transportation package at all, raising the specter of imminent layoffs at ODOT.

Gov. Tina Kotek and the Republican opposition were, to be sure, complicit as well in collapse of the transportation funding bill as the session dissolved in disarray.

The governor’s failure was one of omission. After displaying little public engagement in the package’s year-long gestation, she waited until the session’s dying hours to mount a frantic rescue attempt.

The opposition’s failure was one of commission. After hardballing desperate Democrats into making virtually all the concessions it could ever hope for, the opposition seized the opportunity to kill the package anyway, just because it could.

So, what’s next? Most likely, a special session — one that would have been utterly unnecessary if the majority had acted earlier on the big issues, the governor had moved to provide leadership earlier and the minority had acted more responsibly during the end game, giving the public interest priority over politics.

Though Kotek reserved her strongest ire for Republican opponents, she also chastised Democratic colleagues for the bungled transportation package. “Legislators will be hearing from me,” she warned.

“I need ever lawmaker,” she told The Oregonian. “I don’t care how tired you are. I don’t care what your vacation plans are. We are going to solve this.”

We wish it weren’t true, as we are no more eager for a legislative re-do in Salem than the players themselves. But it is.

Lawmakers left behind important unfinished business with they left town. The governor not only has a right to call them back to get the job done, but a responsibility.

They also have a responsibility — to go about it with a clearer head this time in order to achieve a better result.