Short session shenanigans produce biggest stinker yet

One terrible bill being pushed through the 2026 Oregon Legislature would allow quorums of local government bodies to meet and discuss important public business in private. In opposing that bill, HB 4177, we also want to target the corrosion of public benefit from Oregon’s system of annual legislative sessions.

In 2010, we supported Measure 71, which created even-year legislative sessions — limited in time and issues — in a state that previously had its regular sessions to odd-numbered, off-election years. We immediately began to harbor regrets.

In theory, the new sessions, limited to just 35 days, would be restricted to budget-balancing and emergency-response functions. In practice, every imaginable issue tended to become urgent, fiscal or both in the minds of some lawmakers.

In 2014, we urged, “Limit the mischief from short legislative session.” In 2016, we warned, “Bag of big-ticket agenda items not what voters were promised.” In 2018, we complained, “Short session wrong venue for new ventures.” In 2020, we concluded, “Short session short on what was promised.” And so forth.

The award for most badly bungled short session bill this year is HB 4177. It represents a seminal case study in how unseemly haste can damage to the public good.

The aim was simple — better define a 2023 formal ban on secret “serial communication” that can be used by government officials to circumvent Oregon’s 1973 Open Meetings Law. The 2023 law was enacted partially in response to a covert campaign partly newly elected Newberg School Board members to stage a palace coup.

Another 2023 change in the law gave citizens a new avenue to lodge complaints about public meeting violations with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Citizens have taken advantage of new OGEC oversight, alarming local government officials and their powerful lobbies. Alleged ambiguity about what constituted improper serial communication emerged as a flashpoint, even though OGEC had just three complaints statewide in recent years.

Then things began to go terribly wrong on HB 4177.

A private legislative work group was formed to create new language, but the OGEC director was absent for health reasons as HB 4177 expanded dramatically. Seats at the table were mostly accorded to local government officials; just one was reserved for a press advocate and none for a citizen representative.

A broad array of media and citizen lobbies frequently interact with the Legislature, including the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. However, they were locked out of the process.

What emerged was a major reworking of provisions of the state’s venerable public meetings law — including what effectively amounts to an override of the serial communication ban by reopening the door to the kind of abuse committed in Newberg. So much for merely clearing up some minor ambiguity.

The work group’s lone press advocate cautioned: “This bill appears to be a recipe for allowing informal consensus to be reached and de facto decisions made before any matter goes to a public vote. In fact, it could ensure no public vote needs to be held.”

HB 4177 allows quorums of “governing bodies” to meet in private for all kinds of new information-gathering reasons. That includes issues long covered in “executive sessions,” granting access to media representatives, eliminating all vestiges of public access.

Susan Myers, executive director of the Ethics Commission, warned the bill redefines “deliberation” in a flawed fashion, reauthorizing “serial communication” in private and authorizing a range of other activities out of the public eye. She said that gave her “heartburn.”

The Oregon Citizens Lobby said the bill promised to “reduce initial compliance or let bodies off too easily” and “may also contain more ambiguity than it resolves, leading to further litigation.” In addition, it said, the bill “requires documentation up front or forces court action … that may discourage citizens from filing legitimate complaints.”

The Citizens Lobby noted the bill eliminates administrative solutions in favor of costly, time-consuming court remedies in some cases, and in others, allows a public body to evade all consequences by simply apologizing and promising to do better next time.

Cumulatively, it said, “These changes shift power away from complainants and toward public bodies, potentially making it harder for citizens with limited resources to pursue legitimate violations while giving officials more ways to avoid accountability.”

No surprise here. When you shoo all the chickens out of the henhouse to make way for an assembly of foxes, the foxes’ perspective does tend to prevail.

This seems to be a clear case of government serving government rather than government meeting its pledge of serving the public interest.

In an op-ed distributed by the ONPA, former Oregonian Editor Therese Bottomly opined, “Legislators need to put the brakes on this runaway train. Oregonians who cherish our longstanding principles of open government deserve decisions made in daylight.”

On top of that, Oregon must limit future short sessions to matters of truly urgent fiscal or policy imperative — as the voters were promised.

Clearing up any lingering ambiguity over the definition of “serial communication” doesn’t come close to qualifying. At a minimum, HB 4177 should be set aside for more representative review leading up in a regular legislative session.