Legislators start special session

Legislators start special session: Budget and employment issues at the forefront

by Peter Wong

February 1, 2010

Oregon lawmakers opened their election-year session this morning ready to tackle unemployment benefits, budget adjustments and other issues during their planned one-month stay.

They will not have to cope with deeper spending cuts and possible revenue-raising measures because of voter approval last week of two income-tax increases that lawmakers passed last year. Had the measures failed, lawmakers could have faced a shortfall of $727 million in the two-year budget.

Lawmakers will deal with other issues, including budget adjustments prompted by another potential drop in tax collections and increased demand for human services and college scholarships.

Majority Democrats were scheduled to discuss details of their agenda at a news conference this afternoon.

But the four-week limit on the session will leave lawmakers little time to tackle complex issues.

"The very tight time frame of the February session reduces the possibility of passing the more controversial bills," said Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland. He leads the House Health Care Committee, which worked most of the longer 2009 session on expanding care to children and taking the next steps toward an overhaul of the system.

Lawmakers have set Feb. 28 as a deadline for adjournment. This session is the second test run for what lawmakers hope will be annual sessions. A 2008 session ran 19 days. Lawmakers plan to send a ballot measure to voters Nov. 2 to make annual sessions permanent, with limits of 135 days in odd-numbered years and 45 days in even-numbered years. Oregon is one of five states where lawmakers still meet every year, and there is no limit on the session. Recent every-other-year sessions have averaged six months, although the 2003 and 2005 sessions ran into August and were the two longest in state history.

One of the issues that will come before the lawmakers is an attempt by law enforcement leaders to repeal a controversial law designed to prune prison costs by shaving time off the sentences of thousands of state prison inmates.

State lawmakers, who approved the money-saving law last year, will tackle the thorny issue during this month's special session. They will decide whether to repeal the law or revise it, a key legislator said.

"It will all be considered. Everything's on the table," said Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Eugene Democrat who took the lead last year in pushing for passage of the early-release legislation.

Prosecutors and police are leading the charge to persuade lawmakers to scrap the law.

"The sheriffs, the chiefs (of police), the attorney general and the DAs are all on one page with this, that it would be best for public safety in Oregon to repeal the earned-time credit provisions of House Bill 3508," said Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau.

"Short of repeal, that same group hopes to be a resource for the Legislature in crafting some much-needed amendments. At this point, those focus primarily on the scope of eligible offenses and offenders."

At issue is HB 3508, which expanded so-called "earned time" sentence reductions for prison inmates from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Violent offenders convicted under Measure 11, a get-tough-on-crime sentencing law approved by voters in 1994, aren't eligible for early releases.

But the new law has spurred controversy, in part, by ushering in early-release hearings for many violent offenders who are serving time for multiple offenses. They qualify for early-release consideration on the lesser offenses on their rap sheets.

A case in point: Christopher Lee Millis, known as the "courthouse crasher" for his one-day crime spree in 2005. His acts included shooting up a Keizer neighborhood, burning several police cars, ramming his pickup into the Marion County Courthouse, setting fires inside and spraying gunfire at police.

Millis, who received a 16-year sentence in 2006, didn't qualify for a sentence reduction on the most serious charge he was convicted of — attempted murder. His recent court review for early release centered on six counts of arson, three counts of unlawful use of a weapon and one burglary count.

Lane County Circuit Judge Debra Vogt quickly denied Millis sentence reductions totaling about six months.

"I do not believe the Legislature intended House Bill 3508 for defendants who commit acts of terrorism such as these," she said.

As of mid-January, Oregon courts had granted early releases for more than 3,400 offenders deemed eligible for the additional 10 percent reductions in their prison terms. Hastened prison departures had been denied for about 740 others. About 600 more cases were pending.

Critics of the new law say that it has clogged court dockets, opened prison doors early for violent criminals and reopened old wounds for victims. They also have complained that it precludes prosecutors from bringing up inmates bad behavior in prison at sentence-reduction hearings, betraying the intent of "earned time" for good behavior.

They also have faulted lawmakers for failing to exclude serious crimes from the list that disqualifies inmates for reduced sentences. Crimes left off the list include assaulting a public safety officer unlawful use of a weapon, escape from a corrections facility and certain kinds of robbery and arson.

Steve Doell, president of Crime Victims United of Oregon, sent a letter last week to legislative leaders urging them to repeal the law.

"No 'fix" can undo the harm caused by the early releases pursuant to HB 3508," he wrote. "As the saying goes, 'the horse is out of the barn.'"

Doell's letter stated: "This law has caused crime victims renewed anxiety, pain and post-traumatic stress because of the hearings they had to endure and additionally, for far too many, because the early release was actually granted."

Proponents of the early-release law predict that legislators won't repeal it.

"I do think there will probably be some tightening of the offenses that are eligible for the increased earned time," said David Rogers, executive director of the advocacy group Partnership for Safety and Justice. "But I would hope, and in some ways expect, that they're not going to toss the baby out with the bath water."

Rogers described the new law as "smart policy" and a modest attempt to rein in massive spending in Oregon's 14-prison, 14,000-inmate corrections system.

"Honestly, a 10 percent increase in earned time is incredibly modest," he said. "The amount of time people are getting out early averages around 50 days. That doesn't have a meaningful impact on public safety."

Legislators projected last year that $6 million would be saved in the current two-year budget period through accelerated prison releases. They allocated the anticipated savings to meet other public safety needs, including state police jobs, juvenile corrections system beds, treatment programs in the community corrections system and services for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
"This policy was really fundamental in helping to protect Oregon's public safety infrastructure," Rogers said.

Revising the early-release law would be in keeping with how the legislative process often works, Prozanski said.

"Just like any piece of large legislation, unintended consequences occur, and we have to look at what might have been missed and what needs to be fixed," he said.