If
lawmakers can follow their scripts and live up to their leaders'
expectations, they will arrive here today, bail out programs for foster
children, the elderly and the medically needy, regulate payday lenders,
prop up school budgets and crack down on sexual predators.
And then, they will go home.
That's
a tall order for a group of politicians that has set some dubious
records in recent years: holding the state's two longest sessions in
history in 2003 and 2005, and spending more time in special session -
an unprecedented 52 days spread over five sessions - in 2002.
But
House and Senate leaders of opposite parties agreed that things
appeared to be wired in advance for a session of one or two days.
"We're
well-organized. The members are well-informed. We're pretty sure as of
this point today that everything is in order," said House Speaker Karen
Minnis, R-Wood Village. Her comments came during a recess of a
House-Senate committee that spent Wednesday holding a public hearing on
the five bills to be considered in today's legislative session.
Her Senate counterpart, President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, struck a similarly optimistic but cautious note.
"We've got to keep focused, but we're OK right now," he said.
If Wednesday's hearings were an indication, then lawmakers' confidence could be well-founded.
Republicans
and Democrats on the committee holding the hearings generally agreed on
the value of the three budget-related bills.
One
authorizes the financially troubled Portland Public Schools to ask
voters to levy certain property taxes. Another distributes $42 million
in lottery revenue to Oregon's 198 school districts, at an average rate
of $63 per student.
The
third bill makes $136 million in fund shifts to prevent cuts to human
services. The bill was pushed after the Department of Human Services
found its caseload had drastically exceeded expectations.
The
two other proposals - one restricting payday lenders' charges to
consumers and the other setting longer prison terms for those who
commit sex crimes against children - proved more controversial.
The
payday loan bill would set the same regulatory standards on fees and
interest rates as would be imposed under an initiative proposed for the
November ballot.
The
proposed legislation would cap payday loan interest at 36 percent a
year. Loan initiation fees could total only 10 percent of the loan
amount. Lenders could make only two rollovers and would be required to
give borrowers 31 days instead of 15 to use the money before the loan
comes due.
Dan
Bryant, the senior pastor at Eugene's First Christian Church and a
sponsor of the initiative, told lawmakers it was a travesty that while
the state's safety net for the poor has frayed, the most readily
available source of help has been "high-interest payday loans used by
those desperate for short-term cash."
A
report issued last week by the Oregon Student Public Interest Research
Group found that payday loan companies in Lane County typically charge
annual interest rates exceeding 500 percent.
Representatives
of the industry said the bill would create new victims: themselves and
their customers, who would no longer be able to turn to them for
short-term loans.
Despite the industry's reaction, Minnis, one of its biggest allies in the 2005 session, has said she supports the bill.
In
2004, she received $13,500 from the industry and its supporters, more
than any other lawmaker, according to the nonpartisan Money in Politics
Research Action Project. She prevented a Senate-passed bill regulating
the industry from passing in the House.
She
has since faced criticism for her role from her campaign opponent. In
addition, local jurisdictions in her district and elsewhere - including
the city of Eugene - have taken up local regulations of the payday loan
industry.
"Instead
of having a piecemeal approach, let's take this now and move it
through," she said, explaining her support for the bill.
The so-called Jessica's Law proposal also generated sharp differences of opinion.
The
bill was based on a Florida law passed there last year after a
9-year-old girl named Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered by a
convicted sex offender after authorities lost track of him.
A
similar bill passed last year in the Oregon House, but Democratic
leaders in the Senate prevented the bill from being enacted.
Sen.
Bruce Starr, a Hillsboro Republican who is sponsoring an initiative
based on that bill, said the Legislature should save voters and
petitioners the effort by enacting the bill this week.
"We can protect kids now, rather than waiting another six to eight months," he said.
The
bill would raise the mandatory minimum sentence to 25 years from eight
years, four months for sex-crime perpetrators whose victims are 12 or
younger.
Terrie
Quinteros, program manager for Crime Survivors for Community Safety,
said her group and others that represent sexual assault victims oppose
the bill because most child sexual assault survivors are victimized by
someone they know. She said the long sentences would make children more
reluctant to report a father or uncle's crime.
"We
will only increase the likelihood that more survivors will remain
silent and will not get the support they deserve," said Quinteros, who
said she was sexually assaulted as a child.
Benton
County District Attorney Scott Heiser disputed that argument, telling
lawmakers that for a young incest victim, the difference of seeing a
relative imprisoned for eight or 25 years "is not practically at play
here."
The bill also would require lifetime monitoring of those convicted under Jessica's Law.
