Given the tenuous budget situation that the City of Portland was facing this year, PROTEC17 closely tracked the state transportation funding package that would provide increasingly necessary funding for our Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) members. When Portland City Council passed a budget in the spring that assumed Salem would pass such a package, the bill had still not emerged from the bipartisan closed-door working group. We, like many, grew increasingly nervous as session advanced into June without a transportation bill, and the constitutionally mandated July session end date grew closer.

After the bill was finally released, Republicans who had been involved in crafting the package split from the working group and lined up in opposition. This left the Democratic majority to pass the bill in a very short amount of time with no votes to spare, and as the final days of the session loomed, they could not accomplish this. PROTEC17 opposed last-minute efforts to cut local transportation agencies out of the package, and in late June the legislature adjourned without having passed a bill for transportation revenue.

What followed has been a summer full of attempts to reconvene the legislature to finish this important work. The Oregon legislature’s 2025 session ended in July, and the failure of the body to pass a transportation funding package caused a situation that extended into the fall. 

On September 29, the legislature completed the process of passing the bill – with the funding needed for PBOT – and at the time of publication of this article we expect the governor to sign the bill shortly.

While the session will largely be remembered by many of our members for the torturous path that the transportation funding bill has followed, there were several other important moments for Labor and our Portland members.  

SB 916: Unemployment Benefits for Striking Workers

In a major win for organized labor, the passage of Senate Bill (SB) 916 ends the restriction on unemployment insurance benefits for workers who are out of work due to a strike. Notably for PROTEC17 members, SB 916 will  make Oregon the first state in the country to cover public sector employees with such benefits. PROTEC17 supported this bill and, while we know that strikes are always a last resort in a labor conflict, we believe that this helps to level the playing field between labor and management during a strike.

HB 5015: BOLI Funding

For years the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI), the agency tasked with enforcing wage, hours, and civil rights laws in the workplace, has been severely underfunded. Supported by PROTEC17, House Bill (HB) 5015 will provide a critical injection of cash into the agency to help clear the backlog of complaints that this underfunding has created.

SB 974: Permitting “Shot Clock”

Unfortunately, despite opposition from Cities, Counties, and labor groups such as PROTEC17, the legislature passed SB 974 which sets timelines under which certain permitting decisions must be made. We heard from members that this would be detrimental to the City’s efforts to enforce code requirements, and helped facilitate testimony underscoring this point. In a political environment where permitting processes have been vilified as preventing development, this proved to be a popular bill for legislators to support and it passed with wide margins. We were disappointed by this outcome and will track the impact that this has on the work of our members.

If you have any questions about the 2025 Oregon legislative session, please contact PROTEC17 Research Director and Legislative Advocate Elliot Levin at .