A major transportation funding bill is once again in flux, with less than a week remaining in this year’s legislative session.

Facing increasing skepticism over House Bill 2025 from her own party — and an uncertain path to winning the required three-fifths majorities in each chamber — House Speaker Julie Fahey spent the weekend negotiating with moderate Democrats.

The product of those negotiations wasn’t clear on Monday. But rather than moving ahead with a floor vote on the bill, lawmakers instead sent it back to committee, where any amendments might be considered. House Democrats were busy shopping potential changes with their Senate colleagues Monday morning.

“We work right till the bell,” said state Rep. Susan McLain, D-Forest Grove, a key author of the transportation bill. McLain declined to offer details of a forthcoming amendment.

Meanwhile, fallout continued over an incident in a committee hearing over the bill on Friday. An outburst from Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, aimed at Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, prompted some Republicans to boycott a floor session and call for Gorsek to be censured.

Gorsek announced Monday afternoon that he had offered his resignation as the chair of the Joint Transportation Reinvestment Committee so his presence would not be a distraction.

“I support the compromise that’s being offered from the House, and I look forward to voting in support of it on the Senate floor,” he wrote in a text message.

The scramble over HB 2025 is a fitting reflection of the session’s final week. With a mandatory June 29 adjournment looming, lawmakers have yet to complete plenty of the major tasks they faced as the session began in January.

That includes plans to more fully fund the state’s efforts to fight and prevent wildfire and shore up the state’s threadbare behavioral health system.

Many of those issues have at least some momentum. But the fate of HB 2025 remained a genuine curiosity on Monday.

“Get your popcorn,” said state Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, who was one of a handful of Republicans who helped negotiate the package with Democrats before concluding he could not support it.

As it passed out of committee Friday evening, HB 2025 would have enacted the largest tax hike in Oregon history. Via an eventual 15-cent increase to the state’s 40-cent-per-gallon gas tax, a new 2% tax on new car sales, a new 1% tax on many used car sales, increases in titling and registration fees and other changes, the bill is expected to raise $14.6 billion in the next decade.

Top Democrats say the bill will amount to a sea change in how the state funds transportation at a time roads and bridges are falling into disrepair. Beyond merely levying taxes, it would require electric vehicle and hybrid owners to begin paying the state for miles they drive — a way to ensure Oregon can still pay for roads as growing adoption of EVs and high-fuel-efficiency vehicles reduces gas tax revenues over time.

Revenue from the bill — nearly $2 billion a year by 2033 — would go toward nuts-and-bolts road maintenance on state, county and city-owned roadways. It would also help pay for a pair of highway megaprojects — on Interstate 5 in Portland’s Rose Quarter and on Interstate 205’s Abernethy Bridge — that lawmakers thought they had funded with a $5.3 billion transportation bill passed in 2017.

This year’s bill has been panned by Republicans, who accuse Democrats of hiking taxes at a time when voters can ill afford it. Those concerns were plainly shared by some Democrats last week.

State Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, was removed from a key legislative committee Friday, after saying he would not support the bill — a position that could have blocked it from moving forward. Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, placed himself on the Joint Transportation Infrastructure Committee instead.

The maneuver infuriated some Democrats. State Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, accused Democratic leaders of putting forward “insane tax increases” in an Instagram post criticizing Wagner. Hartman and a handful of other swing-district Democrats took the unusual step of sitting in the audience during a committee vote on HB 2025 Friday afternoon.

The growing concerns from the majority party risked tanking the bill. If all Republicans oppose the transportation bill, Democrats would need to vote in lockstep in both chambers to get it across. Rep. Hòa Nguyễn, D-Portland, returned briefly to the Capitol last week after an extended absence to receive cancer treatment, suggesting she could be on hand when a vote on HB 2025 comes up.

Meek’s removal wasn’t the only drama to emerge from Friday’s hearing. As the committee neared a vote, Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, cut off state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, one of HB 2025’s chief critics.

Gorsek was angered by comments by Boshart Davis that included her calling the bill “grossly irresponsible.”

“You are impugning all of us who worked on that bill, so stop with that. Stop it!” said Gorsek, a committee cochair who helped write HB 2025. “You’ve made your point, representative. You’ve made your point.”

The outburst was still reverberating in the Capitol on Monday, as Republicans issued a series of press releases calling on Gorsek to be censured and removed from the transportation committee.

“Senator Gorsek has a documented pattern of bullying, harassing, and intimidating female legislators who speak up and express opinions that differ from his,” House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, said in a statement. “This behavior is not only abusive, it weakens our democratic institutions and has no place in our Capitol.”

Boshart Davis is taking more formal steps. On Friday, she filed a workplace complaint against Gorsek under legislative hostile workplace and harassment rules.

“Over a general discussion on the bill, he lunged at me across the dais, extended a finger, and shouted at me over my objection to the bill,” Boshart Davis wrote, adding that Gorsek singled her out because she is a woman. “His body language and speech were intimidating and aggressive.”

Gorsek declined to comment on the complaint Monday.

Gorsek and Boshart Davis were among a group of lawmakers who have spent roughly a year touring the state, holding hearings, and working to craft a transportation funding bill.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/23/oregon-politics-transportation-legislative-session-house-bill-2025/