The approach of the first “witching hour” at midnight Friday that will cull hundreds of bills from the Oregon Legislature has injected a “do-or-die” attitude among lawmakers, lobbyists and activists.

A mix of urgency, hope and foreboding has been increasingly sounded by supporters and opponents of the more than 2,800 bills and resolutions introduced since January. The vast majority of measures must have a scheduled date for a committee vote by Friday or they are dead for the 2023 session.

“There are bills that aren’t going to make it,” House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis said during a press call on Tuesday.

“Nothing earth-shattering” among the top legislative priorities of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate or issues backed by Gov. Tina Kotek will die, Rayfield said. But that is “vastly different from people who care about the bills” that will die.

Nearly all bills in the 15 House and 12 Senate committees are subject to the rule. By Friday, bills must be scheduled for a “work session,” the term for a committee vote. Prior to a vote, bills have a public hearing.

The websites of committees show hundreds of bills with no further action scheduled.

Legislation live or let die

Among the almost certain casualties is Senate Bill 754, a bipartisan bill to reform recreational liability that is backed by more than 100 businesses, groups, and cities with links to outdoor and indoor activities that the legislation’s backers say generates $16.75 billion in annual economic activity in Oregon. A hearing was held Feb. 15 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but it has not been scheduled for a work session by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, the panel’s chairman.

Among the bills that will survive the deadline are House Bill 3101, which would require most schools to create an emergency “panic button” system in every public school classroom and other school buildings. The bill by chief co-sponsors Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, and Rep. Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, received a work session on Monday. It’s been sent to the Joint Ways & Means Committee for consideration of state financing.

Joint committees, made up of members of both the House and Senate, are exempt from the deadlines. So are a handful of committees in each chamber, including the Rules Committee. Bills that legislative leaders don’t want to die because of deadlines like the one on Friday can be shifted to the exempt committees to give more time for a decision on their ultimate fate.

Among the bills in that category: Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, with Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, as chief co-sponsor. It would designate the potato as the official state vegetable. Hansell has tried before to get the spud the official designation, but some Eastern Oregon lawmakers also want the onion to get the honor. Hansell recently announced he would not seek reelection in 2024 and the Senate Rules Committee has scheduled a Thursday hearing on the measure.

Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said Hansell will get to see a public debate on the potato. Whether there will be a vote on the resolution remains up to the chair, Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton.

Legislation on substantial issues proposed with only Republican chief sponsors makes up a large chunk of the bills that do not receive a work session. A rare exception is Senate Bill 644, which would remove the requirement that the Oregon Department of Forestry publish an Oregon Wildfire Risk Map. Its chief co-sponsors are Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, and Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale. The bill had a public hearing on March 1. The bill now has a work session on Wednesday in the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

When a proposed map showing every property in the state was released in September, the state was swamped with complaints and concerns that it would drive up insurance costs in forested areas — or leave property owners with no fire insurance at all. The map was pulled back with plans for a revision and release this year. However, the state insurance commissioner said in August that insurance companies had no plans to use the wildfire map to set rates.

Democrats have favored Senate Bill 82, by Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, which would go ahead with plans for the map, but bar insurance companies from using it as the basis to raise rates. The bill passed the Senate Natural Resources Committee earlier this month and is awaiting a vote from the full Senate.

Budget battles about to begin

Kotek has proposed a state budget and as early as Sunday, the chairs of the budget-writing Joint Ways & Means Committee will release the framework of their versions of how the state should raise and spend money.

A key difference this year is that the 2022 election left Democrats in control of the House and the Senate, but with smaller majorities that no longer are over the three-fifths mark that allowed them to pass the budget, new taxes and take other financial steps without Republican votes.

Republicans are aware of their new-found ability to stall Democratic spending plans not just by parliamentary delays but on actual votes.

Rep. E. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls, sounded a frequent GOP theme on Monday, when he spoke from the floor against any plan to spend state reserves — called the “Rainy Day Fund” — with the state’s economy in flux.

“We’re in volatile times”, Reschke said. “Therefore, I recommend we proceed with extra caution. It concerns me greatly that we’re about to spend large sums of money this early in session before knowing how well our roof will hold up under the storms ahead. The opportunities to spend are plenty, but we should do it in the right order. I advocate doing it later in session when the economic climate and the amount of revenue the state will receive would be better understood. Let’s be wise. Let’s go slow. Let’s stay dry.”

Showdowns, compromises, or finding a way to peel a Republican vote away on key legislation is part of the action still to come.

Controversial bills loom

The key legislative packages are moving along, including a $200 million plan to address housing and homelessness, and a $200 million boost to retain and attract computer semiconductor businesses.

But bills that could increase partisan tensions are coming up. Unlike financial bills, policy bills only require a majority.

Rayfield said legislation on abortion access and gun control will be moving through committees in the next two weeks. Republicans have said they will oppose the legislation.

Republicans in the Senate have already slowed the pace of legislation by requiring all bills be read in their entirety before final passage, a time-consuming parliamentary move. House Republicans used the same tactic in 2021, but House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville, has not taken the same tactic so far.

Rayfield said Breese-Iverson knows the bills will be coming up and could opt to join Senate Republicans in the parliamentary slow-down, a tactic Rayfield said has “become the norm” as one of the few parliamentary tools available to Republicans.

”We have to manage the calendar,” Rayfield said. “Making decisions a little sooner.”

One impact could be that more bills that aren’t at the top of the Democrats’ agenda could die as more “witching hours” come up. Bills must see action no later than April 4 in the chamber — House or Senate — where they are introduced. Deadlines occur about every three weeks.

On Tuesday, that left 100 days remaining of the maximum 160-day session. The legislative session automatically ends June 25.