The Oregon House meets on May 29. (Oregon Legislature)

We spent some time on Sunday with the 300 bills that Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, submitted to the Oregon Legislature this year.

After 100 bills, we stopped counting. Others did count them up and say he has the distinction of submitting the most of any legislator this session.

Among the bills, one would declare “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as the official state film of Oregon. It’s a good choice, but there are many good choices. Does Oregon really need an official state everything?

There was a bill to designate February as Oregon Truffle Month, because, of course, truffles need a month of their own.

There were also more substantive issues, such as a measure that would lead to Oregonians voting on whether or not they want the secretary of state to be nonpartisan. We don’t think it would make much practical difference in the way a secretary of state would behave, but we like the idea of Oregonians getting a chance to vote on it.

Evans targeted Oregon State University-Cascades with a proposal to strip it of its affiliation with Oregon State University and rename it Central Oregon University. Why does that make anything better? Is that fair to the students, faculty and other staff who may have signed on to the campus in part because of its affiliation with OSU? No.

He has another bill that would limit the growth of enrollment of any Oregon campus to 5%. OSU-Cascades has come close to that recently. Why stop people going from where they want to go for higher learning if the campus has the capacity?

And there are some 295 more.

Evans has come out against a proposal to limit the number of bills an individual legislator can submit. Legislators have had to deal with more than 3,500 bills this session. The proposal under House Bill 2006 would be to limit the number of bills, perhaps to 25 in some legislative sessions.

Evans is not the target of the bill, though we wouldn’t blame him if he feels like he is. He has pointed out that a bill limit is a limit on the power of individual legislators and what they can offer constituents. It would arguably shift power to legislative leadership, because, in part, legislative leaders could introduce more.

Still, allowing legislators to flood a session with 3,500 bills creates something that is worse. The quantity makes forging quality difficult. It forces a time crunch for legislators and squeezing in any public input. It makes it unlikely that any Oregonian can follow along with what their government is doing.

Pass House Bill 2006, the bill diet.