Senate Bill 219 was pulled from the Oregon Legislature’s calendar. It’s not clear why. It’s not clear what is going to happen.

The bill was an effort to set a rigid schedule for patients coming into the Oregon State Hospital through the criminal justice system. It set a timetable for their treatment and discharge.

Then it was pulled, as The Oregonian reported.

The Oregon State Hospital faces many challenges. One is: It is under a federal court order. The 2002 Mink order, says the hospital must admit patients accused of a crime for “competence restoration within seven days of the date the circuit court judge signed the order” that they could not participate in their own defense.

Senate Bill 219 was no magic bill that would fix it all. There are also policy disagreements about how and where mental health patients should be treated with no easy answers.

We never expected the Legislature to solve the problems at the Oregon State Hospital in this session. But the issue SB 219 hoped to address won’t go away.