This year unfurled a roller coaster of developments that swerved and plunged and soared as the state began a new normal after the pandemic with a new governor and a Legislature that stalled, stumbled and finally flashed over the finish line in June.

Gov. Tina Kotek took office with the promise of a “new beginning,” and she pledged to tackle the homeless crisis and need for more addiction and mental health care. During the session, the Legislature approved hundreds of millions of dollars for these efforts, kicking in sizable sums for the semiconductor industry as well.

But how much has changed?

On the surface, not much. Homelessness encampments abound, with Oregon having among the highest rates in the country. Urban forested areas are cluttered with trash, and people abuse drugs in plain sight as overdoses soar. Thousands still struggle for help with depression, anxiety and addiction, and though the Oregon Health Authority has doled out more than $260 million through Measure 110, the impact has yet to be felt. And as federal pandemic benefits were cut off, people found it difficult to retain rentals and feed their families.

But state officials did mortar some building blocks, with millions approved for literacy, housing and mental health and addiction treatment they say they’ll make for a better future.

We tracked all of it, starting with the long legislative session in the first half of the year. It started amicably enough, with bipartisan support for the semiconductor industry, addiction treatment, mental health, education and housing.

The tone quickly soured over abortion, and goodwill turned to distrust. Republican senators balked over a bill that would have given minors wide access to abortions, and they stomped out, preventing the Senate from passing bills. House Republicans stayed put, and one, Rep. Charlie Conrad of Lane County, even voted for the bill. His fellow Republicans now consider him a target.

Republican senators held out week after week, as Senate President Rob Wagner of Lake Oswego denied excusing their absences. But after an historic six weeks, Democrats watered down the abortion bill and brought the Republicans back. Their protest came with a price, however. Under Measure 113, the 10 senators with at least 10 unexcused absences are barred from serving a subsequent term.

They’ve taken that fight to the state Supreme Court, where the justices are considering the matter.

Plenty of bills

The session ended with stacks of bills passed: Oregonians can now pump their own gas, and an opioid reversal drug, naloxone, is now more widely available. The Legislature also passed housing bills, allocating $1.2 billion in new funding, and it approved an historic $10.2 billion for education. And lawmakers committed $1 billion to replacing the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River, a project that recently received federal support.

But Kotek failed to persuade Democrats to loosen Oregon’s land use laws to build housing, and though the Legislature passed a gun control bill along party lines, that issue is tied up in the courts.

On the streets, though the health authority has distributed millions of dollars to providers, the addiction crisis seems worse than ever, with critics calling for the repeal of Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs. A legislative committee is looking at its impact and considering proposals for the upcoming legislative session. Some lawmakers even took a trip to Portugal to study its drug decriminalization process.

Stay tuned for a party-line battle on Measure 110 in the short session in February.

The campaign season got underway this year, notably in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, which Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly won in 2022. Chavez-DeRemer has kept an eye on her district, which has more Democratic voters than Republicans: In an interview with the Capital Chronicle, she emphasized her bipartisan moves. But while she stepped into office promising to oppose limitations on taxpayer funding of abortions – Oregon picks up the tab for Medicaid patients – she voted against a bill that would have reimbursed the travel of military members for abortions and has opposed other abortion bills. Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who lost to Chavez-DeRemer in 2022, is poised to pounce on any anti-abortion move by Chavez-DeRemer. There is wide support for abortions in Oregon, which offers women wide access and coverage.

McLeod-Skinner is already on the campaign trail and so far is out in front, thanks in part to name recognition. But she has some troubles of her own, as the Capital Chronicle revealed. Former campaign staff, who asked for anonymity out of fears of retribution, blasted McLeod-Skinner as a bully who berates staff, corrals them into frequent hours-long meetings, texts them in the middle of the night and retaliates against those who question her.

Political downfall

Another high-profile politician, Shemia Fagan, had a very bad year. Once a rising star, she stepped down in May as secretary of state following revelations by Willamette Week that she was moonlighting for a cannabis company while the agency was conducting an industry-related audit. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have launched investigations into her affairs.

Kotek enticed former Multnomah County auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade out of retirement to serve the remainder of Fagan’s term, and she’s still in the job. Kotek wasn’t so lucky with another high-level position. She nominated James Schroeder interim director of the Oregon Health Authority in early January. In March, he announced he didn’t want the job leading one of the most important agencies in Oregon. It oversees health care for more than 1 million Oregonians on Medicaid and controls Measure 110 programs, but it’s notoriously siloed and in key areas has lost expertise, including its head of Medicaid, at a time when the agency is reviewing all members and booting thousands who no longer qualify off the free insurance.

In November, Kotek announced that an out-of-state health official without experience running a big agency, Dr. Sejal Hathi, will become OHA’s director on Jan. 16.

Hathi said she’ll start by meeting people and listening to concerns. One thing she might want to look at is a nonprofit the health authority pays to assess patients. The Capital Chronicle discovered that its faulty assessments have resulted in patients not getting the care they need, with some ending up on the streets. The health authority acknowledged those failures in an internal review, and last week agreed with a secretary of state audit saying it needs to better manage the Measure 110 program.

Clearly, there is a lot to improve, including the patchwork quality of the agency’s communications. We’ve often had to fight for basic information – and wait days for it. The Capital Chronicle discovered that the health authority had inadvertently kicked off thousands from Medicaid, including children. It took more than a month to get some basic answers.

Perhaps agency officials think we’ll give up. But that’s one thing that will not happen.

A reading problem

This year a lot was written about Oregon’s reading problem. Over the past 25 years, nearly 40% of fourth graders and 20% of eighth graders have scored “below basic” on a key national test. That means they struggle to read and understand simple words. The state poured $250 million into the problem over that time, but showed little results. The Capital Chronicle unveiled the heart of the issue: failed teaching methods. Many teachers are not teaching reading using methods that work.

This year, along with an historic $10.2 billion for K-12 schools, the Legislature approved $140 million to boost literacy. The Department of Education is distributing money to districts for reading but has not mandated standards for teaching reading. If teachers don’t base instruction on proven methods, that money will be wasted and students will continue to be left behind.

At the same time, lawmakers did not approve any extra money this year for summer learning programs, forcing educators to do less with less. And the Capital Chronicle revealed that the state has shortchanged special education students by using dozens of teachers who lack the high standards required of special ed teachers. In doing so, the state has not followed the law.

The Department of Education now has a new director, Charlene Williams, who was appointed by Kotek in July. She told the Capital Chronicle she wants the state to increase the number of teachers and diversify that workforce while helping students who fell behind during the pandemic to catch up. So far, she’s kept a low profile.

In environmental news, Oregon and Washington won $1 billion in October from the federal government to develop a hydrogen hub. Officials plan to create “green” hydrogen by splitting water molecules with an electric current. This process is energy intensive and must use renewable electricity exclusively for the resulting hydrogen to be considered green. Organizers plan to create eight production and consumption “nodes” spread across Washington, Oregon and western Montana.

In Oregon, two brothers hope to create a combined farm and solar park on their 1,100 acre ryegrass spread. Seems like a great idea — grow crops and produce clean energy at the same time. But the plan has bumped into Oregon’s 50-year-old land use laws, and critics worry that it will lead to a loss of valuable farmland in the Willamette Valley.

One idea that has blossomed is a deal among Oregon, Washington, four tribes and the federal government over the fate of fish in the Columbia River Basin. This month, they announced a 10-year-pause in litigation over dwindling salmon and other runs with an agreement to spend hundreds of millions on fish restoration and support for clean energy production by the tribes. Environmentalists hailed the deal as an historic win. But much needs to be figured out, and it’s not clear who will be in the White House after the election next year to support the agreement.

This is a year-end commentary by Oregon Capital Chronicle Editor in Chief Lynne Terry.