SALEM, OR. — As the 2021 Oregon Legislative session concludes, Fair Shot for All’s Coalition Director, Heather Stuart, issued the following statement on behalf of the coalition:
“This Legislative session presented lawmakers with an opportunity to make meaningful investments in our communities that would ensure Oregon emerged stronger than before and ready to weather future storms.
COVID-19 and our last wildfire season deeply exacerbated existing inequities in our communities that were caused by historic and current systemic racism and sexism. In January, we shared a framework with lawmakers developed by our collective communities that, if used, would root Oregon’s economic recovery in racial, gender, and economic justice.
We asked the Legislature to prioritize six bills:
Transforming Justice (HB 2002)
Universal Legal Representation for Immigrant Oregonians (HB 3230)
Just Enforcement Act (HB 2205)
Child Care for Oregon (HB 3073)
Sanctuary Promise Act (HB 3265)
Healthy Homes (HB 2842)
Lawmakers followed our framework and calls for change and passed HB 3073 (Child Care for Oregon), HB 3265 (Sanctuary Promise Act), and HB 2842 (Healthy Homes). We’re thrilled for what these policies will do for our communities when signed into law by Governor Kate Brown:
Thanks to the passage of HB 3073, parents and children will have better access to affordable child care through Oregon’s Employment Related Daycare (ERDC) program, and child care providers will have more financial stability through reforms to the program that prioritize workers.
Immigrant and refugee Oregonians will have stronger protections under the Sanctuary Promise Act (HB 3265), which will protect Oregonians from racial profiling and ensure that local police and resources will not be used for federal immigration enforcement.
HB 2842 will create a new Healthy Homes repair fund at the Oregon Health Authority which will invest in home repairs for low-income renters and homeowners to improve energy efficiency and safety while driving down heating and cooling costs. Funding may also be used for smoke filtration and other fire resilience improvements. This is a huge step forward in advancing environmental justice for our communities.
We were also grateful to receive the support and endorsement of over a dozen lawmakers on The People’s Budget, a larger list of policies our communities hoped to see included in Oregon’s budget for the next biennium. Many of those policies were passed, and will create stronger economic, racial, and gender justice within our communities.
These victories are dampened by the fact that three bills rooted in racial justice and workers rights were not passed this year: Transforming Justice (HB 2002), Universal Legal Representation for Immigrant Oregonians (HB 3230), and the Just Enforcement Act (HB 2205).
The Just Enforcement Act (HB 2205) would have empowered workers by giving them the ability to enforce their workplace rights and use their voices to be heard by their employers. This bill was critical for frontline and essential workers, and failure to pass it this legislative session leaves those workers without a voice. Most at risk are workers who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, or a person of color; women; immigrants; and workers earning a low-wage, all of whom are significantly more likely to experience abuse in the workplace.
We look forward to passing this policy in 2022, and to working with lawmakers on a task force in the interim.
HB 3230 would have guaranteed legal representation to immigrants at risk of deportation and was designed by and for our community. A successful pilot program serving 1,300 people, including 750+ children and 500+ victims of domestic abuse, facing unjust deportations in the past two years will continue thanks to last-minute funding from the Legislature, but HB 3230 as it was designed would have expanded the pilot into a meaningful statewide program that centered community-based organizations and served thousands more Oregonians.
Our communities need and deserve legal representation, and we won’t stop fighting until we have it.
Ultimately, thanks to legislative leaders like Speaker of the House Tina Kotek, Rep. Janelle Bynum, and members of Oregon’s BIPOC Caucus, we were able to secure the following funding and policy changes in HB 2002 through other avenues:
SB 620 abolishes supervision fees which enables people on supervision to focus on paying victim restitution and for basic needs for themselves and their families, including rent, food, and treatment. There are 28,000 people on supervision in Oregon. The anticipated $10 million loss in revenue for the counties was funded in HB 5006.
HB 2172 expands access to earned reduction in time on supervision for people who are successful when released from prison or jail.
HB 2204 launches a new grant program for Restorative Justice programs, which will broaden pathways for crime survivors to seek accountability for the harm they have experienced
HB 5006 also allocates $1.5 million to the Reimagine Safety Fund, a Black community-led workgroup that will develop community safety alternatives
While these are significant wins, they are not what Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or leaders of color asked for, and they are not enough. We will continue fighting to pass the policies we need to ensure Oregon is a place where we can all feel safe.
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Fair Shot for All is an economic justice coalition of grassroots organizations and labor unions working together to build power with our communities, to create opportunities for all working families to thrive, and to dismantle historic and systemic economic inequities for Oregonians who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC); women; immigrants; and/or LGBTQ+. Fair Shot’s work centers racial and gender equity that seeks to address inequalities through organizing and concrete policy change.
We envision an Oregon in which BIPOC community members, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, individuals with disabilities, and working families are united in wielding our political, electoral, and community power to claim economic justice. We believe in using our shared power to hold systems of governance accountable to ending systems that have favored the few over the many through exploitation of people and land as resources and to build systems that provide all living in Oregon economic stability, as well as the ability to inform the economic policies that impact their lives.