Long Oregon Legislative Session in Final Two Weeks

Posted by Pam Leavitt on June 17, 2025

With less than two weeks left in the 2025 long session, we’re in the thick of extended floor votes, marathon committee hearings, and last-minute negotiations. Some of the Legislature’s biggest responsibilities—like transportation funding and wildfire preparedness—are still unresolved. We are required to finish by Sunday, June 29^th, however Capitol insiders are betting on “Sine Die” before the weekend starts.

Banker Bill Gets Hearing in House Revenue

The Oregon Bankers Association was able to get a final bill introduced in the past month that would impose a new tax credit for new banks and creates a corporate excise tax credit for each of the first three years that a bank does business in this state. The bill applies to banks that commence business in tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2026, and before January 1, 2032. There is no impact to credit unions, but the used the opportunity in the House Revenue Committee to bring up credit union competition.

The bill is essentially a three-year state tax exemption for de novo banks chartered in Oregon.

Applies to any “de novo bank,” which is defined as an Oregon state-chartered bank that was first issued its charter and started doing business in OR in the current tax year or either of the two immediately preceding tax years. (So it would cover any bank started in ’23, ’24, or thereafter.)
Creates a tax credit applied to the corporate excise tax.
The amount of the credit is the amount of the tax that would otherwise be imposed on the bank (but not more than $1 million) in each of the first three years in which it is doing business in Oregon. Because the credit equals the amount of the tax, the bank winds up paying no tax, unless it elects to defer some or all of the credit to the following year. The credit can’t be deferred beyond the third year.

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Measures/Overview/HB3975

The bill was introduced by three House Republicans all on the House Revenue Committee: Rep. Bobby Levy, Rep. Greg Smith and Rep. E. Werner Reschke.

Advocacy for Homeownership

We continue to work in the Capitol for funding for homeownership programs. We are part of the Homeownership Coalition which recently sent this letter, in which we signed onto, to support funding programs. The letter is linked but here is an excerpt:

Homeownership is the cornerstone to building household stability, generational wealth, and strong communities, yet it remains out of reach for far too many Oregon households. Members of the Unlocking Homeownership Coalition are working together to open the doors to homeownership to thousands of Oregonians, close the racial homeownership gap, and build a more equitable future for our state.

While we collectively celebrated the passage of HB 2698, establishing a statewide homeownership goal in statute, cuts like the ones suggested in the most recent version of HB 5011 will cause our state to lose further ground in homeownership rates, at the very time the legislature has prioritized making headway in this area. It should be noted that recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that our state’s homeownership rate has fallen even further and now stands at only 63.0%.

Please restore at least six months’ worth of funding ($10 to $15 million) for nonprofit-administered down payment assistance. The $30 million proposed in the Governor’s Recommended Budget under Policy Option Package 522 would have maintained the program’s reach from the current biennium.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kFwU2BfiovKX1-rpa-mBKVW6KLFJ-93198I6rH9IGlw/edit?usp=sharing

New House Member Sworn In

House Democrats announced that Dr. Sue Rieke Smith was sworn as the newest member of the Oregon House of Representatives. Dr. Sue Rieke Smith was selected by a joint meeting of the Washington, Clackamas, and Yamhill County Commissioners to serve House District 26 including Wilsonville, Sherwood, King City, and parts of Tigard, Bull Mountain and Parrett Mountain. Rep. Rieke Smith will bring to the legislature deep experience in education and health care. Early in her career, she worked as a trauma and public health nurse, helping people at some of the most difficult moments of their lives. From there, she led a successful middle school turnaround in Salem-Keizer as principal. In 2011, she was selected as the Oregon Middle School Principal of the Year. She went on to serve as Springfield’s superintendent prior to being selected as Tigard-Tualatin’s superintendent in 2018.

Posted in Advocacy on the Move, Oregon Advocacy.