BREAKING Pay-to-Strike: Meek Tweak Critique
Democratic legislators used a questionable parliamentary maneuver to sway Sen. Mark Meek (D) to support a new version of his "emotional" bill after surprise no vote
The Meek Tweak
Legislative Democrats convening in conference committee late yesterday amended their priority bill, Senate Bill 916, to make Oregon the only state in the country to provide taxpayer-funded unemployment benefits to unionized private and public sector workers who are on strike.
The last-minute amendment limiting the duration of benefits for striking workers to, at most, 10 weeks, came following the bill’s surprising failure in the Senate due to the shock “no” vote of Senator Mark Meek (D-Gladstone), who is an original sponsor of the bill. The Statesman Journal reported early this morning that Meek plans to support the amended bill.
Meek voted for the original bill, which he sponsored, and contained no time limits for benefit payments to striking workers. After approval by the Senate, the bill was amended by the House to restrict benefits to eight weeks when the state’s unemployment insurance fund was low on funds. Meek earlier this week voted against the bill with those House amendments.
The Statesman Journal reported Meek’s “initial decision to support the bill and be a sponsor was an emotional one, made after he spent time talking to people on the picket lines,” and his subsequent “no” vote arose from “concerns from hospitals, school districts, counties and more[.]”
In recent weeks, public employers including school districts have joined business groups in condemning the bill for encouraging strikes like the Portland Association of Teachers strike that closed Portland schools for nearly a month in the fall of 2023.
The conference committee referred the bill, with the proposed 10-week limit, to the House. Democrats are expected to move the bill as quickly as possible in an attempt to avoid further surprises on their controversial centerpiece bill.
The Meek Tweak may violate Senate and House rules
The amendment approved by the conference committee yesterday appears to violate Senate rule 11.10, which confines conference committee amendments to those “only within the scope of the issue between the houses.”
A conference committee convenes when the House and Senate have approved different versions of a bill. Its job is to reconcile the differences between those bills, not to introduce extraneous changes, hence the limitation in Rule 11.10. The conference committee lacks authority to propose amendments outside the scope of the issue, or disagreement, between the House.
There was no disagreement between the House- and Senate-passed bills on benefit limits when the state unemployment insurance trust fund is relatively healthy. The House-passed version delineates between a relatively healthy trust fund, indicated by a “Fund Adequacy Percentage Ratio I, II, III or IV” and an unhealthy trust fund, indicated by a ration V, VI, VII or VIII. The “Fund Adequacy Percentage Ratio” is a measure of the funds available versus the funds needed if the fund is strained by high unemployment claims, for example in the event of a recession.
The House-passed version limits benefits to eight weeks when the Fund Adequacy Percentage Ratio is in categories V, VI, VII or VIII (bad) but has no limits when the ratio is I, II, III or IV (good).
The Senate-passed bill, which has no limits at all for striking workers beyond the 26-week limit for all workers claiming unemployment benefits, also does not limit benefits when the ratio is I, II, III or IV.
The conference committee proposed amending the bill to add a 10-week limit when the ratio is I, II, III or IV, even though there was no “issue” between the House and the Senate regarding such a cap. The “issue” the amendment addresses is between Meek, and possibly some of the other three other Democratic senators who voted against the House version of the bill, and the fact his bill does not limit benefits to striking workers when the trust fund is I, II, III or IV.
As a result, the bill could be subject to a point of order in the Senate or in the House, the rules of which similarly restrict conference committee amendments to those “within the scope of the issue between the houses.”
A Meek peek
Senator Mark Meek represents a competitive Clackamas County district, which he won over his GOP opponent by less than one percentage point in 2022. Meek is up for re-election again next year. Meek served in the House prior to moving to the Senate in 2022.
Meek-sponsored SB 916 was introduced at the request of the AFL-CIO union, and says so right at the top:
Between 2016 and 2022, Meek received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Oregon AFL-CIO and Oregon AFSCME Council 75, a union representing state and local government workers, which also supports SB 916.
Meek also received contributions from business groups who oppose SB 916.
Floor action on the conference committee amended bill is expected as early as today as Democrats scramble to make Oregon the only state in the union to pay striking private and public sector workers to strike.
Public unions are the worst of all unions.
Rules, ethics, common sense; Not for the ruling class. We are well and truly screwed.