Gutting and stuffing Oregon
2025 Legislature may see surprise "gut and stuff" mega-amendments that hide controversial bills from opponents
“Gut and stuff” sounds like a taxedermist’s day at the office, but it also describes a controversial tactic used by the majority party in the Oregon legislature to spring a late-session surprise on the minority party, and the public. It avoids deadlines for introducing bills, and the normal committee process, designed to give the minority party and the public a chance to weigh in on bills.
With the legislature meeting while I type this, some close observers are concerned majority Democrats are poised to use the maneuver to address hot-button gun, public safety or other issues. Both parties in Oregon have used gut and stuff when they’ve held the majority. Democrats have held the majority in both houses since 2007.
Gut and stuff is a common enough practice that the Oregon legislature’s “citizen engagement” website, ironically, provides a definition:
“Gut and Stuff”: A slang term that refers to removing the text of a measure and inserting entirely new language which, while it may change the nature of the measure completely, still must fall under the measure’s title, also known as the “relating-to” clause.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, with jurisdiction over a wide swath of public safety, sentencing and gun matters, might be the gutter and stuffer in chief this session. The committee is both sponsor and the legislative resting spot, for now, of Senate Bill 260, in its current form an inocuous three-sentence bill that would order the Criminal Justice Commission to “study how different types of sentences affect rates of rescidivism.” The bill, which appropriates no money for the study, would attract the attention of precisely no one who wasn’t writing a story about gut and stuff bills. That’s the idea.
To glimpse what the future may hold for humble SB 260, consider the remarkable aggrandizement of SB 348 during the 2023 legislative session. SB 348 began life as a three-sentence bill that would have directed the Department of Justice to study “ways to address the unlawful possession of firearms.” It was referred to the Judiciary Committee before the session began in January.
On March 27, Judiciary Chair Senator Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) dropped an amendment to SB 348 that reworked in detail gun control Ballot Measure 114, which Oregon voters approved but ran into constitutional challenges. The amendment ballooned SB 348 from three sentences to 38 pages.
That same day, the Judiciary Committee held its one and only hearing on the bill. Just a week later, the committee held a work session and passed the bill for floor consideration. While SB 348 did not receive a vote on the Senate floor before the session concluded, it was gutted and stuffed for action in just one week. Republicans and gun rights groups were excluded from whatever drafting process Prozanski employed to develop his amendment.
Senator Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer), the Republican vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee, told me gut and stuff bills serve a purpose when they are used in a bipartisan fashion to react to new issues that arise after the bill filing deadline, but are a problem when used to spring a surprise on the minority party.
“As minority members, we might not be aware of what might be in the bills. [Democrats] do that on purpose. They don’t want us to know what to oppose. It’s like a water balloon that bursts when it’s right over your head,” Thatcher said.
I did not receive a response to repeated requests to interview Prozanski or his staff for this article.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of gut and stuffs (aside from all you mentioned) is the fact that when an actual bill (as opposed to the "directs so and so to study something" place holder bills) is gut and stuffed, there may well have been hearings on the original language of the bill. So well meaning people testify and get on the record opposing or supporting the original language. Then the bill sits idle, but having passed deadlines for a hearing is not dead. Out of nowhere the bill is "gut and stuffed" with language that does not even resemble the original language. But because the bill had a "hearing" there is no opportunity for people to testify on the new language and folks who may have supported the bill are now on record in favor of something they may hate. And there is not a damn thing they can do about it.
How un-democratic of the Oregon democrats.