Oregon

Oregon is often listed as a "progressive" state, but in fact, has failed to keep up or institute some worker, job and wage pieces and are embarrassingly behind as of 2026:

• Washington and California both have statewide minimum salaried/exempt wages. As of 2026, the minimum annual salary an exempt(salaried) WA employee can be paid is $80,168.40, and in CA it's $70,304. WA's bill is particularly progressive and in the last 3 years has caught up to and now passed CA for the required state salaried minimum. New York, Maine and Colorado also have salaried minimum thresholds. Meanwhile, Oregon has...nothing for salaried/exempt employees and only toes the Federal line, current still at $35,536 since 2019 when a Texas lawsuit and corrupt judge clawed back an Obama increase to $47k. More on that history across presidential administrations since 2004 here but at any rate, it's embarrassing Oregon hasn't moved on this despite Democrats having total control--easy to see who pads their pockets.

• Oregon has no job posting salary disclosure requirements. Both CA and WA have required job posts to have the salary range in them as of 2023. Oregon, continues to provide employers the benefit of darkness where inequality pervades and employees invest the time and effort in application to jobs where by the time an employer may disclose the salary the grip of sunk cost may not leave the candidate with other options. This is embarrassing and could be easily fixed, the only people advocating against this are greedy, or incompetent--even a basic passage of this is not hard and decent employers already do it as they don't want to waste candidates' or their own company time.

Oregon now has the third-highest vaccine opt-out rate among schoolchildren in the country, behind Idaho and Utah. Parents can choose not to vaccinate their children based on religious or personal beliefs.

“In those pockets, it only takes one case to spread very quickly and start an outbreak,” said Jeff Bethel, an epidemiologist and professor at Oregon State University.

The Arctic sea ice, which helps store nutrients that sustain the crustaceans whales eat, is melting earlier in the year — disrupting the food chain whales depend on.

“These feeding areas that they migrate such long distances to are warming four times as quickly as the rest of the planet on average, and that’s having a major impact on their prey availability,” Stewart said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43717987

While Democrat leadership is yelling from the rooftops that "fascism is coming!", they are also trying to take away the rights of people, particularly minorities and the poor, from being able to own firearms. Measure 114, which was largely struck down by the courts as unconstitutional, has been re-written as HB 4145 and passed the Oregon state senate. While we have ICE executing citizens in the streets, Oregon dems think this is the time to make gun ownership harder.

Both of Eugene's reps voted to pass this bill: Floyd Prozanski (bill sponsor!) and Lisa Fragala. A signature by Kotek is a given at this point.

Among other things, this bill:

• Doubles the amount of time for state bureaucrats to issue the required permit to lawfully purchase a firearm from 30 days to 60 days. If a date goes poorly and you end up with a stalker, you shouldn't need to wait two whole months to purchase protection. Because you know the cops will never care about enforcing a restraining order, assuming you could even get one in the first place.
• Increases the cost for the permit by more than 130%, from $65 to $150, a clear attempt to make lawful gun ownership unobtainable through financial barriers. Rights, especially self defense, should not be paywalled.
• Carves out on and off duty law enforcement from the permit requirement and magazine capacity limitations, creating different classes of people for lawful firearm ownership. "Rules for thee, not for me"
• Changes the implementation date of the magazine ban and permit requirements.
• Includes a government maintained de facto registry of firearm owners, with their personal data and fingerprints to be shared with the FBI.

It may feel pointless to contact reps but I know that they do actually read (and occasionally, respond!) to these inquiries. Public pressure can be powerful!

E-mails for Prozanski and Fragala: Sen.FloydProzanski@oregonlegislature.gov Rep.LisaFragala@oregonlegislature.gov

Contact Tina Kotek (only person who can stop this bill!): https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/share-your-opinion.aspx

See how your rep voted (go to history -> Feb 25 to see the vote) https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Measures/Overview/HB4145

Find your rep: https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/

Background: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2026/02/25/controversial-oregon-gun-bill-modifying-measure-114-advances/88827700007/

The proposed electrification fee would apply to natural gas appliances in new homes, in order to encourage all-electric new construction, which avoids dumping CO2 and unburned methane into the atmosphere.

Ashland Sen. Jeff Golden is trying again to get the Legislature to create a fund to pay for natural disasters with damages collected from big oil

I was just reading through the website for the secretary of state for Oregon, and I came across this: Types of Public Office There are two types of public offices in Oregon, partisan, and nonpartisan. Any person can run for a partisan or nonpartisan office if they meet the requirements of the office and are registered to vote. Partisan Offices Candidates for partisan office may run as the nominee of a major or minor political party or as nonaffiliated. Major party candidates must win the primary election, in order to then run in the general election. Minor party and nonaffiliated candidates qualify for the ballot without running in the primary election; they first run for office at the general election. Partisan offices include: US President, US Senator, US Representative, Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Attorney General, State Senator, and State Representative.

Is this true? I can only run for Senator, Congressman, etc. by affiliating with a major political party? That seems wrong to me.

The first-hand accounts Ive been reading describe it as a massive unprovoked attack on a crowd full of kids and no real way to escape.

This bill is a vote for the status quo, a tacit approval of Donald Trump and his goons. Just thought, as a fellow Oregonian, that you should know.

ICE stopped paying for medical care in their facilities months ago