Commentary: ‘I must be wrong about Oregon’s anonymous bills’

Published 7:59 am Monday, January 26, 2026

I must apologize to Oregon legislators past and present, and you.

I must be wrong.

I have been convinced that more transparency for the bills in the Oregon Legislature would benefit legislators and Oregonians. I must be wrong.

The practice that has long bothered me are committee bills. Many bills in the Legislature have a clear sponsor or sponsors.

Committee bills do not. They are anonymous.

There is no name attached on committee bills, so Oregonians would be able to understand who introduced them or favors them. It denies accountability. It promotes secrecy.

And it’s a common practice.

Democrats and Republicans have supported them. You could click through bill after bill being discussed in recent committee hearings to prepare for the session beginning in February and not find the name of a legislator or anyone else attached. They are all committee bills.

Legislators have made arguments in favor of committee bills. A few years ago, then House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, defended the process because it allows bills to be “discussed or discarded based on their merits without partisanship.”

I don’t think it is so easy to scrub partisanship away. I must be wrong.

I had thought it made an important difference to attach a legislator’s name. Say you are concerned about health care costs. And you happen to notice, as I did, a bill in development called LC 188.

It would undo a reform aimed at holding down health care costs, Oregon’s health care target program.

The health care target had teeth. If a health care provider, such as a hospital system, didn’t hold increasing costs to a specific target and didn’t have a reasonable excuse for failing to do so, they could face additional scrutiny and maybe financial penalties. The initial cost target was 3.4%. The target for 2026-2030 was set at 3.75%.

This attempt to control costs could be a terrible mess. What would be a reasonable excuse to exceed the target? Who would decide? Wouldn’t a penalty just make health care more expensive? Oregon legislators approved it, nonetheless. And now it is clear with the legislative concept, a committee bill in the making, this effort to control health care costs would be rendered toothless for 10 years. Who is behind that? A legislator? Health care providers? Are the same people who supported it now out to undo it?

If you wanted to hold someone accountable or find out more about the bill, good luck trying to track down who is responsible. I emailed the head of the committee. He said he would try to call. It’s been more than a week now.

It’s not fair to extrapolate from that example about every committee bill. But they do have that similar problem.

Some legislators have tried in the past to ban these anonymous bills. They must have been wrong about them, too.

Oregon law generally insists on transparency for state government. And legislators will say they are committed to open government. Never mind that the list of exemptions and exceptions creeps upward. I know I should be grateful for the transparency that there is. I must be wrong about Oregon’s anonymous bills.

Richard Coe is editorial page editor at The Bulletin, a sister publication to The Astorian. He can be reached at Richard.coe@bendbulletin.com.