With the legislative session now nicely wrapped up, over the next week or so we’ll be bringing you interviews with a handful of local state representatives and senators to talk about the session—the highs, the lows, what’s changed since Democrats took over, and, maybe more importantly, what hasn’t.

To kick it off, we chatted with N/NE Portland’s “bleeding heart liberal” Rep. Chip Shields, who’s in his second term. He’s well known around Portland for his stance on the need to reform the criminal justice system.

First off, are you running for a third term?

Yes.

Have you given yourself a term limit?

I haven’t. I basically ran because I was concerned that we’re now spending more on prisons in this state than community colleges and higher education. So my goal is to make a significant dent in that, in part by garnering support for advances in sentencing reform. Hopefully, I can get that done next term and go back to a quiet, normal life. We’ll see.

How successful were you in advancing that agenda this session?

It was of limited success. With these types of things, you have to lay the groundwork. I did pass a bill, HB 3563, that would create a public safety strategies task force, which will allow us to take a look at these things over the interim—take a look at whether or not we’re getting the proper investments in early childhood intervention, the proper investments in drug and alcohol treatment. Are we using jail beds to the best capacity that we can? And do we need to make changes in sentencing to enhance public safety? We’re going to look at all those things and hopefully come back with some recommendations for next session.

How big a part of that is repealing Measure 11?

Repealing Measure 11, I don’t think, is a possibility, but improving it is. For the first time ever, there has been some back and forth with the district attorneys’ association regarding that. I think we’re going to need to continue those negotiations and discussions in the interim. But Measure 11 clearly is driving the $1.3 billion we spend on prisons in this state.

What was the biggest difference between your first session and this one? Obviously, the major difference was that Democrats gained a majority in the House, but how did that affect things in a practical way?

I don’t even know where to begin. There’s been a sea change in the fundamental assumptions of what the common good is. We’ve been able to increase K-12 education, which is one of my top priorities, by 18 percent. We’ve been able to increase funding for higher ed and community colleges by almost 18 percent. We have doubled the amount of treatment dollars in the Department of Corrections. We have $2 million more for domestic violence services, and we are on the path toward universal health care by at least getting the Healthy Kids plan out to the voters. We’ve had 16 years of corporate control of the legislature, and that’s certainly changed. Corporations and special interests, of course, still have incredible influence, but it’s not the stranglehold that they once had.

How much power were corporations and corporate lobbyists able to maintain, even with the shifted majority?

I think you have to look at some of the things that would never even have gotten a hearing in the past that passed this time, like the 36 percent cap on predatory loans. Last session, Speaker Merkley said, “If we could have just gotten a cap at 70 or 80 percent, we would have thought we were in heaven." But to move this far against such incredibly wealthy and powerful interests, that now hate our guts, was remarkable. There’s tons of those things. The budgets wouldn’t have been anywhere near what they are. There are powerful people and there are powerful institutions, and they’re going to do their best to make sure things don’t get out of hand.

Were you surprised by how much compromising you had to do this session? In your first session, you didn’t have to worry about it—you could go in with very clear, progressive goals…

And lose.

But now you’ve got moderates in newly won seats, in a majority that’s slim to begin with.

I actually look at it in about a 90-degree shift from that. Being in the majority, the powerful interests knew that our hand was much stronger. When two interests are looking at each other and they have their guns drawn on a bill, you’re making calculations. How far can I push and still get the votes to pass this? Even if I pass it in one chamber, will I be able to pass it in another, where the other guys have more influence? What we’ve found is a willingness to come to the table and negotiate in good faith, whereas before they would have just tried to kill the bill. An example of the bill is the condo conversion bill. [Attorney/lobbyist] John De Lorenzo would have just smashed me last session; this session I could continually poke him and say, “This is going to pass. You can either get with the program, or your clients can be in much worse shape. You can roll the dice and maybe kill it in one chamber, but I’m going to be here a while, and maybe you should try to work with me on a compromise that can pass in both chambers.”

Retrospectively, is there bill you can think of where you underestimated how strong your hand was?

Nothing, really. The big part of my session was all about budgets. For the first time, I was on the ways and means committee, so I was doing my best to make sure that treatment got funded first, that domestic violence survivors were taken care of, that we weren’t just building more and more prisons as economic developments for rural Oregon. That was an incredibly steep learning curve, so I was immersed in figuring out how the budget works. I had maybe three or four, five policy bills. Other than that, I was trying to make sure we had good budgets to help people.

What was your biggest success of the session?

The k-12 budget. That, at the end of the day, is the result of some of the criminal justice reform ideas that I have.

What’s your biggest disappointment?

The affordable housing bill, HB 3551, which died last week. We thought we had the votes, I carried it on the floor, and when push came to shove, the Republicans didn’t honor their promises.

Who killed the grand jury disclosure requirement for cases of deadly force by police?

The biggest resistance came from the front line police officers association, the Oregon Council of Police Officers Association. Their lobbyist is a guy named Brian DeLashmutt. Both of us were feverishly lobbying in the last week. So you had Brian on one side, and on the other side myself, the attorney general’s office, Sen. Gordly, Sen. Carter, both of whom were instrumental in keeping that bill alive, Partnership for Safety and justice, the Oregon Law Center. The guns were blazing, and we were trying to figure out how to get to 31, and it looked like an uphill battle. So DeLashmutt approached Sen. Gordly with this last compromise that would get him neutral on the bill, she made the decision, I supported it, and we decided to get what we could. This is an important advance, but not as much as I would have liked.

What happened to the Drug Free Zones bill (which would have required all drug- and prostitution-related exclusions be tied to convictions, not just arrests)?

It died a painful death in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

What do you mean by "painful death"?

Well, I’m being a little dramatic. Sen. Burdick was good enough to give it a hearing, and it became clear that it didn’t have the support. We’ll have to come back and either address it at city council or come back to the legislature again.

During the hearing, it struck me that Sen. Burdick and Sen. Walker sounded very supportive, although I’m sure that was before the bulk of what I assume to be furious lobbying by the city or the Portland police association.

Yes. The Portland Business Alliance were lobbying it hard. I don’t know all the mechanics, but I’m sure that had something to do with it.

Interestingly enough, Sen. Burdick was the PBA’s handpicked candidate to run against Erik Sten for city council.

(Silence)

I just think that’s interesting, don’t you?

I’ll take your word for it.

One last thing: If you’re trying to make the case for annual sessions, do you think the best strategy is to have the shortest session in more than a decade, and then crow about how productive it was in such a short amount of time? Isn’t that a counterargument?

I’m actually not an advocate for annual sessions, but I think the best thing you can do if you want annual sessions is to make sure the sessions are addressing the needs of everyday people. And I think we did that this session.