Committee reviews wide-ranging judiciary housekeeping bill focused on access and procedural modernization

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing Feb. 3 on Senate Bill 98, an Oregon Judicial Department omnibus bill described by OJD as a collection of technical and "housekeeping" changes aimed at improving access to court processes and bringing statutes into alignment with modern technology.

"Overall, the changes in the bill are designed to promote court proceedings that are accessible and conducted in a mode and manner that best serves the need for justice in our communities," Kimberly McCullough, senior counsel for government relations at the Oregon Judicial Department, told the committee. McCullough said the measure runs about 20 pages and contains a mix of statutory clarifications, modernization of language, and procedural changes designed to reduce barriers for self-represented litigants.

Nut graf: The bill makes targeted changes across many statutes — from allowing courts to send appellate judgments by means other than mail to replacing notarized affidavits with declarations under penalty of perjury for certain filings — and includes an amendment request tied to eviction-case set-aside law enacted in 2023.

Key provisions cited by McCullough include allowing appellate judgments to be "sent" by the most appropriate method rather than restricted to mail; replacing notarized affidavits with sworn declarations under penalty of perjury for certain out-of-state judgment and change-of-venue filings to ease access for self-represented litigants; clarifying that the tax court judge is the administrative head of the tax court; and substituting clearer statutory language in custody and parenting-time provisions (for example, replacing the term "protective order of restraint" with "prejudgment status quo order" to reduce confusion).

McCullough said sections also would let jurors communicate about eligibility and requests to be excused online rather than being limited to mail or personal delivery, and would remove the statutory requirement that the judicial department produce bound volumes of court opinions, because public access has shifted largely to free web-based services and subscription databases. She told the panel the number of people who currently subscribe to bound opinions is small — "64 individuals," she said — and that producing bound volumes is increasingly costly.

Senator McLean pressed McCullough on access concerns: if the judicial department stopped printing bound volumes, where would citizens without internet access go to read opinions during an outage? McCullough said state law libraries and public libraries are places people can access opinions and that OJD is discussing a post-session work group with counties and libraries to assure access; she also said the department does not currently plan to cease bound publication but sought statutory flexibility.

The bill contains an operative date section; most provisions would become effective on Jan. 1 of the following year, McCullough said, and two provisions are tied to emergency clauses: the eviction set-aside clarifying change (a follow-up to 2023 House Bill 2001) and the clarification making the tax court judge the administrative head of the tax court.

Ending: Committee members asked several technical questions but the hearing concluded with OJD offering to provide follow-ups and to file a requested technical amendment clarifying one statutory reference tied to eviction-case set-aside law; no committee vote was taken during the Feb. 3 session.