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County staff brief commissioners on Oregon’s 2026 short legislative session and local impacts
Summary
Multnomah County government relations staff summarized the 2026 short legislative session, outlining budget pressures from federal tax changes and highlighting bills affecting homelessness, behavioral health, immigrant protections, housing preservation, and the Moda Center bonding framework.
Multnomah County’s government relations team told the Board of Commissioners on a detailed recap of the 2026 short legislative session, saying a compressed 33‑day schedule forced quick trade‑offs and left a lingering fiscal impact from recent federal tax changes.
“While this short session felt long, the place we started and where we ended was very different,” said Stacy Cowan, the county’s director of government relations. Cowan and Tom Powers, senior state policy manager, said the combined effect of the federal tax changes referenced as HR 1 and Oregon’s subsequent disconnect legislation (Senate Bill 1507) reshaped budget expectations and constrained new investments.
The briefing reviewed bills the county tracked and engaged on. Cowan highlighted…
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