2025 Legislative Scorecard: They Brought Excuses. We Brought Solutions.

The 2025 legislative session is officially over — and for too many communities, it ended with more disappointment than progress.

Despite having a Democratic supermajority, lawmakers often acted as if their hands were tied — choosing caution over courage, incrementalism over impact. Community organizations like ours came with clear solutions and urgent stories from the ground. Yet too often, those calls were drowned out by corporate lobbyists and “business-as-usual” politics.

This session proved what many already feared: having the votes isn’t enough when the political will is missing.

That’s why we’re doing something different.

🧾 Introducing Our First Legislative Scorecard

For the first time, we’re pulling back the curtain on how our legislators actually voted — not what they say in press releases, but what they did when it counted. Because in a year full of federal cuts, rising costs, environmental crisis, and widening inequity, we needed more than good intentions. We needed action.

Our scorecard highlights where lawmakers stood — and where they stood in the way — on issues that matter to our communities: child care, housing, mental health, climate justice, and racial equity.

Before we get to the scorecard, here is a helpful key to understand the votes we cover in this blog: 

• ✅ = Bill passed!
  
  
• ❌ = Bill died in session
  
  
• 🎄 = Included in the “Christmas Tree Bill” — a last-minute omnibus used to bundle unrelated funding requests
  
  

🍼 CHILD & PARENT CARE

Child care isn’t just a priority on paper for APANO — it’s part of our everyday organizing, advocacy, and direct service. As a core leader in the Child Care for Oregon (CCFO) coalition, we’re working to build something Oregon has never had: a statewide, culturally adept child care system that meets the needs of families, providers, and communities of color.

We see the need every day; parents forced to choose between work and care, immigrant providers locked out of licensing systems, cultural communities left behind by a one-size-fits-all approach.

That’s why APANO is running child care provider cohorts in Chinese and Vietnamese, helping trusted community caregivers become fully licensed with the state. These are community members who are deeply rooted in their neighborhoods, but were stuck navigating a complex system never designed for them.

“Even for someone who speaks English fluently, the training materials are hard to understand. So imagine trying to build a business and get licensed when English isn’t even your first or second language. That’s why we translated and facilitated trainings — and within two months, we had new providers licensed and operating.”
— Janet Li, APANO Child Care Project Manager

Here is the break down of the child and parent care related bills we supported: 

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✅ SB 691 - Maternal Behavioral Health Support

✅ SB 692 - Doula/Traditional Health Workers Proposal

❌ SB 693 - Perinatal Workforce Taskforce

❌ SB 694 - Child Poverty Reduction

❌ SB 695 - Raising the Bar with CCO's (Coordinated Care Organizations)

✅ SB 1098 - Freedom to Read

❌ HB 2452 - Child Care Resource and Referrals

❌ HB 3201 - Child and Adult Care Food Program

❌ HB 3496 - Best Practices in Zoning for Childcare

✅ HB 3560 - Inclusive Childcare Zoning

These weren’t radical proposals. They were smart, actionable policies backed by a statewide coalition and years of lived experience.

And still — most of them were ignored or stalled.

Our Democratic supermajority and legislative leadership treated early care and education like an afterthought. We came with solutions. They met us with silence.

And to make matters worse, in the final weeks of session, Governor Kotek and Democratic leadership didn’t just stall new investments — they actively cut $65 million from the Department of Early Learning and Care. At the same time, they worked behind the scenes to undermine Multnomah County’s voter-approved Preschool for All program — a nationally recognized model for universal access.

Instead of following the lead of parents, providers, and local communities, they doubled down on austerity and gatekeeping. That’s not fiscal responsibility — it’s political cowardice.

APANO and our partners in CCFO are building the future of child care from the ground up. The question is: Will Oregon’s lawmakers finally catch up?

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🧠  MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health care in Oregon is failing — and our communities are the ones left to pick up the pieces.

That’s why APANO co-founded and continues to convene the Oregon Heals Coalition: a statewide effort to demand a behavioral health system that centers equity, healing, and community voice. From youth facing isolation to elders navigating trauma and stigma, the need for culturally responsive mental health care has never been more urgent — or more personal.

We know that healing doesn't happen in systems that weren’t built for us. So we’ve been organizing to change them.

But this session, despite growing awareness and clear policy solutions, lawmakers once again chose timidity over transformation.

❌SB 539 - Facility Fees

✅ HB 2024 - United We Heal (HB 2203 was combined to make one bill)

✅ HB 2143 - 5-Point Acupuncture

❌HB 2729 - School-Based Mental Health Centers

❌ SB 1015 - Fund Community Violence Intervention

In 2022, Oregon ranked 49th in the nation for access to mental health care. As of 2024, we've only climbed to 47th — a marginal improvement that falls far short as rates of mental illness and substance use disorder continue to rise among both youth and adults.

One bright spot was the passage of the United We Heal bill, which narrowly crossed the finish line before session ended. This legislation will help expand Oregon’s behavioral health workforce by investing in training and resources for the frontline providers who show up for our communities every day.

This was not enough. The gaps in our crumbling system remain — especially when it comes to youth mental health and culturally appropriate care.

APANO will continue to fight for the communities too often left behind. We’re demanding systems that meet people where they are; lower barriers for youth, culturally responsive, and linguistically accessible care for all.

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🌱 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

APANO is proud to organize as part of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance (OJTA), where we fight for a future rooted in clean air, climate resilience, energy justice, and Indigenous and frontline leadership. For us, environmental justice isn’t separate from racial justice — it’s deeply intertwined.

And this session, Oregon’s environmental champions came up short. Again.

Despite wildfires, toxic schools, rising energy costs, and the deepening impacts of climate change, the Oregon Legislature chose corporate comfort over community survival. While we secured a few important wins — like funding for heat pumps and toxic-free schools — most of the boldest proposals never made it past the industry gatekeepers.

❌SB 88 - Junk Out of Rates

❌ SB 92 - Low-Generation Community Solar

✅ SB 550 - Right to Repair for Wheelchairs

❌ SB 1187 - Make Polluters Pay 

❌SJR 28 - Environmental Rights Amendment

✅ HB 2567 - ODOE Heat Pump Program Funding

✅ HB 2684 - Toxic Free Schools

✅ HB 2947 - PFAS in Biosolids Study

❌ HB 3062 - Planning for Healthy Communities Act

❌HB 3081 - One-Stop Shop

❌HB 3170 - Community Resilience Hubs

🎄HB 3193 - Farmworker Climate Disaster Relief

In 2024, Portland General Electric reported $313 million in net income. Northwest Natural brought in $90.6 million. And that’s not counting executive bonuses or lobbying budgets.

These companies rake in profits while everyday families are crushed by rising costs of utilities and other basic needs. Yet this year we saw our legislators, the elected officials chosen to uphold our values and the rights of our communities, protect their bottom lines and secure campaign funding instead of fighting for us. 

The message is clear: when decisions were made, legislators chose people over profit.

While we fight for future generations, they defend a status quo that’s killing us. Oregon needs climate leadership with backbone — and we’re not waiting for permission.

If our lawmakers won’t stand up to polluters, we’ll stand in their way.

💰 INCOME EQUALITY

We are living through a time of extreme wealth inequality — and for Oregon’s immigrant, refugee, and working-class communities, the gap isn’t just wide. It’s devastating.

As a steering committee member of Fair Shot Oregon and a partner in multiple economic justice coalitions, APANO is pushing for policies that recognize a simple truth: you can’t build racial justice without economic justice.

In our communities, the barriers are layered and deliberate. Many of our members work multiple jobs and still can’t afford basic needs. Families are navigating high costs, low wages, and social systems that display our state’s immense holes in striving for justice and welfare for all. 

Across the country, limited English proficiency (LEP) is one of the strongest predictors of poverty among immigrants. And here in Oregon, we've seen how those language barriers lock people out of everything from health care and tax credits to rental assistance and worker protections.

This year’s legislative session made one thing clear: legislators had every opportunity to help us thrive. Instead, many are left wondering how to feed our children. 

✅ SB 599 – Bans housing discrimination based on immigration status
❌ SB 611 – Food for All Oregon
❌ SB 722 – Rent Stabilization Reform
❌ HB 2958 – Earned Income Tax Credit Increase (renewed but unfunded)
❌ HB 2991 – Tax Infrastructure Grant Expansion
❌ HB 3118 – Communications for Incarcerated People
❌ HB 3595 – Lunar New Year State Holiday

“Oregon could have helped 250,000 working families address rising costs directly. Lawmakers chose not to.”
— Daniel Hauser, Deputy Director, Oregon Center for Public Policy on HB 2991

We came into this session hoping Oregon would defy the national trend — that our state would rise above political posturing and show up for the communities most under attack. Instead, legislators failed to meet even the basic needs of the people who keep this state running.

It’s not that the resources didn’t exist. It’s that the will didn’t.

While corporations continue to rake in record profits, our communities are asked to survive on scraps — forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops, denied support in their own language, and treated as disposable when budgets get tight.

We are done asking nicely.

APANO will keep fighting for a state where dignity isn’t up for debate — where everyone, regardless of immigration status or language, has what they need not just to survive, but to thrive.

🎄 What Didn’t Make It Under the Tree

HB 5006 — also known as the “Christmas Tree Bill” — is the end-of-session catch-all bill that lawmakers decorate with last-minute budget items, funding requests, and pet projects.

In theory, it’s a way to invest in community priorities that didn’t make it through the normal legislative process. In practice, it’s often where political favors are traded and grassroots solutions are quietly left behind.

This year’s bill included funding for some good things — including climate disaster relief for farmworkers (🎄 HB 3193) — but many of the boldest, most urgent proposals our communities fought for never made it under the tree.

What was left off:

• Expansion of the Worker Relief Fund for undocumented Oregonians
  
  
• Support for TANF modernization to help families survive
  
  
• Funding for community wealth-building programs
  
  
• A stronger statewide plan for child care access
  
  
• Investments in climate resilience hubs and equity-centered planning

All of these could have been added. None of them were.

We’re keeping receipts. And we’re not giving up.

While some lawmakers spent the final days of session securing wins for their districts, too many let corporate interests dictate the agenda — and left our communities behind.

We want to be clear: APANO is a nonpartisan organization, but we are not neutral when it comes to justice. If you’re not showing up for the communities we organize with — if you’re silent when it’s time to lead — we can’t be expected to show up for you.

The 2026 primary season is already shaping up to be one of the most competitive in recent memory. And voters are paying attention.

We built this scorecard because our communities deserve to know who’s fighting for them — and who’s just playing politics.

Read the full scorecard here and sign up to join our movement here!