Oregon Action

The 2022 legislative session gave Oregon legislators the unique opportunity to invest in our communities, and strengthen Oregon amid the covid-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and wildfire season. Unite Oregon and our partners fought for legislation to advance racial, social, and gender justice across the state. Session the 2022 legislative short session was spent reinvesting in equitable solutions for our communities. We prioritized four bills but shared our support for a total of 15 legislative solutions. This created several opportunities for our members to get civically engaged and advocate for policies they wanted to see move forward. We hosted several events and actions including informationals about session and our endorsed bills, trainings on how to advocate through story sharing and testimonies, and media advocacy opportunities. Our priority bills included the following: house bill 4077, environmental justice for all summary: develops an environmental justice mapping tool to track the socioeconomic influences on environmental health across the state. Establishes the environmental justice council. Status: passed, currently hosting a statewide listening tour senate bill 1579, equity investment act summary: creates generational wealth equity and economic stability in communities most harmed by over-policing, the war on drugs and the criminal justice system. Status: passed, currently advising the implementation table house bill 4005, child care investment package summary: investing in growing child care staffing, supply that is affordable, expanding services and resources, supporting the streamlining and efficiency of our state's child care system, and direct relief payments to child care workers to stabilize our workforce. Status: passed, currently searching for locations to create 2-3 new centers and recruiting a variety of childcare providers house bill 4147, restoration of voting rights summary: restores voting rights to persons actively incarcerated according to their last known address. Status: failed and will be reintroduced in session 2023 we are currently preparing for the 2023 legislative long session with a focus on permanent solutions for the detrimental setbacks created by the pandemic and proactive investments in preparation for the recession. Our legislative agenda will be reviewed in november at a leadership council summit and shared with the public in december at a member town hall. Additionally, we'll host educational events about the legislative session and methods of advocacy. We look forward to advocating for equitable solutions alongside our members. Ripple unite Oregon Action's ripple (refugee, immigrant, & people of color political leadership and education) program is a new leadership incubator series designed to build power for emerging immigrant, refugee, and bipoc leaders through political education, advocacy, and organizing skills delivered in a culturally responsive bipoc-created/led curriculum. The program trained leaders through a 5-week intensive series in february; designed to teach about the varying government structures, how to convert ideas into policy, and even run for office. We also culminated in a virtual graduation celebration, with a job and internship fair, where graduates got to meet with community-based organizations in breakout rooms and be connected directly to hiring managers and organizations with open positions. This year we graduated a class of 17 participants. Four graduates are running or planning to run for positions in their unions, school board, and state office. Another three have been hired to work at unite Oregon as chapter organizers, community health workers, and small business supporters; and two established childcare small businesses through our small business incubator program (bridges). It has been very exciting for us to watch these leaders blossom in the program and share their leadership with their communities. Primary election we endorsed twenty-one candidates across local and state governments in districts that overlapped with our chapters or had high density member representation. With limited resources, we focused our support on media promotion, event sharing, and voter education. We ended the season with 85% wins, 10% loss and 5% runoffs. General election for the general election we have endorsed 23 candidates, 3 statewide ballot measures, and 4 local ballot measures. In addition to specific campaigns, we also supported voter education events and get out the vote (gotv) efforts. Our engagement levels ranged from public endorsements to field programs depending on campaign needs, capacity, and funds. General campaign funds were fairly scarce so our efforts carried out for 3 weeks from october through election day. We hosted a total of 31 events, gathered with 50 volunteers and carried out about 100 shifts. Our community campaign completed a total of 4241 contacts of our 31 campaigns, we won 93% with 65% bipoc representation. We look forward to working with each elected in their respective offices.