Oregon’s Public Meetings Law is supposed to prevent elected officials from doing business in private, outside the purview of the citizens they represent.
But in some respects the law favors officials rather than their constituents.
A recent example from Portland highlights a flaw in the law the Oregon Legislature should fix when it convenes in January 2026.
At least 10 people sent written complaints that a group of Portland city councilors had violated the public meetings law, which dates to 1973. The residents contended the seven councilors had communicated through private text messages this spring.
Although the law’s original focus was on traditional in-person meetings, lawmakers have revised the law, most recently in 2023, to address email, text messages and other technology that wasn’t available in 1973. The goal is to ensure that elected officials don’t circumvent the law’s purpose through what are known as “serial” meetings — holding meetings by remote means such as text messages rather than in person.
Portland’s attorney Robert Taylor told the people who complained that the city wouldn’t look into the allegations because they didn’t submit their concerns within 30 days, the timeframe in the state law.
For the same reason, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, which investigates potential violations of the state’s public meetings and public records law, won’t review the complaints about the Portland councilors.
The 30-day requirement is an insult to Oregonians. It renders the public meetings law all but irrelevant when it comes to situations such as those that prompted people to complain about Portland councilors’ text messages.
The very nature of such serial meetings, of course, is they happen in secret. It’s unlikely any citizen would know, at any point, about private text messages among elected officials. But putting a 30-day limit on filing a complaint gives elected officials not so much a loophole as a gaping chasm to flout the ban on private meetings.
There’s no valid reason for any deadline. Public bodies should be required to investigate all alleged violations of the public meetings law, whenever they’re reported.
The legislature needs to get rid of the 30-day rule as soon as possible.