2017 SJR 5: Proposal for new section 5 to Article III.

Senate Joint Resolution No. 5 proposes to add a Section 5 to Article III of the Oregon State Constitution.  Article III is entitled Distribution of Powers.  The sponsoring Senator is not listed in the information provided on the Bill on the Internet.

The Proposal

This proposal is to add in a feature reminiscent of the "Congressional Review Act" that has been passed at a Federal level which is to allow more control of Executive branch actions by the Legislative Branch.  This is part of a broader conflict on the limitations of executive power.  I will try to explain the conflict.  So the Legislature creates a law that defines a kind of a broad policy regarding some thing.  For a facile example, let's take speeding.  The law says something like, "Local municipalities shall determine in consultation with subject matter experts, maximum speeds for roads, shall enforce those speeds and local law enforcement can issue fines."
So here the Legislature, because they did not go into details, have left open the determination of various aspects to the executive branch.  Maybe some municipality decides that an appropriate speed limit for a road is 80 mph.  Maybe some other municipality decides that they will fine speeders $1000.  Consideration of these hypotheticals in isolation and current known (Willamette valley) norms make these seem to be crazy.  But perhaps there are perfectly valid reasons and reasoning that have led the local officials to believe that these actions are appropriate.  So my first point here is that if the Legislature wanted something specific, inadequately considered potentially different interpretations and simply did not include the level of detail you often see in tax law, then it is on the Legislature.
The second point here is that I am not aware of any impediment that should the Legislature or a committee have valid concerns as to the Executive's promulgation of rules related to a piece of Legislation, then this kind of pre-emptive review of promulgated rules could be built into the Legislation in the first place.  I don't see that a constitutional amendment is necessary.

My View

As mentioned above, unless there is something explicitly that prevents the Legislature from implementing this under current law, this is just for public relations purposes to satisfy voter's sentiments that there are too many regulations and rules and the Legislature should do something about them.