The Oregon Capitol in Salem, where GOP lawmakers returned Thursday, June 15, 2023 after a six-week walkout that paralyzed the Legislature.

SALEM — Republicans in the Oregon Senate ended their six-week walkout on Thursday, June 15, after reaching a deal to water down Democratic bills on abortion and guns that the GOP has strenuously opposed.

Those changes — unthinkable if Republicans had not launched the longest walkout in state history — represent a win for the boycotting senators. But the party got far from everything it wanted in protracted negotiations with Democrats.

Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, refused to excuse absences racked up by 10 conservative lawmakers since the walkout began May 3. That means all 10 are expected to be blocked from running for reelection under a ballot measure passed by voters last November.

Democrats also balked at a larger “kill list” of bills Republicans want taken out of consideration as lawmakers speed to a mandatory June 25 adjournment. The deal is contingent on the GOP agreeing to waive normal procedural rules, a step that will allow Democrats to fast-track hundreds of bills awaiting passage in the Senate.

As a result of the deal, hammered out over hours of negotiation since last Friday, many priorities both parties put forward for this session remain achievable. And the Legislature will be able to pass a new two-year budget that contains record funding for schools, new money for mental health services, and funding to help address a crisis in public defense, among many other things.

But some of the session’s most controversial proposals will look very different when they head to the Senate floor for a vote.

While they have offered many reasons for walking out this year, Republicans have been most vocal about House Bill 2002. As it passed the House, the bill would expand protections for abortions and transgender care, among many other provisions.

Republicans and their allies have railed against a provision in the bill that would allow children of any age to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent, a step they say is an affront to parents’ rights.

As OPB reported was likely on Monday, lawmakers have agreed to keep in place a legal requirement that parental permission is required for children under 15 to end a pregnancy. But that requirement can be overridden if two health providers in separate medical practices conclude informing parents would be harmful to the child, according to a briefing with key players engaged in the negotiations.

Democrats also agreed to nix portions of the bill expanding abortion access on university campuses and in rural parts of the state.

Other pieces of HB 2002 remain intact, including expanding what gender-affirming care must be covered by insurance plans and securing legal protections for providers who perform abortions by residents of anti-abortion states.

Democrats have also agreed to kill Senate Joint Resolution 33, which would have asked voters to enshrine protections for abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender care in the state Constitution. Republicans said they offered support for the same-sex marriage portion of the resolution.

And Republicans appear to have won big concessions on the session’s major gun control bill. House Bill 2005 would have implemented three major changes: outlawing untraceable “ghost” guns, increasing the age to purchase and own most guns from 18 to 21, and allowing cities to ban concealed weapons in public buildings.

Under the deal, only the ghost gun provision will survive.

Democrats will also agree to kill Senate Bill 348 and a handful of other gun bills that would put some provisions of Measure 114, a gun safety law approved by voters last year, into statute. The ballot measure is currently on hold amid court challenges. It banned the sale or transfer of extended-capacity magazine clips and required a permit to purchase a gun, among other restrictions.

The agreement also includes changes to a bill that will expand the availability of treatment for opioid addiction, which had been a key concern for Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Fall Creek.

Democrats will also waive $325 daily fines they began levying on absent lawmakers last week. And lawmakers will find a way to address Republicans’ insistence that the Senate has not followed a law that requires bill summaries to be written at roughly an eighth grade level. How the chamber will do so was not immediately clear.

The two parties didn’t only cut deals on what bills should be diluted. Democrats also are allowing a Republican-led resolution that would ask voters to allow the Legislature to impeach statewide elected officials to head to a floor vote, though its passage isn’t guaranteed. And the deal ensures that there will be enough Republican votes to pass an increase on taxes on telephone services in the state, in order to fund the 988 suicide prevention hotline.

The agreement reached Thursday marked a notable change in Democrats’ stance toward the walkout. Again and again since the boycott began, Wagner and other leading Democrats insisted they would refuse to bargain over HB 2002 and HB 2005. But with the possibility of losing hundreds of bills becoming more urgent, the party changed tactics.

Democrats cast the agreement in positive terms. Rather than highlighting the concessions made in HB 2002, for instance, Wagner’s office said the bill had been “clarified to ensure the bill affirms standard abortion care that has been in place for 50 years under Roe v. Wade.”

“We have achieved major bipartisan victories already this session, and I expect that to continue now that we have returned to the floor,” Wagner said in a statement. “I am grateful for all the senators who listened to each other and sought an end to this walkout while protecting Oregon priorities and values.”

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, a Bend Republican and leader of the walkout, talked up the policy changes he’d achieved.

“We have said from the very beginning that we cannot allow the Senate to operate in an unlawful, uncompromising, and unconstitutional manner,” Knopp said in a statement. “We repeatedly urged Democrat leaders to put the critical needs of all Oregonians first instead of prioritizing an extreme agenda that does nothing but divide us. I am pleased to say that we were able to hold the Democrat majority accountable and accomplish all these things.”

Now that they’re back, Republicans face another challenge: Trying to salvage their political careers. Members of the party have said they will sue to challenge Measure 113, the law that could prevent them from seeking re-election. They also argue that the measure’s sloppy wording might grant them another term, even if they’re eventually blocked from running.

“We knew the risk we were taking, but we feel our challenge to Measure 113′s constitutionality is strong,” state Sen. Lynn Findley, a Vale Republican who played a leading role in negotiating the deal, said in a statement. “Some of our colleagues may disagree, but that is a battle for another day. Today, we are happy to deliver this win for Oregonians.”