Cigarette tax vote fires up House.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - The outcome Thursday - a failed House vote to raise cigarette taxes for children's health care - was entirely expected.

The route - a tortured, five-hour ordeal marked by parliamentary maneuvers, shouts of protest and a lockdown that kept members trapped in the House chamber - was not.

In the end, the Oregon House remained stuck where it's been since the session began: trying to finance a plan to expand coverage to most of the 117,000 children without health insurance.

House Bill 2201 would have increased the tax on cigarettes by 84.5 cents per pack, bringing the excise to $2.02. That would increase Oregon's ranking from 16th to a tie for third among states with the highest cigarette taxes.

The tax increase would have raised $182 million. Most of the revenue would have paid for medical coverage of 95 percent of Oregon's 117,000 uninsured children in low- and middle-income households. A small fraction of that would have helped pay for a variety of programs: adult medical coverage through the Oregon Health Plan, anti-smoking campaigns and treatment, and school health clinics among them.

Democrats spoke in favor of the proposal. They cited studies showing that each pack of cigarettes smoked drives up taxpayers' costs for health care and other services by $11. Some noted that children's health is compromised by exposure to second-hand smoke. Others expressed hope that driving up the cost of smoking would lead thousands of Oregonians to give up the unhealthy habit.

Republicans questioned the logic of raising the price of adults' cigarettes to pay for children's insurance. They said Democrats were trying to build a costly program on a revenue source that would diminish over time as more people quit smoking.

All 31 Democrats, along with Republican Rep. Vicki Berger of Salem, supported the bill. Despite that majority, it wasn't enough to meet the 36-vote supermajority required for bills that raise taxes.

Leaders of the Democratic and Republican caucuses alike said there was some value in going ahead with the vote, even though it was clear ahead of time the bill would not pass.

"You've got to have these debates and show people where we stand," said House Majority Leader Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone.

The vote was scheduled after weeks of negotiations had failed to bring enough Republicans on board to pass the bill. Hunt said the act of formally wrangling over it and putting votes on the record may prove instrumental in getting talks back on track.

One of the Republicans' top negotiators, Rep. Bruce Hanna, R-Roseburg, seemed to agree with this point.

"I think we're exactly where we were before, except it may bring us back to more formal negotiations," he said.

Parliamentary maneuvering started when Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, moved to end discussion and proceed to a vote. Republicans opposed that. Motions and countermotions ensued. Republicans shouted from the floor that Democrats weren't following the rules.

Even after House members began pushing the green and red buttons at their desks indicating their support or opposition to the bill, the ordeal was far from over.

Republican Rep. John Lim of Gresham refused to vote. He said he would not vote unless he had the opportunity to deliver a speech on the bill, as others had. But with the House having already voted to cut off debate, House Speaker Jeff Merkley refused.

So Lim refused to vote. Top leaders and rank-and-file members spent the next 1 1/2 hours trying to persuade Lim to vote, but he held out.

With a rule in effect that required all members to remain on the floor - and for the sergeant-at-arms to bar the doors leading off the floor and out of the chamber - House members were forced to mill around with little to do but wait.

Some members passed the time playing a few hands of hearts. Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, spent the time pacing anxiously on the floor, glancing at the clock or his watch frequently.

"I've got a plane to catch," he said, explaining that he had booked a flight to Las Vegas for his son's wedding today.

Finally, at 3:20 p.m., Lim returned to his desk on the House floor. He was called on to cast his vote. Lim demanded to speak. Speaker Merkley said no. Lim again refused to vote. This time, the House adjourned for the day.

Afterward, Merkley expressed hope that the Legislature wouldn't let the partisan friction derail efforts to solve the state's problems in health care and other policy arenas.

The Portland Democrat said he would encourage his colleagues from both parties to "diminish and set aside all the atmospherics, all the parliamentary maneuvering. Let's keep our eyes fixed on doing good things for the state of Oregon."