Legislators hope session's a short stay.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

If lawmakers can follow their scripts and live up to their leaders' expectations, they will arrive here today, bail out programs for foster children, the elderly and the medically needy, regulate payday lenders, prop up school budgets and crack down on sexual predators.

And then, they will go home.

That's a tall order for a group of politicians that has set some dubious records in recent years: holding the state's two longest sessions in history in 2003 and 2005, and spending more time in special session - an unprecedented 52 days spread over five sessions - in 2002.

But House and Senate leaders of opposite parties agreed that things appeared to be wired in advance for a session of one or two days.

"We're well-organized. The members are well-informed. We're pretty sure as of this point today that everything is in order," said House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village. Her comments came during a recess of a House-Senate committee that spent Wednesday holding a public hearing on the five bills to be considered in today's legislative session.

Her Senate counterpart, President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, struck a similarly optimistic but cautious note.

"We've got to keep focused, but we're OK right now," he said.

If Wednesday's hearings were an indication, then lawmakers' confidence could be well-founded.

Republicans and Democrats on the committee holding the hearings generally agreed on the value of the three budget-related bills.

One authorizes the financially troubled Portland Public Schools to ask voters to levy certain property taxes. Another distributes $42 million in lottery revenue to Oregon's 198 school districts, at an average rate of $63 per student.

The third bill makes $136 million in fund shifts to prevent cuts to human services. The bill was pushed after the Department of Human Services found its caseload had drastically exceeded expectations.

The two other proposals - one restricting payday lenders' charges to consumers and the other setting longer prison terms for those who commit sex crimes against children - proved more controversial.

The payday loan bill would set the same regulatory standards on fees and interest rates as would be imposed under an initiative proposed for the November ballot.

The proposed legislation would cap payday loan interest at 36 percent a year. Loan initiation fees could total only 10 percent of the loan amount. Lenders could make only two rollovers and would be required to give borrowers 31 days instead of 15 to use the money before the loan comes due.

Dan Bryant, the senior pastor at Eugene's First Christian Church and a sponsor of the initiative, told lawmakers it was a travesty that while the state's safety net for the poor has frayed, the most readily available source of help has been "high-interest payday loans used by those desperate for short-term cash."

A report issued last week by the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group found that payday loan companies in Lane County typically charge annual interest rates exceeding 500 percent.

Representatives of the industry said the bill would create new victims: themselves and their customers, who would no longer be able to turn to them for short-term loans.

Despite the industry's reaction, Minnis, one of its biggest allies in the 2005 session, has said she supports the bill.

In 2004, she received $13,500 from the industry and its supporters, more than any other lawmaker, according to the nonpartisan Money in Politics Research Action Project. She prevented a Senate-passed bill regulating the industry from passing in the House.

She has since faced criticism for her role from her campaign opponent. In addition, local jurisdictions in her district and elsewhere - including the city of Eugene - have taken up local regulations of the payday loan industry.

"Instead of having a piecemeal approach, let's take this now and move it through," she said, explaining her support for the bill.

The so-called Jessica's Law proposal also generated sharp differences of opinion.

The bill was based on a Florida law passed there last year after a 9-year-old girl named Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender after authorities lost track of him.

A similar bill passed last year in the Oregon House, but Democratic leaders in the Senate prevented the bill from being enacted.

Sen. Bruce Starr, a Hillsboro Republican who is sponsoring an initiative based on that bill, said the Legislature should save voters and petitioners the effort by enacting the bill this week.

"We can protect kids now, rather than waiting another six to eight months," he said.

The bill would raise the mandatory minimum sentence to 25 years from eight years, four months for sex-crime perpetrators whose victims are 12 or younger.

Terrie Quinteros, program manager for Crime Survivors for Community Safety, said her group and others that represent sexual assault victims oppose the bill because most child sexual assault survivors are victimized by someone they know. She said the long sentences would make children more reluctant to report a father or uncle's crime.

"We will only increase the likelihood that more survivors will remain silent and will not get the support they deserve," said Quinteros, who said she was sexually assaulted as a child.

Benton County District Attorney Scott Heiser disputed that argument, telling lawmakers that for a young incest victim, the difference of seeing a relative imprisoned for eight or 25 years "is not practically at play here."

The bill also would require lifetime monitoring of those convicted under Jessica's Law.

SCHOOLS

Two bills to authorize Portland schools to ask voters to levy certain property taxes and to distribute $42 million to Oregon districts

HUMAN SERVICES

Bill would shift $136 million to prevent cuts to human services after the agency's caseload had drastically exceeded its expectations

PAYDAY LOANS

Bill would cap payday loan interest rates at 36 percent, fix initiation fees for the loans and lengthen amount of time before loan is due

SEX CRIMES SENTENCING

Bill would raise minimum sentence from eight years, four months to 25 years for sex criminals whose victims are 12 or younger

CAPTION(S):

Sen. Ted Ferrioli sits next to boxes of mail in support of the payday loan industry while he listens to testimony in support of curbing payday loan practices during a House-Senate hearing Wednesday on the five bills to be considered in today's legislative session.