The Regular Legislative Session that ended on June 29, 2009 was challenging in many ways, and I am grateful for so many emails and calls that helped us complete our work representing you.

It is an honor to serve about 63,000 citizens, 37,936 of which are voters in District 39. Of those, 13,956 are registered Republican, 14,877 registered Democrats, and 9,103 registered with other parties or as Independents.

With over 3,000 bills introduced, over 1,000 passed. Some passed with my vote, some not, and for many I wanted to vote for only parts of the bill!

I voted nearly 3,000 times in my three committees and on the House Floor on various bills, amendments, resolutions, memorials, and motions.

In addition to the calls, visits and emails, there were a number of Town Hall Meetings, all of which provided me with invaluable information and were great opportunities for me to connect with the people of our district.

We would guesstimate that our office received about 40,000 emails and several thousand phone calls, many of which were asking me to vote for or against a certain bill. Others were thanking me for a vote I made, and some were…not thanking me for a vote I made. And, some folks were seeking assistance with a problem.

There were over 400 student Honorary Pages in the House this session, all of whom helped my fellow House members and I, and hopefully had a wonderful learning experience. We were delighted to host quite a number from the Canby, Oregon City and Mulino school districts.

The longest bill of the 2009 session, ironically, was House Bill 2009, a major bill on healthcare. I worked earnestly with members of both parties on this, one of the major bills of the session. It is not perfect, but in general it is a good bill for the people of Oregon. I listened to 70 hours of public hearings in two of my committees on this 536 page, 1,206 section long health care reform bill. It is still a work in progress.

Another highlight of the session was voting to override the Governor’s veto on school funding. He wanted to reduce funding by a whopping $400 million! Education is far too important to cut its funding like that!

During the interim, we are available at rep.billkennemer@state.or.us or 503-263-4798 for official business and kennemer4rep@aol.com or 503-263-2868 for the campaign.

It is a pleasure to serve on the House Health Care, Business and Labor and Work Force Development Committees during the Interim. Please be in touch with your ideas for new legislation, comments or concerns. We will be meeting in a Special one month session beginning February 1, 2010 to deal with budget issues and very limited policy issues.

Thank you for the honor and privilege of representing you.