In an evening highlighted by apperances from some of Oregon’s foremost performing artists, the Oregon Legislature’s Arts & Culture Caucus announced its legislative agenda for the 2025 session.

The Feb. 12 kickoff event at Salem’s Elsinore Theatre, which drew a crowd of arts leaders mostly from nonprofit arts organizations in the state, featured performances by multiple Grammy winning bassist, vocalist and composer esperanza spalding, jazz pianist Darrell Grant, guitarist Edna Vazquez, and former Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani.  

But the main order of business was the rolling out of the arts caucus’s five House bills aimed at a variety of Oregon arts and cultural needs, from funding to regulating ticket sales. The legislative caucus, which includes both Democratic and Republican members of the state House and Senate, focuses on legislation that benefits and provides funding for arts and cultural programs in the state.

HB 3048 would facilitate the merger of two state agencies, the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Both agencies which are overseen by Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency, share many of the same goals and have similar programing.

The expectation is that a merger, which ArtsWatch wrote about in more detail here, will create a more effective arts funding organization and allow more independence once the two are merged. The bill requires that the Oregon Business Development Department study arts and culture in the state and then submit its findings to arts and culture focused legislative committees by September 2026. The study is expected to provide guidance on the merger. 

The caucus hopes to take on electronic ticket scalpers with HB3167. The legislation proposes to make it illegal for scalpers to use software to make mass purchases and then resell them online. “It will put laws on the books to stop these practices,” said State Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), co-leader of the 27-member arts caucus with Sen. Dick Anderson (R-Lincoln City).

HB2190 focuses on helping owners of historic buildings by lowering their assessed tax rate, which is expected to make it easier to maintain the structures. “Not having the tax helps people who own these buildings pay for renovation,” Nosse said. “Historic buildings are hard to keep up and maintain. The tax credit helps with the cost of doing that.” 

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Passage of HB3189 would provide the Oregon Arts Commission with additional funding to assist art programs, organizations and artists through grants so that they can continue to provide access to the arts to Oregonians.  

House Bill 3191 would provide capital funding to a variety of museums, art associations, heritage and cultural centers, historic districts, theater programs and arts related festivals throughout the state. Capital funding projects include building restoration, construction, and renovations. “The bill is to highlight the various capital construction asks being lifted up by the arts and culture community across the state,” said Nosse.

Funding for arts and cultural programs and organizations, as well as grants for individual artists, has become vitally important since pandemic relief funding ended. Turnout has been low at art and culture centers as the public struggles with economic instability and inflation.

“The Arts Commission’s General Fund budget has remained relatively flat since the 2007-09 biennium, averaging $4 million (per biennium) for 15 years,” said Brian Rogers, executive director of the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. “Oregon public support for the arts currently ranks 38th in the nation per capita ($0.51).”

Arts and cultural organizations as well as independent artists turn to grants from foundations and government sources and to individual donations to support their community outreach and art. Passage of the bills would help arts organizations and programs and individual artists through this period of instability.

“Additional Arts Commission funds would support arts organizations in reaching new audiences. Support for not-for-profit arts organizations serving almost every community in Oregon,” Rogers said.

According to Rogers, the commission grants program is supporting 268 arts organizations and 210 project-based awards for arts programs and artists: “The number of arts organizations receiving operating support has grown by 200 over the past 10 years. The growth is due to active community outreach and a commitment to reducing grant application barriers. Operating support is the most valuable type of support for organizations as it is unrestricted.”

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With federal funding largely at a standstill due to the Trump administration’s freezing of grants to states and organizations ranging from arts to science to medical research – a freeze that also impacts such major Oregon centers as Oregon Health & Science University – state funding for the arts may be more crucial now than ever before.

“Federal funding amounts to close to a third of the (Oregon) arts commission’s budget,” ArtsWatch wrote in this story about the federal funding freezes and other aspects of the Trump Administration’s approach to cultural issues. “The Oregon Cultural Trust, which also supports state arts and cultural groups, does not receive federal money.  The federal share is about 10 percent of the two agencies’ combined budgets.”

In addition to announcing the efforts of the caucus on behalf of arts and culture, the kickoff included an announcement that the Oregon Community Foundation, through its Arts and Culture Recovery Fund, has awarded $7.6 million in grants to 60 nonprofits in 2024. ArtsWatch wrote in detail about several of those grants here.

The foundation says it will award an additional $6.4 million by the end of the 2025 fiscal year. OCF partnered with the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, a private Oregon nonprofit organization that helps funds the arts and art education.