Think Out Loud

On Monday, Oregon state lawmakers will convene in Salem to start the 2026 short legislative session. They’ll have just 35 days to tackle their legislative priorities, including the future of transportation funding, housing and rebalancing the state budget, which is facing a nearly $900 million shortfall due to an estimated loss in state revenue from tax changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have also seized on growing concerns around affordability and the cost of living, although with different views on what’s to blame. Also expected on the agenda is legislation Gov. Tina Kotek is sponsoring to accelerate job growth and ease business permitting as part of a multi-pronged effort that Kotek recently unveiled and appointed former state Senate Republican leader Tim Knopp to lead. 

House Minority Leader Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, and House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, join us to share their perspectives and priorities for the legislative session.

Editor’s Note: This description has been updated to accurately reflect the source of the nearly $900 million state budget shortfall. We also mischaracterized the source of this shortfall in the on-air conversation. OPB regrets this error.

Southern Oregon artist Crystal Proffitt has always had a connection to hair. As a dancer, she grew comfortable styling her own hair for performances, and later worked as a professional hairstylist. But she’s also had strangers approach her to touch or tug her curls unsolicited, an experience she says isn’t uncommon for people of color. 

Proffitt channeled those experiences and others into the art installation “Don’t Touch My Hair: An Interactive Crowned Experience.” It features portraits of local models accompanied by audio descriptions of their own experiences with their hair. The installation will be on display at the Rogue Gallery & Art Center in Medford through Feb. 27.

Proffitt joins us to talk more about the installation and the ways hair can convey beauty, culture, memory and identity.

Hand-in-hand with Jefferson High School’s planned expansion comes a change in boundaries for Portland’s school districts. Portland Public Schools voted earlier this month to end the dual-assignment policy, which for the last 15 years has allowed families to let their student opt-out of attending Jefferson High School and instead choose to attend one of three other high schools in the area.

This dual-assignment policy has led to steadily declining enrollment rates for the public high school in North Portland. Jefferson High school currently enrolls just under 400 students. Grant High School has an enrollment of over 2,000, McDaniel High School has over 1,600 students, and Roosevelt High School enrolls over 1,400. The new boundary plan aims to even out enrollment between the three schools by 2030, with the $465 million expansion set to open in 2028.

Joining us to discuss the changes are Michelle DePass, vice-chair of the Portland School Board, and Lakeitha Elliot, Jefferson High graduate and former PTA member

 Many Native American tribes use the phrase “time immemorial” to describe how long they’ve been living in North America. But how long is “time immemorial”? What does it really mean? 

Indigenous affairs reporter Toastie Oaster dug into the history and significance of the phrase for High Country News. It was part of the magazine’s larger issue on “deep time” in the West. Oaster joins us to share what they learned.

The U.S. Constitution likely would not have been ratified in 1788 without Article 5, which allowed for amendment. Many of the original founders championed the idea that the document would need to change as the country changed. As historian Jill Lepore points out in her newest book most of the 27 amendments to the constitution have happened just after times of war or conflict, and after 33 years without an amendment, we may be headed that way again. OPB’s Geoff Norcross speaks to Lepore in front of an audience at the 2025 Portland Book Festival about “We the People: A history of the U.S. Constitution.”

Music and science don’t often overlap, but University of Oregon professor Leif Karlstrom is making it happen with the Volcano Listening Project. Karlstrom turns datasets from the volcanoes he studies every day into sound, then uses those soundtracks to make music with a wide array of musicians. The project will be on display at a pair of upcoming shows in Portland and Hood River on Jan. 28 and 29. 

Karlstrom joins us to share music from the Volcano Listening Project and what it takes to turn data into song.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, requires museums, universities and other institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American ancestral remains and cultural items to their original tribes. Though the law passed nearly 35 years ago, many institutions have failed to fulfill its requirements.  

Oregon State University recently opened a new facility designed to advance its NAGPRA obligations. The two buildings house a records room, a laboratory and a space to consult with tribal members as they move through the repatriation process. The new buildings are also better equipped than the old facility to store cultural items and remains of tribal ancestors awaiting return.  

Dawn Marie Alapisco is the director of the NAGPRA Office within OSU’s Office of Institutional Diversity. She joins us to share more about the new facility and how institutions should be approaching their NAGPRA requirements.

 Clark County resident Wayne Sutton was only 7 or 8 years old, he says, when his father, who worked in the logging industry, helped him buy his first chainsaw. That was 60 years ago. Today, Sutton is the founder and curator of Wayne’s Chainsaw Museum, a private museum located a few miles outside of Amboy in Clark County that is free and open to visitors by appointment. 

The Columbian recently profiled Sutton and his museum which is big enough to display only about half of the 4,000 or 5,000 chainsaws he has amassed over the years and continues to collect, or have donated to him. Sutton opened the museum in 2000 when he started working for Stihl, the world’s leading maker of gas-powered chainsaws. 

Sutton retired from Stihl in 2024. Although his museum boasts hundreds of models made by his former employer, it also showcases other brands and rare, decades-old examples that serve as a time capsule of the evolution of this power tool that is inextricably tied to the logging history of the Pacific Northwest. Sutton joins us to share his love of chainsaws and future plans for sharing his massive collection with more enthusiasts.

 If you were around Portland in the '90s, you probably heard the infectious, upbeat pop tunes of the band Sunset Valley. They toured up and down the West Coast, played in front of big audiences and eventually signed with a big record label. But breakout fame wasn’t in the cards for this group, and the members have since moved on to other things. Now the band is reissuing their record "Boyscout Superhero," and playing a concert to celebrate their 30-year anniversary. We talk to band members Herman Jolly, Jonathan Drews and Tony Lash and hear some music.

Morgan Stanley has projected the weight loss medication market to reach $150 billion globally by 2035. The use of GLP-1s, such as Ozempic, have increased drastically since 2019. At the same time, new research shows that the use of these drugs still comes with the risk of judgement and social pressures that all relate to weight stigma.

An Oregon-based group, Body Liberation for Public Health, wants to help end these stigmas. The group is advocating for body liberation, which is a movement aimed to dismantle the systems that have created weight stigmas and bias, as opposed to the body positivity movement, which encourages acceptance of all body types. Debbie Kaufman is the creator of the project. She joins us to share more on what body liberation is and why it’s important to incorporate it into public health.