| Government can have a profound impact on business ventures, for good or ill. To help maximize the good and minimize the ill, we have assembled a team of experienced lawyers with strong political backgrounds and the proven ability to advance their clients’ interests with the government.
Davis Wright Tremaine represents clients in state legislatures regarding pending legislation and before executive agencies with respect to rulemaking proceedings and administrative law matters. Our government relations group is best known, however, for its ability to meld the talents of litigators and lobbyists in an effort to utilize litigation as a catalyst for legislative change.
Many of our lawyers have served as elected officials or senior staff and have years of experience in developing and implementing legislation and regulation of all kinds. This perspective, and the relationships that come with it, enable us to help clients in sophisticated ways.
We are especially good at being proactive about ways to improve our clients’ business by identifying legislative or regulatory changes, developing coalitions to support them and then working the process to conclusion.
Our services include the following:
- Strategic advice
- Relationship building
- Federal and state regulatory advocacy
- Coalition building
- Campaign finance compliance
- Lobbyist compliance
Notable Legislative Accomplishments
- Organized the Oregon Litigation Reform Coalition, which successfully lobbied a package of bills providing for reciprocity in attorney fee awards, prohibiting application of RICO in most business disputes unless a prior criminal conviction was obtained, changing standards for punitive damages awards, allocating 60 percent of those awards to the state, and abolishing the doctrine of joint and several liability replacing it with the doctrine of reallocation of most tort actions
- Authored and lobbied for numerous sections of “Measure 50” and its implementing legislation reducing and limiting property taxes statewide
- Authored and successfully lobbied “Right to Farm” legislation protecting agriculture from many nuisance and trespass suits as development moves closer to farming communities
- Negotiated and successfully advocated legislation preempting local governments from imposing “conversion penalties” on HUD Section 8 landlords who convert to “free market” at completion of Section 8 programs
- Authored and successfully lobbied adoption of the Oregon Ethics Reform Act and the Oregon Government Standards and Practices Commission Amendments
- Successfully lobbied adoption of legislation permitting public utilities to include in rates a return on undepreciated value of closed power plants
- Authored and successfully lobbied Oregon’s “Environmental Cleanup Assistance Act” requiring Oregon law to apply to insurance policies on environmental claims and expanding definition of “suit” to include voluntary responses to environmental regulatory bodies
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation providing transition rules for owners of historic properties which experience property tax assessment “step ups” upon program renewal
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation exempting property used in egg production from property tax
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation providing immunity from suit for antifreeze manufacturers who add “bittering agents” to antifreeze products for safety
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation permitting both in-state and out-of-state residents “like-kind exchange” tax treatment for Oregon income tax purposes
- Authored and successfully lobbied for 2003 Transition Amendments to the Environmental Cleanup Assistance Act permitting "all sums" recovery against non-settling insurers remaining as defendants in pending environmental insurance recovery cases
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation permitting certain aerial display fireworks companies to maintain their operations in exclusive farm use zones
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation creating Oregon's Willamette River Cleanup Authority to monitor the Portland Harbor Superfund RI/FS process and recommend whether the state should issue pollution control bonds to finance the cleanup
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation relieving developers of certain licensing requirements and permitting "down stream" suits to recover damages from subcontractors notwithstanding license status of developer
- Successfully lobbied for legislation providing some regulatory oversight relating to SAIF Corporation
- Lobbied numerous amendments for a variety of business clients
- Authored and successfully lobbied for legislation exempting from property tax, interests out of state cities in the Pacific N.W. AC Intertie electrical transmission system
- Successfully lobbied for legislation exempting religious schools from state oversight relating to degrees offered
- Successfully lobbied for a variety of appropriations
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Selected Experience Grocery Outlet Ongoing Circuit Court has enjoined the Oregon Liquor Control Commission from interfering with the warehousing and distribution practices of a large grocery chain. International plant systems manufacturer Ongoing Provide counsel regarding multi-state environmental regulations compliance, including seed and fertilizer registration and labeling. Fred Van Natta Ongoing Constitutional challenge to state lobby restrictions. Valeant Pharmaceuticals 2008 Assisted pharmaceutical company in first ever recovery from State of Oregon for work performed under unilateral order. Client recovered $1.5 million from Oregon hazardous substances fund. Previously assisted client in advantageously settling numerous environmental coverage claims against its insurers relying on legislation adopted at our urging. Plaintiffs 2005 Congressional redistricting litigation. Oregonians for Sound Economic Policy, Inc. 2003 A series of claims opening public access to records of the State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF), holding SAIF in contempt of court and addressing exposure of SAIF to attorney fee award. Fred Van Natta 1998 9th Circuit and District Court litigation invalidating Oregon constitutional requirement that legislators raise campaign contributions from within their districts. Fred Van Natta 1997 Oregon Supreme Court case invalidating Oregon's campaign contribution limits. Tidewater Barge Lines and Finley Buttes Landfill Co. 1995 A suite of cases holding Oregon's out-of-state waste fees are in violation of the Federal Commerce Clause. Tidewater Barge Lines and Finley Buttes Landfill Co. 1993 Suite of cases holding Oregon's out-of-state waste fees as violation of the Federal Commerce Clause. Columbia River Towboat Association 1986 Litigation invalidating Tri-Met's (transportation system) proposed tax on petroleum products. Prepared amicus briefs for Evergreen Freedom Foundation and 12 other policy organizations in support of petition for certiorari and on the merits in a case involving a constitutional challenge to a state law requiring consent before a union may use agency fees for political purposes. 127 S.Ct. 2372 (2007). | |