Lake Oswego representative and economic development chair reflects on legislative session 

Published 5:00 am Sunday, July 6, 2025

As a business owner and head of the Oregon House of Representatives Committee on ​Economic Development, Small Business, and Trade, Rep. Daniel Nguyen, D-Lake Oswego, is focused on how to revitalize the Oregon economy and guide it through headwinds.

There is still plenty of work to do, he said.

“In the Legislature, we focus a lot on our priorities like education, housing, mental health — they’re all very important. At the same time I think we need to focus on the economy and job creation and business investment and retention and recruitment as well. That is our tax base revenue base to do the things we want to do,” he said.

During this legislative session, Nguyen advocated for a bill that would create an Oregon trade strategy — which stalled in committee — and for a bill designed to guide an effort to bring a professional baseball team to Portland by taxing the future revenue of players as a way to pay for the construction of a new stadium. That bill passed.

The Lake Oswego resident said that — especially during an era when tariffs bring instability and uncertainty to the Oregon economy — the state needs a unified plan and more collaboration between agencies to weather uncertainties.

“Oftentimes policies and bills don’t happen the first time around. I expect to bring (the trade strategy) up again during the short session,” Nguyen said.

Regarding the baseball bill, Nguyen said it was a first step and recognized that bringing a Major League Baseball team to Portland will be a challenging effort as there is plenty of competition for expansion.

“The bill allows us to at least be considered as a potential candidate for getting a team. The work isn’t done and there is more due diligence that needs to happen,” he said.

Also during the session, Nguyen took an economic tour of the state. Some of his stops included Agility Robotics in Salem, the Sunrise Corridor in Clackamas County, communities in Roseburg, Grants Pass and Central Point, and the Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute (OTRADI)/Oregon Bioscience Incubator in Portland. His takeaway was that the state needs to bolster and reimagine preexisting economies in rural parts of the state, such as timber.

“We have to be spreading out economic prosperity across the state appropriate for the industries that naturally reside there,” he said.

One of the biggest disappointments of the session was the inability of the Legislature to pass a transportation funding package — which will require the Oregon Department of Transportation to conduct hundreds of layoffs. A funding package was introduced late in the session and the Legislature wasn’t able to pass it in time.

“It would have been better if we had introduced it earlier so we could have discussions in a more robust way with public comment and feedback,” Nguyen said. “More time would have been helpful to get people to where they understood the bill and had a level of comfort.”

Nguyen said the Legislature should convene for an emergency session to fix this transportation funding shortfall. Gov. Tina Kotek has hinted at the possibility of calling such a session.

With the six-month marathon over, Nguyen said he’s going to take a few weeks to decompress from the session and collect his thoughts. However, he feels the state needs to continue to try to reverse population flight, particularly from Multnomah County, and make downtown Portland more vibrant.

“Our work isn’t done,” he said.