Oregon State Rep. Mannix files ballot measures to limit pretrial release, end estate tax

Published 6:24 am Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Republican Rep. Kevin Mannix of Salem sits on the House floor at the Oregon state Capitol in Salem on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. He has filed to propose two November 2026 ballot initiatives for the state of Oregon. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

The Salem Republican argues that Oregon voters are tired of inaction on criminal defendants being released before trial and the state’s taxes on assets of deceased residents

After failing to muster support in the Oregon Legislature, state Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, has set his sights on the ballot box with two proposed November 2026 initiatives that would tighten restrictions on Oregon’s pretrial release program and end the state’s estate tax.

Mannix and members of his Salem-based law firm filed the initiatives with Oregon’s Secretary of State earlier this month, calling them the “Oregon Crimefighting Act” and the “End the Death Tax Act.” It’s far from the first time the Republican lawmaker, who has led five successful past ballot measures, has turned to voters to try to enact laws the Legislature won’t pass.

Despite failing to gain signatures for a similar anti-crime measure in the 2024 election cycle, Mannix was the key architect of Oregon’s Measure 11, the sentencing law voters passed in 1994 to crack down on crime by enacting minimum penalties, such as more than six years for rape in the second degree.

But after years of legislative efforts to reduce incarceration, Mannix argues defendants accused of far too serious crimes have been allowed release before trial, clearing defendants to skip trials and flee the area with no chance for victims to achieve justice. He also says a bill passed in 2021 “under the guise of bail reform” that state officials are currently studying has exacerbated the problem.

“The public is fed up, and the law enforcement who are handling this stuff at the street level are fed up,” Mannix told the Capital Chronicle. “I think this is a good situation to take the case to the public and say, ‘We should not have catch and release.’”

The other measure Mannix filed comes after an unsuccessful push by legislative Republicans  to raise Oregon’s estate tax exemption to $7 million from $1 million, currently the nation’s lowest. The state collected more than $338 million in estate taxes in 2024, up from just under $300 million in 2023, according to data from the Legislative Revenue Office.

His petition calls for eliminating the tax altogether.

“I took a look at the atmosphere and kept hearing some of the leadership saying, ‘Well, this all has to be revenue neutral,’” he said. “No, this is a bad policy, and it needs to be reformed.”

The initiatives will need an initial 1,000 signatures from voters for a petition before Mannix and his fellow petitioners can receive a drafted ballot title from the state attorney general’s office. They would then need to receive 117,173 signatures from Oregon voters to make it onto the ballot, making up the required 6% of the total votes cast for governor in the most recent election.

Pretrial release reform aims to give judges control

Both the state and Mannix agree that giving courts the ability to decide on a case-by-case basis  whether and how to release a defendant before trial is a good thing. But they appear to disagree about when that decision should be led by a pretrial release officer or if a judge should be required to make decisions about the case.

Research shows that the charge a defendant is facing has little influence on whether they will engage in misconduct during pretrial release, said Kris Henning, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Portland State University. That includes fleeing or breaking the terms of a supervised release, but also committing a crime again. He added that other factors such as arrest and conviction history or prior no-shows play a larger role in those issues occurring.

“There is a growing body of research that shows jailing people while they await trial may create more problems than it solves,” he wrote in an email.

But the state argues that its approach is working on the whole. The Oregon Judicial Department’s data shows modestly declining rates of people missing their court dates in the past few years, according to spokesperson Todd Sprague, who pointed to charts showing a rise of individuals in the court system who have yet to receive failure to appear notices.

Lawmakers implemented the system Mannix is seeking to undo through 2021’s Senate Bill 48, among a slate of laws overhauling the state’s criminal justice system in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minnesota and months of protests.

The law sought to reduce the state’s reliance on monetary bail by requiring risk-based assessments and allowing more people to be released on their own recognizance, or by giving their word that they’ll return to court. The law allows judges to set conditions on release for people who committed certain felonies, while more serious crimes require people to be held in jail before arraignment.

Mannix has not been tracking specific incidents, but he said he has heard from law enforcement who have become discouraged to book and arrest people committing crimes they know defendants will be released for. His proposal would designate all felonies and serious misdemeanors like reckless driving and fourth-degree assault as “serious crime” that would require arraignment in front of a judge. They could consider the risk to public safety and the individual defendant’s circumstances when it comes to release.

“For what I call the medium-level crimes and the low-level crimes and many serious felonies which were not violent, such as burglary and auto theft and identity theft, the Legislative Assembly sort of took a dive,” Mannix said.

Estate tax elimination

Mannix is also championing an initiative to phase out the estate tax, which he defines as a “death tax,” as first reported by the Oregon Journalism Project. The Salem lawyer is proposing that the state end estate taxes for anyone who dies after Jan. 1, 2027. Oregon voters rejected a similar ballot measure aimed at phasing out the estate tax in 2012.

Oregon is one of 12 states that tax estates above a certain threshold, meaning Oregonians who die with more than $1 million in assets have 10% to 16% withheld for taxes before money can be transferred to their heirs. The federal government also levies an estate tax.

Oregon’s estate tax exemption on assets is the lowest in the nation, second to Rhode Island at around $1.8 million.

Mannix and other Republican legislators introduced House Bill 2301, which would have increased assets exempt from the tax from $1 million to $7 million and lowered the existing scale of 10% to 16% to an overall 7% tax.

But the bill pitted business and industry groups against advocates like the Portland-based Oregon Center for Public Policy, who argued it could imperil public service and do away with a necessary tax on the wealthiest Oregonians. Another bipartisan bill involving the estate tax, House Bill 3934, would have brought Oregon in line with 11 other states in allowing widowed spouses to benefit from their partners’ estate tax exemptions, but it also failed to pass.

“Seeing no traction, the question is, how much longer do we keep trying to raise this issue?” Mannix said. “Let’s take the philosophical issue to the voters.”

About Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

This article was originally published by
Oregon Capital Chronicle and used with permission. Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom and can be reached at info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com.

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