QuickTake:

Proposals include a provision to allow federal law enforcement to be sued for constitutional violations, to prohibit officers from wearing masks and to require that an officer’s agency is always visibly displayed.

Oregon state lawmakers, including Eugene Democrats, are looking for ways to hold federal law enforcement accountable as this year’s 35-day legislative session gets underway.

They are preparing measures that would:

  • Require notification to the community when federal immigration activities in schools take place.
  • Limit when officers can wear masks.
  • Make it easier for residents to successfully sue federal law enforcement officials for constitutional violations. 

The work comes amid rising tensions between Oregon state officials and the Trump administration around immigration enforcement activities that judges have repeatedly ruled are unconstitutional. 

In states like Oregon, with Democratic governors and majorities in statehouses, policymakers are pushing to put laws in place that rein in federal officers and add accountability measures, after the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

In Eugene, protesters repeatedly clashed with federal officers throughout the past week, sparking calls from local and state officials for residents to protest peacefully. 

State Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will play a central role in that work this session. 

“We’re looking at how do we hold federal agencies accountable for constitutional wrongs,” Prozanski said in an interview with Lookout Eugene-Springfield Monday, Feb. 2, the first day of the session.

Prozanski is planning a proposal that would build upon a federal civil rights law allowing people to seek damages in court when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights. That federal law has a limit: It only provides a pathway for people to sue local or state law enforcement officials.

Prozanski’s proposal, called “Converse-1983” in legal circles, would put a mechanism in place that allows Oregonians to sue federal law enforcement for federal constitutional violations. The “Converse-1983” legal principle draws its name from the section of U.S. code that allows lawsuits against local law enforcement.

Rather than a federal law that holds state and local law enforcement accountable to the U.S. constitution, this would be a state law that holds federal officials accountable — hence the term “converse.”

The principle, in theory at least, has existed in legal academic circles since the 1990s. A few states — including California, Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey — have laws that “appear to authorize” damages for constitutional violations, according to a 2025 report about the issue compiled by the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative. 

The bill would hold officers across the board — state, federal and local — accountable for federal constitutional violations, Prozanski said. 

Prozanski, an attorney who had a long career as a municipal prosecutor, has chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee since 2009. He’ll put that background to work as he collaborates with others — all with an eye on getting the bill through within 35 days.

He said it’s necessary when federal agents are “acting as if they’re immune” from accountability.

“The urgency is basically we need to have a bill, in my opinion, passed and signed by the governor before we conclude our session,” Prozanski said. 

Masking bill  

Oregon lawmakers also are proposing a bill that would prohibit masks on all law enforcement officers — local, state and federal — with exceptions for certain cases like medical reasons and undercover operations.

The bill is part of a wider proposal called the Law Enforcement Visibility & Accountability Act. The proposal also would prohibit state and local agencies from intentionally assisting in unconstitutional or retaliatory federal activities like investigating people who protest, gather in public or film officers in public. The bill also requires agents to visibly display their agency name.

The bill also seeks to prevent federal agencies from using information gained in multi-agency task forces that investigate complex crimes for immigration enforcement. Oregon’s sanctuary law already prevents law enforcement agencies from sharing information for immigration enforcement purposes, but lawmakers have concerns that joint law enforcement task forces can essentially become legal backdoors that circumvent this.

“Let us be clear. These actions by federal agents are Unamerican and contrary to Oregon’s values,” state Sen. James Manning, D-Eugene, said in a statement. “Public confidence in local law enforcement is eroded when masks render it impossible to identify what law enforcement agency an individual works for.”

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.