"Respectful and harassment free"
The One-Year Review That Wasn't
On February 21, 2025, Legislative Administrator Brett Hanes sent me a letter restricting my access to the Oregon State Capitol. The letter said my visits had caused "alarm, disruption and concern." It threatened criminal trespass charges if I didn't comply with escort requirements. It gave me thirty days to appeal — to Hanes himself, applying no defined standard, with no neutral decision-maker.
On March 13, 2026, Hanes sent me another letter. This one said he had "conducted a one-year review" of my conditional entry and found "no infractions," and was therefore rescinding the restrictions. I was free to enter the Capitol like any other citizen.
It sounds almost reasonable. Routine, even. A machine working as intended.
It isn't.
The anniversary that wasn't
A one-year review of a February 21, 2025 restriction would occur on February 21, 2026. Hanes's letter was sent by email on March 19, 2026, but the PDF is dated March 13, 2026 — three weeks late for the anniversary he's now claiming as the basis for his action. More telling: the SAAD Answer filed by Oregon Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of Hanes's colleague Renee Perry and Representative Shelly Boshart Davis was filed on March 12, 2026. The rescission came one day later.
This is not a coincidence. This is litigation strategy dressed as administrative routine.
What the rescission actually says
Read the March 13 letter carefully. Hanes doesn't say the original restriction was unjustified. He doesn't say the allegations against me were false. He doesn't acknowledge that the only contemporaneous law enforcement assessment of my conduct — conducted by Oregon State Police at Perry's own request — resulted in a declination to act. He says he found "no infractions" of the conditions he imposed.
In other words: I complied with an unconstitutional restriction for thirteen months, and my compliance is now being retroactively reframed as vindication of the process that produced it.
That's not how constitutional rights work. Compliance with an unlawful order doesn't launder the order. The question was never whether I would behave myself under escort. The question was whether the government could 👏 impose 👏 that 👏 escort 👏 requirement without notice, without a hearing, without neutral review, and in direct response to protected political advocacy — which is exactly what the evidence shows happened.
The conditional reprieve
The rescission letter also makes clear this is not a permanent restoration of rights. Any violation of the Legislative Branch Respectful Workplace Policy, Hanes writes, "will result in a reimposing of the [unlawful violation of my Constitutional rights]." He enclosed the document for my "reading and convenience."
So the same official who imposed constitutionally deficient restrictions without notice or hearing has now reserved the unilateral right to reimpose them — again without notice or hearing, again applying no defined standard, again with himself as the sole decision-maker. The mechanism that produced the original violation remains fully intact and explicitly armed.
Why this matters beyond my case
I want to be clear about something. I'm not writing this because I'm angry about a letter. I'm writing this because the pattern Hanes is demonstrating — impose first, justify retroactively, retain the power to reimpose — is not unique to me. It is the standard operating procedure of institutions that have never been held accountable for how they treat people who show up and ask uncomfortable questions.
Veterans, advocates, constituents without lawyers — people like me — encounter this machinery constantly. The machinery counts on the fact that most people can't afford to fight it, don't know the legal framework, and will eventually go away. The one-year review that conveniently coincides with litigation deadlines is just one small example of how that machinery operates when someone doesn't go away.
The restrictions are gone. The case isn't.
