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Four bills looking to scuttle parts of Oregon's 23-year-old ban on sport-hunting for cougars with hounds so far are either destined never to see the light of day or have yet to gain traction in the Oregon Legislature. State Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, does not plan to schedule a work session or a hearing on two Senate bills seeking to overrule a portion of 1994's Measure 18 initiative. Senate Bill 458 would require the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to restore its former cougar hunts allowing tracking dogs and limiting the number of cougar tags it would offer annually. SB 371 would allow counties to "opt out" of Measure 18 restrictions and allow hound-hunting — once by far the most successful tactic for curbing cougar populations — if 55 percent of voters vote for it. "At this point, he is not inclined to hold committee hearings on those two bills," said Logan Gilles, Dembrow's legislative aide. HB 2107 and HB 2589, which are identical to SB 371, currently are in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee with no hearings or work sessions scheduled. The full House passed similar bills in the past three sessions, but the bills never made it through the Senate before the sessions ended. "We've always passed that in the House," said State Rep. Sal Esquivel, a Medford Republican who serves on that House committee. "It always dies in the Senate. But in this building, nothing's dead until we drop the gavel and recess." Gilles added that there has been no decision on whether Bendrow would block any bill that come out of the House as Senate committee chairs have done in the past three sessions. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Gilles said. Sally Mackler, senior carnivore advocate for the group Predator Defense and a longtime cougar activist, applauded Benbrow for quelling debate on the Senate bills and took aim at the House bills as the same run-of-the-mill attacks on the hounding ban passed twice by voters in the 1990s. "These are the same bills we've seen introduced multiple times in multiple years," Mackler said. "How long are we going to go on pummeling this? It's been going on over 20 years." While the Legislature largely has avoided altering initiative-based laws, legislators broke tradition when it came to recreational marijuana. Shortly after Oregon voters decided in 2014 to legalize marijuana, the Legislature enacted a law allowed cities and counties to ban marijuana production and sales where at least 55 percent of voters opposed legalization. More than 100 cities and counties have since “opted out,” including the city of Shady Cove and all of Klamath County, according to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Mackler said that was a one-time vote that does not alter the basic premise that legislators should not meddle with the will of Oregonians after initiative votes. "I still think the argument holds up," Mackler said. "It doesn't make the argument false or cheap." Oregon sported a controlled cougar season that allowed the use of tracking hounds with a maximum 150 tags before Measure 18 struck down hounding for bears and cougars, as well as the use of bait while bear hunting. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has since gone to a year-round cougar-hunting season, with the state broken into specific zones with individual quotas. Last year, the ODFW logged 543 cougar kills, 267 by licensed hunters and the remaining 276 by other means, including roadkill and animals killed by agents over human safety or damage complaints. — Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman .