SALEM, Ore. (AP) – Oregon has long been seen as a quirky state, whose main city was satirized in a TV sitcom, where country folk and urban hipsters could get along and political differences were they could solve with a pint or two of craftsmanship. beer
But with a Republican march on the Democratic-controlled Oregon Senate in its third week, Oregonians these days are wistfully recalling “The Oregon Way,” when politicians of different stripes forged deals for the common good. Some famous examples include the establishment of the nation’s first recycling program. , ensuring public beach access for the entire coastline and limiting urban sprawl in a pioneering land use program.
A quarter of a century ago, former Republican U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith and current Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden championed legislation together in Congress and even appeared together at town halls across the state, he said Kerry Tymchuk, who was Gordon’s chief of staff at the time. That spirit of cooperation was reflected in the Legislature, he said.
“There were moderate Republicans in the Legislature who represented the suburbs of Portland. There were conservative Democrats who represented some of the rural districts,” said Tymchuk, now executive director of the Oregon Historical Society. “And now there are no more Democrats in the rural districts. There are no more moderate Republicans.”
The crisis in Oregon is a microcosm of the deeply partisan politics playing out across the country, often pitting urban and rural areas against each other, and the growing divide in Oregon shows that the Pacific Northwest state he is not immune.
The lockdown at the Salem state Capitol comes as Oregon grapples with homelessness, mental health issues, a fetid outdoor drug market in Portland and gun violence in the state’s capital city , where some companies are fleeing, including outdoor equipment retailer REI.
Elsewhere, a campaign by conservative activists in rural eastern Oregon counties to secede and join neighboring Idaho has gained steam amid growing complaints about the state’s progressive politics.
“There’s no going back now,” Republican Sen. Daniel Bonham said of the GOP boycott.
“We’re in it for the long haul. Oregon is in a leadership crisis,” he emailed his constituents, who live mostly east of Portland along the Columbia River and on the slopes of snow-capped Mount Hood.
The drumbeat of political discord has been brewing in Oregon for some time: Republicans left in 2019, 2020 and 2021. A breach of the state Capitol in December 2020 was a disturbing predictor of insurgency of January 6, 2021.
In 2001, then-minority Democratic House members abandoned redistricting. There was even a walkout in 1860, a year after statehood, with six senators hiding for two weeks in a barn to avoid a quorum.
The departure this year of an unpopular governor and the success of several bipartisan bills on affordable housing, homelessness and mental health funding earlier this session fueled hopes that this year things could be different, until this month.
The GOP boycott, which began May 3, now threatens to derail hundreds of pending bills, passage of a biennial state budget and the boycotters’ own political futures. Neither side seems willing to budge an inch on a bill on abortion rights and transgender health care and another measure on guns.
This year’s showdown has disqualified nine Republican senators and one independent from serving as lawmakers in the next term under a ballot measure overwhelmingly approved by boycott-weary voters last November. After 10 or more unexcused absences, a lawmaker cannot take office in the Legislature, even if the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections allows them to the ballot and they win.
A disqualified lawmaker running for re-election could disrupt Oregon’s election system, already rocked by the resignation of Secretary of State Shemia Fagan this month for secretly posing as a highly paid business consultant of marijuana Striking Republican lawmakers have pointed to Fagan’s actions as a sign of corruption among Democratic politicians.
Senate President Rob Wagner, new to the job after his predecessor Peter Courtney, Oregon’s longest-serving Senate president, retired last year, accused GOP lawmakers of undermining the democracy.
“This march has to end,” Wagner said from the podium Thursday as he closed another session for lack of a quorum. “The people of Oregon want it. Democracy demands it.”
In Oregon, two-thirds of the 30 members of the Senate must be present for a quorum for floor sessions. In the last few days, 18 senators came forward, but most of the Republicans and the only independentist did not.
Democratic and Republican leaders at the statehouse have met to end the boycott, but talks have repeatedly broken down amid social media backlash, backlash from supporters and emailed accusations.
Republicans accuse Democrats of ignoring a long-forgotten law from 1979 that says summaries of bills must be written at an eighth-grade level, a law resurrected this month by the GOP. The boycotters also say they won’t return unless “extreme” bills, such as those on abortion, gender affirmation and gun safety, are dropped.
Wagner has said the 2002 House bill on abortion and gender affirmation is non-negotiable. Republicans oppose, in particular, a provision that would allow doctors to provide an abortion to anyone regardless of age and prohibit them in certain cases from disclosing it to parents.
The last day of the Oregon legislative session is June 25. Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has signed a bill to keep funds flowing to state agencies until September if no budget has become law by July 1, and says she doesn’t believe the state “it’s underway.” crisis mode still”.
He could call a special legislative session this summer to get a budget passed and has not ruled out ordering Oregon State Police to move protesters to the Senate. This order was issued in 2019 but was not carried out.
For all the rancor, Tymchuk doesn’t think The Oregon Way is dead.
“I still have hope and optimism that Oregon will find its way back,” he said.
