SALEM, Ore. (AP) – A boycott by Republican state senators in Oregon threatens to derail hundreds of bills, including gun control, gender affirmation and abortion rights, as a deadline looms that also could alter the political future of the protesters.
Democrats control the Statehouse in Oregon. But the GOP is taking advantage of rules that require two-thirds of lawmakers to be present to pass legislation, meaning Democrats need a certain number of Republicans to be there as well.
Republican and Democratic legislative leaders met behind closed doors for a third day Friday to try to bridge the gap, as the boycott entered its ninth straight day. Lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences are barred from re-election under a constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved last November by voters tired of repeated absences.
To allow time for negotiations, and to prevent boycotters with nine unexcused absences from reaching this 10-day wire, Senate President Rob Wagner agreed to cancel Senate sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Instead, it would meet again on Monday.
“I think people, at least people who watch politics, are going to have a pretty unsettling weekend,” Priscilla Southwell, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Oregon, said Friday.
Connor Radnovich, a spokesman for Wagner, said, “Discussions are ongoing and will continue through the weekend.”
Several states across the country, including Montana and Tennessee, have been ideological battlegrounds this year. Oregon, which pioneered the decriminalization of marijuana, recycling, and the protection of immigrants, is often considered one of the most liberal states in the United States. But it also has deeply conservative rural areas.
This clash of ideologies has left the Senate out of action since May 2. Pending bills are piling up and the biennial state budget, which needs approval by the House and Senate before the end of June, is still unfinished.
Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek’s office said there are many important bills at stake.
“Oregonians are demanding that elected leaders deliver on homelessness, behavioral health, education and other important issues right now,” Kotek spokeswoman Elisabeth Shepard said Thursday.
About 100 people, including members of Moms Demand Action, a gun safety group, protested the march Thursday afternoon on the steps of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.
“Get back to work,” they chanted.
“We demand that you appear!” Liz Marquez, a political organizer for PCUN, a farm workers union, said over the loudspeaker. “Every day, Oregon workers report for difficult and sometimes dangerous jobs.”
Republican lawmakers have stalled several Oregon legislative sessions. In a boycott, dozens of truck drivers surrounded the Capitol while honking their horns, fearing that a climate change bill would negatively affect them.
This time, Republican senators insist their absence is largely due to a 1979 law, rediscovered last month by a GOP Senate member, that requires project summaries to be written at an eighth-grade level . Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp said Republicans also want Democrats to drop “their more extreme bills.”
But it’s obvious to Democrats that the readability issue is just an excuse to prevent progress on legislation like the 2002 House bill aimed at protecting abortion and health care that affirms the gender for transgender people, enhancing legal guarantees and expanding access and insurance coverage.
“It is very clear that there is a concerted effort to undermine the will of the people and stop the Legislature in violation of the Oregon State Constitution,” Senate President Wagner said as he closed the 5 may floor session due to lack of quorum.
Knopp, the GOP Senate leader, said Thursday that he hopes canceling this weekend’s Senate sessions will “give us time to craft a legitimate deal that benefits all Oregonians.”
Wagner says the abortion rights and gender affirmation bill is non-negotiable.
A prolonged boycott could also sow complications for next year’s primaries and general elections.
That’s because it’s unclear how boycotters would be disqualified from running again. The 2022 ballot measure is now part of the Oregon Constitution, disqualifying a lawmaker with 10 or more unexcused absences “from holding office” in the next term.
An explanatory exhibition for Ballot Measure 113, signed by a former state Supreme Court justice and others, says a disqualified candidate “can run for office … and win, but he can’t hold office.”
However, the secretary of state’s elections division would not put a disqualified lawmaker on the ballot, according to Ben Morris, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.
“While this may differ from the explanatory statement, courts have interpreted election statutes to hold that a presenting officer may not allow a candidate to appear on the ballot if he knows that the candidate will not be eligible for office,” he said. said Morris.
Disqualified Republicans are expected to file legal challenges.
The union SEIU503, which represents health care workers, nonprofit employees and public workers across Oregon, strongly supported the unexcused absence rule. Even though Republicans boycotted anyway, Union Executive Director Melissa Unger said that doesn’t mean Measure 113 was a failure.
“The reality is that all things take time to change,” Unger said Thursday. “So I guess we’ll have new senators in two years, and maybe they’ll learn a lesson.”
