Oregon Republicans shutting down the state senate to kill a climate change bill by fleeing the state

[Saviolo]

This crossed my Twitter today:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Matt Wallace
@MattFnWallace

I kinda feel like Oregon Republicans shutting down the state senate to kill a climate change bill by fleeing the state and literally threatening to murder police while rallying white supremacist militias to engage the US government in armed conflict should be bigger news.

Anywhoooo, hello from Oregon, where it appears Republican state senators have fled the capitol and are teaming up with local paramilitary groups for a potential armed standoff with state police.

And a bit of follow-up:

Link to tweet

Copy McPasty
@KashannKilson

To clarify:

1. Senators fled the state over the climate bill and are still MIA.

2. A senator threatened to shoot police tasked with retrieving them.

3. Militia groups are independently mobilizing to “protect” the senators, but NOT at the request of the fleeing senators.

“Teaming up” was a bad choice of words on my part. The militias are itching to getting involved, but there is no evidence they are coordinating with the any of the senators or their staffs.

[Saviolo]

2. Democrats threaten to shoot any officers sent to collect them?

Democrats get assistance from armed far-right white nationalist violent organizations (even if it is unprompted?)

[Celerity]

6. +10000

[Turin_C3PO]

3. Democrats have white supremacist militias protect them?

Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.

[Celerity]

5. +10000

[gratuitous]

4. Yep, in 2003

In 2003, the Democrats in Texas were absent from the Senate in an effort to stop an out-of-sequence redistricting effort by the Republicans, spearheaded by Tom DeLay. Ordinarily, state redistricting happens in the wake of the decennial census, but Tom DeLay decided the districts drawn from the 2000 census weren't weighted heavily enough in favor of Republicans. Democrats absented themselves from the legislature to protest this highly partisan and highly unusual (at the time) end run around the usual procedure and order.

In 2019, Senate Republicans in Oregon shut down the Senate to protest school funding, which has been badly underfunded for years in Oregon. After some negotiation, Republicans returned and voted on a bill more to their liking. In addition, the Republicans also promised that they'd stay in Salem and do their jobs for the rest of the session. This latest stall is in protest of a cap and trade bill similar to that passed in California. Republicans claim it will cause businesses to leave the state and costs jobs.

Let's take a look at the principle Republicans are trying to defend. In Oregon, businesses have been given pretty much a free hand to do what they want to foul the water, air, and land in the state. Once the last dollar of profit is extracted, the business dissolves, or leaves the state (costing jobs, by the way), or reorganizes under another name. Clean up of the toxic waste dumps they leave behind is left to the taxpayers. If you're a polluting industrialist, it's a sweet deal: You extract all the profit for yourself, and socialize the cost of cleaning up the mess you left behind. Republicans think this is a fine system that must keep going, because jobs or something. The law they're desperately trying to stop would first affect the worst of the worst polluters, costing them money for their poisoning of the environment in real time as they're doing it. Of course, they could avoid some of those fines by adopting more efficient and less polluting ways, but that doesn't seem to be a consideration. In the meantime, Oregon's environment is degraded bit by bit, harming citizens and creating an ever bigger mess that will one day need to be cleaned up.

So yeah, both sides: Democrats didn't think the voice of the people should be summarily curtailed in Texas. Republicans don't think business should have to clean up after itself in Oregon. Same, same.

[Saviolo]

7. It's like I'm seeing double!!

I'm reminded of:

https://thenib.com/radical-centrism-101

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. " In addition, the Republicans also promised that they'd stay in Salem and do their jobs

for the rest of the session".

Well..THAT went as well as could be expected.

[ProudLib72]

9. Someone please tell me why these asshats get to continue being senators.

How about we consider them fugitives from the law? How about they lose their seats right now and get replaced with law abiding people?

[gladium et scutum]

12. That is a decision

to be made by the voters in the State of Oregon.

[ProudLib72]

13. I'm going to run for sinecure in Oregon...I mean "senator"

[Celerity]

10. 'Militia groups are independently mobilizing to "protect" the senators'

The FIRST instance the absolute fuckers start a shooting war ANYWHERE in the US, the law enforcement involved needs to put them down with extreme prejudice

if we keep letting them grow ever more emboldened

within a few years we will have the 2020's version of Freikorps

[Jake Stern]

11. Is the requirement for a certain number to be present for a quorum in the state constitution?

If not wouldn't a simple rule change fix this?