Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade (D) announced Tuesday that Republican lawmakers who boycotted numerous legislative sessions at the state capitol in Salem would not be allowed to seek reelection next year.
Griffin-Valade views a voter-approved ballot initiative, Measure 113, as disqualifying for members of the state legislature who receive 10 or more unexcused absences during a legislative session. Nine Republicans and one independent participated in a six-week walkout this spring. (RELATED: Pro-Life Activist Biden Tried To Jail Running For Congress)
The Oregonian reports:
“It is clear voters intended Measure 113 to disqualify legislators from running for reelection” to a term immediately following the one in which they have 10 or more unexcused absences, Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “My decision honors the voters' intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution.”
She said she directed the Oregon Elections Division not to accept reelection filings from any lawmaker who skipped that much work.
Voters approved Measure 113 in November as an attempt to crack down on walkouts at the Legislature which Republicans used in 2019 and 2020 to kill priority bills for Democrats, including greenhouse gas cap-and-trade proposals.
But the ambiguous language in the measure came under scrutiny after Republicans once again used the walkout tactic during the 2023 legislative session to get Democrats to water down bills on gun control and reproductive health care.
Democrats currently have solid majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. However, the state assembly requires a supermajority to form a quorum. The GOP minority has used the little-known parliamentary procedure to water down or stonewall bills they disagree with.
In 2019, then-Gov. Katie Brown threatened to have state troopers corral and bring back AWOL Republican state legislators to debate climate change legislation. In response, GOP state Sen. Brian Boquist (R) admitted to issuing a serious threat to the state police superintendent: “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple.”
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Why do we insist on using lefty terminology, such as “reproductive health care” and “cap and trade”?
Is this Stainless?
Thank goodness that rule only works against Republicans and not against communist democrats…. Right?
Democrat fascism at your service.
They need to get this to the Supreme Court post haste!
It amazes me how the Democrats can walk out of meetings but Republicans can’t,
That means Democrats cans get away with everything and Republican have to pay the price for the same thing. Be smart America vote out these privileged Democrats so we can get back to the same laws for all
OR going the 1 Party way
Oregon Republicans should simply join the Idaho movement and let the Oregon Democrats rule themselves into oblivion.
Why beat your head against a wall trying to talk sense into a lost cause?
Based ONLY on how Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade (D) describes Measure 113, the argument may be legally valid. I would be interested in the actual language of the measure. Specifically how an unexcused absence is defined. More precisely, if an elected official is absent 2 consecutive days, is that one absence or two?
Update: I looked up the actual language and it refers to “Failure to attend, without permission or excuse, ten or more legislative floor sessions “
It does not define excuse or legislative floor sessions. An attorney for the legislatures would likely argue both that an excuse was provided and that the six weeks constituted a single legislative floor session. The Secretary of State will argue the excuse was not accepted and that each day is a separate legislative floor session. The actual language used CAN be read either way without bending the language any more than courts do every day.