A few days ago some Oregon [del]lawmakers[/del]legislators walked out of the Capitol to prevent a vote on a bill. But they couldn’t just leave the building, or marshals or sheriffs or whatever might have tried to get them to go back to the Capitol Building to vote. So they had to leave the state. Yes, this happens from time to time with various state legislatures.
But this time became different when those who walked started issuing threats:
And then this happened:
Oregon, and by extension the United States, has a serious problem with organized groups of people disregarding the law and threatening violence (and committing violence) against lawful officers of the state trying to do their jobs, IMO; YMMV (and I’d be interested to read your posts on this subject if that’s the case).
The thing is: what will Oregon do? What can they do? And what should they do?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it seems obvious that they can’t just stop doing things and shut things down all the time whenever a militia threatens or presents themselves; that’s kind of the opposite of what a government should be doing, IMO.
As an outsider, I would ask: Isn’t it up to the people of Oregon, the voters? If they share your revulsion, they should vote them out at the first opportunity. Or has gerrymandering made that a naive hope?
The question is, as it often is, “how much harder should the dems have to work to pass their agenda than republicans”?
Should the democratic party need to hold enough seats to hold quorum? Currently, democrats hold 6/10 seats in the Oregon legislature. For quorum, they need to pick up another two, to hold a 2/3rds majority. Is that a reasonable bar for the democrats to have to clear?
As an outsider, I’m not blind to what is clearly a disgusting perversion of democracy, and just the latest in a long line of such from the republican party. You shouldn’t be either.
I’m quite concerned about this. Looks like my state is going to the be the test case for how far Trump/Barr/McConnell will go to hang on to power. In ordinary times, a governor could appeal to the federal government for assistance from the FBI and US federal marshals. But with the trifecta of law breakers in charge, I’m not sure which side they would send them to assist.
KarlGauss, I would agree with you that the best remedy would be to vote out the offenders. The problem is, Oregon (and Washington) are literally divided in half: To the west are the “libruls,” to the east are the “militias.” It is a very sharp divide. The people to the east are Trump supporters in far greater numbers than in the west. They want this fight – and I suspect, so does Trump. They are going to continue to vote for these lawless legislators.
I guess we’ll soon learn how far the rule of law has already eroded, and how much further it will be allowed to go. Mr. Boquist and his cohorts are already certainly in violation of their oaths of office, and quite possible also the law. I wonder, does it still matter? Will they be held to account?
These quorum laws are the problem. Make a quorum 50% and you never have this issue in some states where the minority is leaving the state and dodging the Sergeant at Arms. The Dems have tried this in Texas, IIRC.
But doing things like closing the capitol just emboldens the crazies because you let them know that their threats work. Don’t close the capitol. Call out the national guard.
Also, which news outlets predicted this kind of development, and which news outlets spent a whole lot of time bitching about Antifa without mentioning the right’s increasing connection to extremist militias?
Well, I think the threat by the Governor to “round 'em up!” was ill-considered, given the fact that the militias have played such a part in Oregon politics. I would have simply kept quiet, then exercised my authority as head of the executive branch if I found an opportunity to arrest two of the missing state senators. Threatening use of police powers never is a particularly cowing tactic where militia types are concerned.
Elected officials should be treated the some way as anyone else. If they threaten violence, or commit it, they pay the penalty.
Militias are not duly elected representatives of the people. Consequently, they don’t get to tell the government how to run, or tell any of us what to do. If they are breaking laws, they too need to pay the appropriate penalty for doing so.
Glad someone started a thread on this. I do not understand the motives of these right wingers at all.
Oregon was going to pass cap and trade. The right freaked out because, from what I have read, this policy would according to them raise expenses on businesses and more generally for energy/fuel.
Don’t they see there is more to it than that? Climate change is real- are they math denialists? Incapable of following the evidence that points toward climate change? Ready to take the world on a Thelma and Louise cliff drive rather than face reality? Unable to grasp that climate change will result in more of the refugees they hate, and far larger expenses than cap and trade will cause?
That is kind of what it looks like to me, but I doubt those are right. Is there some deep rooted conspiracy theory at work? Is there a huge economic disparity between the two halves of the state? Lead in the water?
I truly don’t understand what people are so afraid of that the Law n Order Republicans are willing to flee and threaten to shoot cops. What’s the bugaboo here?
This. If I threatened to shoot state troopers, I imagine there would be consequences as a result of my threats. An elected official who makes that threat should face the repercussions as well.
The real problem here isn’t the militias themselves - it’s the Republican Party of Oregon endorsing their behavior, celebrating the fact that armed militia intimidated legislators of the opposing party.
This is a total repudiation of democracy as anything more than a tool that’s useful as long as it works in their favor. (Losing at the ballot box? Time to bring out the guns.) It should be condemned by anyone who believes in democracy.
BTW, I called the Republican National Committee to see if they were condemning this action. No, they weren’t - they weren’t going to say anything about it at all because each state’s GOP organization is independent of the national organization, and they were referring any questions about it to the Oregon GOP.
Bet that wouldn’t be their reaction if a state GOP condemned the treatment of children at the border. But that aside, nothing was preventing them from taking a stand on this action by a state organization sharing the GOP label. No, I think it’s fair to say the RNC has effectively condoned this action through their silence.
It’s not exactly Gerrymandered it’s just geography. You have the cities Portland, Eugene, and to a lesser extent Salem which are bastions of bleeding heart, tree hugging, save the gay whales liberalism, that would be right at home in San Francisco. But outside those cities especially on the Eastern part of the state you have political thought that matches the don’t tread on me, get the gum’ment out of my medicare, attitude of Idaho and Montana. More people live in the cities than in the rural regions so these conservatives are basically shut out of state government, and have built up a lot of resentment over Portland telling them what they can and can’t do.