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Oregon high court says 10 GOP state senators who staged long walkout (regarding abortion & guns) can’t run for reelection

CaughtInThe

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This is just too funny.

Basically, Oregon voters put an amendment in their state constitution that you can only miss so much unexcused time or you can't run again.

Oh well. FAFO.



"The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that 10 Republican state senators who staged a record-long walkout last year to stall bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun rights cannot run for reelection.

...

The 2023 walkout paralyzed the Legislature for weeks and only ended after Republicans forced concessions from Democrats on a sweeping bill related to expanding access to abortion and transgender health care and another measure regarding the manufacture and transfer of undetectable firearms, known as ghost guns."



Oregon high court says 10 GOP state senators who staged long walkout can’t run for reelection

2023’s boycott lasted six weeks — the longest in state history — and paralyzed the legislative session, stalling hundreds of bills.
apnews.com
 
 
YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOO. The a-hole Rs have done that for years, holding up important measures that would have helped the state. They even left the state one year so they wouldn't get arrested. I think that was the straw that broke our backs and why the amendment was easily voted in. Bye Felicias.....
 
A more elegant solution would be to hold a majority vote of members present. Any member absent without excuse, would simply not count.

In fact, with modern technology there is no excuse for being absent. If you're so damn sick that you can't vote from your hospital bed, then simply don't count the vote towards the final total or to quorum.
 
Doh
 
Lawfare!
 
Congress shall make no law restricting the right of the people peacebly to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except in Oregon.
 
Loulit01 said:
Congress shall make no law restricting the right of the people peacebly to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except in Oregon.
Click to expand...
These are not senators of the U.S. Congress, they're senators of the Oregon Congress.

And the people of Oregon actually did petition for a redress of grievances after the last few times their representatives walked out and refused to represent. The result was a law stating that they can't do that anymore. But they did it again anyway, and now the people of Oregon are getting what they wanted: derelict representatives unable to (not) represent anymore.
 

HELL YES. Actions have consequences, righties!
 
Binary_Digit said:
These are not senators of the U.S. Congress, they're senators of the Oregon Congress.
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Oh, thanks. I completely missed that. Oy.
Binary_Digit said:
And the people of Oregon actually did petition for a redress of grievances after the last few times their representatives walked out and refused to represent.
Click to expand...
Those representatives that refused to represent were voted in. Don't like them? Vote them out.
Binary_Digit said:
The result was a law stating that they can't do that anymore.
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That's unconstitutional.
Binary_Digit said:
But they did it again anyway, and now the people of Oregon are getting what they wanted: derelict representatives unable to (not) represent anymore.
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I'm no fan of those people but I think it's unconstitutional to take legal action against them for peacefully protesting.

And remember:

Article VI, Paragraph 2
of the U.S. Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. It establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Freedom is so hard to hold because if you want the right to hold a parade, the KKK also has the right to hold a parade. If you take your kid to see your hero, George Washington's Monument, another dad may be standing there with the freedom to say Washington was a hypocritical, slave holding white elitest who lost 90% of the battles he fought.

Freedom is hard. They can vote those legislatures out, and I hope they do, but you can't make peaceful protests illegal or one day they'll make your protest illegal.
 
I'm having a hard time seeing how it can be unconstitutional if a state passes an amendment that says you can't skip work.
 
Loulit01 said:
For protesting.
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I think that's why the people of Oregon added the amendment to their constitution. I didn't want their paid politicians to skip work more than x number of times.
 
Loulit01 said:
Congress shall make no law restricting the right of the people peacebly to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except in Oregon.
Click to expand...
thiat is one way to spin it.

Now, during the peaceful assemble are they missing legislative sessions thereby holding up the work that needs to be done for the people?

Seems those 10 held the minority opinion and others wanted to get things done. They should have stayed in session and voted the way they want. If the bills passed, so be it. if it failed, so be it. Instead they thought they would hold a temper tantrum and not show up at all.
 
Nobody took away their Constitutional right to protest. They still have the right to protest all they want to on their own time. And employers (in this case, the people of CO) have the right to set expectations for their employees while on the job - including not taking inexcused absences to go to a protest.
 
Loulit01 said:
Congress shall make no law restricting the right of the people peacebly to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances except in Oregon.
Click to expand...
This takes it out of the hands of idiot voters in the specific constituencies. After all, the voters of the state determined by constitutional amendment that elected officials need to do the job they were elected to do, ie, to legislate.

Indeed, legislators are elected to take it on the chin once in a while. It's part of the process.

It's a duty, not an absence. The Ten simply figured they'd be reelected to continue their destruction of legislative processes and of democracy itself. The accurate presumption here is that Republicans are anti democracy. Republicans have become notorious for exploiting democracy to destroy democracy.
 
CaughtInThe said:
I think that's why the people of Oregon added the amendment to their constitution. I didn't want their paid politicians to skip work more than x number of times.
Click to expand...
Then the voters can vote them out. Why take the choice out of the hands of the voters? You're arguing against yourself.
 
So. Vote. Them. Out.

This is done by districts. These representatives may be from strictly conservative districts who stand behind their walkout. If that's not true, they'll be voted out. I think they should be voted out. I'd vote against them. But that's up to the voters in their districts. That's small government. Having the voters in the whole state decide who should run in those districts is big government.

The reason they're amending the constitution is because there were no rules in place to prevent them from running for reelection for walking out when they walked out.
Tangmo said:
This takes it out of the hands of idiot voters in the specific constituencies.
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Exactly. This is not small government. The constitution exists to protect the minorities from the tyranny of the majority. You need to understand how your government works:

The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his 1859 book On Liberty.[1]

Tyranny of the majority - Wikiquote

en.wikiquote.org

Tangmo said:
After all, the voters of the state determined by constitutional amendment that elected officials need to do the job they were elected to do, ie, to legislate.
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After the fact. At the time they walked out, it was not unconstitutional.
Tangmo said:
Indeed, legislators are elected to take it on the chin once in a while. It's part of the process.
Click to expand...
Taking it on the chin is losing an election. But there has to be an election.
Tangmo said:
It's a duty, not an absence.
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Maybe the voters in their districts considered it their duty to prevent abortion rights getting passed. Is it not their duty to represent the voters in their districts?
Tangmo said:
The Ten simply figured they'd be reelected to continue their destruction of legislative processes and of democracy itself.
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Melodramatic much?
Tangmo said:
The accurate presumption here is that Republicans are anti democracy.
Click to expand...

I think the accurate presumption is that you're anti-democracy.

You can't punish someone for doing something unconstitutional if it wasn't unconstitutional when they did it.

Tangmo said:
Republicans have become notorious for exploiting democracy to destroy democracy.
Click to expand...

This is ten guys in Oregon representing strictly conservative districts. Let's not lay the faults of the whole republican party on them.

Mitch McConnell blocked a hearing on Obama's nominee Merrick Garland because Obama only had a year left in his term, then rammed through Barrett when Trump had only two weeks left in his term.

All you can do is vote them out.
 
Good points, I'll have to think on that...
 
I thought you folks were opposed to fascism and election interference?
 
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