We are yet again reminded that the rules are all Calvinball to Democrats and their mouthpieces in the national political press. They mean none of it, ever.
Have you heard? Republicans are threatening democracy and are probably racist and transphobic for trying to expel state legislators who don’t abide by the rules of their chambers and disrupt legislative business — and now they’re trying to kick nearly an entire caucus out of a state legislature it controls!
Well, except that the move to wipe out a whole legislative caucus is being done by Democrats. Measure 113, which was adopted last fall in Oregon, would bar from reelection any legislator with ten or more unexcused absences. The proposal, pushed by public-sector labor unions and barely even opposed by Oregon Republicans who were focused on the governor’s race, is now being wielded to disqualify ten of the twelve members of the Republican caucus in the state Senate (this includes nine Republicans and one ex-Republican independent). That’s because Oregon Republicans have repeatedly used walkouts to stop the upper chamber from doing business, as a way of stymieing extreme Democratic proposals on abortion, guns, transgender surgeries, and other issues. There is currently a legal dispute between the Democratic secretary of state, who says that the measure bars these Republicans from running again for their seats in 2024, and the Republicans, who argue based upon Measure 113’s wording that it only bars them after the end of their current terms, which run past Election Day 2024. The Oregon Supreme Court will hear arguments in mid December and decide before the March filing deadline, but even if the Republicans win their case, essentially the entire caucus will be removed from office in the 2026 midterms.
This is, mind you, a much more serious penalty than what Republicans imposed on two legislators in Tennessee (who were expelled and then immediately reelected), or one in Montana (who was barred from speaking on the floor for the rest of the session). This is a political death penalty for an entire caucus. And yet, the hue and cry that went up about the ominous signs for democracy from Tennessee and Montana has been absent from the national political press. We haven’t seen Chuck Schumer and the Biden White House denouncing the Oregon legislature and secretary of state and demanding a federal investigation of the effort to deprive the state’s Republican voters of their choice of representatives.
Now, I’m not a big fan of these sorts of walkouts, but it’s worth noting not only that Democrats have used them in Oregon in the past, but also that the national press lionized Democrats for staging them in high-profile showdowns in Wisconsin and Texas over the past 15 years. And I can live with enforcing rules for legislative chambers that allow the people’s business to be done by their elected officials. But we are yet again reminded that the rules are all Calvinball to Democrats and their mouthpieces in the national political press. They mean none of it, ever.