Fear of governing
By 
A bunch of Republicans in the Oregon legislature are, barring an unlikely judicial intervention, going to be prevented from running again:
Ten Oregon Republican senators may face the end of their legislative careers for a six-week legislative walkout aimed at thwarting what they see as a radical Democratic agenda on guns, abortion and transgender health care.
The lawmakers are banned from running for reelection for accumulating at least 10 unexcused absences during this year’s legislative session.
Their imminent banishment — pending the outcome of a pair of legal battles, with key court hearings this week — is due to a 2022 constitutional referendum overwhelmingly backed by voters.
It’s also arguably the most glaring example yet of how Washington’s toxic partisan culture is increasingly infecting statehouses across the country.
The renegade Republicans express few regrets.
“We were trying to defend the Constitution and Oregon law against those that essentially said, ‘We have the votes, we can do whatever we want,’” said Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, in an interview. “We thought it was a principle worth defending, even if it meant that we couldn’t run for reelection.”
Democrats and other supporters of the referendum argue the electoral death sentence for the GOP senators is necessary to combat what’s become a routine tactic — with eight walkouts in the past five years — by the minority party to sabotage the legislative process. Democrats currently control 17 of 30 seats in the Oregon Senate.
“The people of Oregon expect legislators to show up and do their job. You can’t hold the Legislature hostage,” said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, in an interview. “Most Oregonians can’t walk off the job for 10 days and expect to keep their jobs.”
As satisfying as this will be on one level, there’s an obvious problem here — these 10 Republicans are generally going to be replaced by other Republicans who are likely to be as or more wingnutty. Given that the Republicans who shut the legislature down don’t think they did anything wrong, it’s likely to happen again. My question — which I think I’ve asked before — is why not skip the middleman, let the primary voters of every distruct pick the candidate they want, and then change Oregon’s unusual and bad quorum rules and allow majorities to govern? The article actually addresses this:
One change that could alter the dynamics in Salem would be to lower the threshold of lawmakers needed to conduct business. Currently, the Oregon constitution requires a quorum of two thirds of lawmakers — one of just four states that mandate such a high threshold.
There have been discussions among Democrats about attempting to change that to a simple majority. But any effort by lawmakers to put a potential constitutional amendment on the ballot would require a quorum, and would likely trigger another walkout by Republicans. The other potential route would be a signature collection campaign, which is how Measure 113 qualified for the ballot.
At this point, however, Democrats seem content to wait and see whether walkouts by Republican lawmakers continue.
“Whether 113 works remains to be seen in the long term,” said Lieber, the Senate majority leader. “It clearly didn’t work in this last session.”
It’s just maddening that rather than encouraging an initiative that would actually solve the problem while bringing the state in line with both the norms of other states and the sound principle that majorities should be able to govern, Oregon Dems are fine sticking with this bankshot method that has already failed and there’s no particular reason to think will work in the future. Stop being nostalgic for the days of Bipartisan Comity that aren’t coming back and just allow the government to function.