Oregon high court rules 10 senators who staged walkout can’t seek reelection ( www.washingtonpost.com )

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From the story: Oregon voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 that disqualified legislators with 10 or more unexcused absences during a legislative session from holding office in the subsequent term.

The GOP senators, fully one-third of the state Senate, engaged in a six-week walkout in 2023 to deny a quorum. Their argument for being exempt from the constitutional mandate was that it shouldn’t apply until … sometime later, trying to convince the justices that a literal but absurd interpretation that would allow this is what the voters really meant.

Worth noting is the amendment was put forth after previous GOP walkouts and was not a prophylactic.

raccoona_nongrata ,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

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    sonori ,
    @sonori@beehaw.org avatar

    Personally I would have liked for the runner up in the last election to automatically fill in for you if you can’t make it, or if that would lead to too much inconsistency if after missing ten sessions they got replaced by the runner up until the next election.

    agegamon ,

    It’s desperately needed, and in some senses it doesn’t go far enough.

    Regressives held our state government hostage via superminority rule and actively forced us to compromise on their inhuman policies to make any progress for three straight years. Without this, only a rewrite to our state constitution’s quorum rule would prevent eternal hell regressives holding our state hostage via minority rule.

    Now, we can at least revoke these turds after they fuck us over. But in the grand scheme of things, I worry that what this law doesn’t do is prevent this new cycle from repeating. It doesn’t take many of them ruling over a few tiny, horribly misinformed districts to screw us all over. In other words, it only takes a tiny number of regressive candidates each year to accomplish that goal.

    Powderhorn OP Mod ,
    @Powderhorn@beehaw.org avatar

    Sorta makes you yearn for the days when the governor’s interest in the underage was the largest political problem.

    One thing this seemingly could set up is alternating candidates, essentially power sharing over terms while retaining the ability to flout the rules.

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