It’s been a week of mixed feelings for many of us Oregonians. On the one hand, it’s nice to be garnering some national witness to the freakshow antics and anti-science beliefs of the state’s Republican Party, as all 11 GOP members of the Oregon Senate have gone into hiding in order to prevent a quorum in that body, with the aim of stopping a Democratic-backed cap and trade bill meant to combat climate change. Democratic Governor Kate Brown quickly ordered the state police to track down the absconding senators and bring them back to Salem, at which point the story took a less comical and decidedly darker turn, in the way that things tend to do in the age of Trump and a radicalized GOP.
In a comment directed at the state police, Republican Senator Brian Boquist told a reporter that they should “[s]end bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon.” In other words, an Oregon senator warned that he was willing to kill his way out of a quorum. Perhaps Boquist was emboldened by the offers made by various right-wing extremist groups to shelter and protect the Republican senators, even as the senators turned those offers down. The shivers of violence were only heightened when the state police advised the senate leadership to cancel a session planned for last Saturday, on account of unspecified right-wing actions at the state capitol; a Democratic senator confirmed that the police had provided notice that the senators and others planning to be at the capitol were in physical danger.
But it gets worse. The state GOP issued a statement accusing the Democrats of canceling the Saturday session “out of a fear that Republican voters might show up.” That is, with the state government — not a Democratic state government, or a Republican state government, but the Oregon state government representing all of us — threatened by right-wing extremists, the state GOP chose to lie about the threat posed, turn it into a political hit against the Democrats, and (most damningly) provide rhetorical cover fire for the gunmen behind the threats. The state Republican Party subsequently tweeted photos of a rally at the capital from weeks ago, indicating that the unarmed protestors were the militia the Democrats feared — once again making threats of right-wing violence into a joke, and spreading lies about a non-existent, peaceful rally supposedly going on that day.
Today, it’s been reported that the Senate’s president, Peter Courtney, doesn’t have sufficient Democratic votes to pass the climate bill, even as politicians of both parties look at the potential of no bills of any stripe being passed should the runaway Republicans not return by the end of the session. It’s a twist whose meaning will depend on the results of further reporting. Did the Republican walkout give wavering Democrats cold feet, or cover to change their votes?
Regardless, state Democrats can’t let the GOP sweep under the rug the remarkably anti-democratic events of the last few days. Senator Boquist should be asked to resign, due to his threats of violence, and the state Republican Party must be held to account for its willingness to play politics with threats posed by right-wing extremists. Early signs are ambiguous: Governor Brown has called the Republican tactics “not just unacceptable, but dangerous,” and asked “Are they against climate change legislation or are they against democracy?” It sounds to me like she’s condemning the walk-out, which is indeed an anti-democratic power play by the GOP which, if it continues, could bring the state government to a destructive standstill. However, the lack of specific condemnation of the GOP’s willingness to cover for violent extremists seems like a regrettable omission.
To combat those who are infatuated with violence and a sense of their own victimhood, there’s a reasonable temptation to downplay their provocations and not give more oxygen to their anti-state threats. Yet I worry that the right-wingers who inserted themselves into this story will take comfort in the notion that it was their armed militancy that defeated the climate bill; if so, any sign of Democratic responsiveness to such tactics is deeply dangerous, both to our democracy and the possibility of Oregon ever passing progressive legislation again. I think I’ve made clear in various posts over the years that threats of violence are disqualifying for politicians and parties in a democratic system. Violence, is, in fact, democracy’s antithesis. It is the end of reason and debate, and the beginning of rule by the gun and by the powerful.
It is also worrisome to think that the extremists who rushed to give shelter and more to the Republican senators, backed by the barrel of a gun, were emboldened by the right-wing occupation of federal lands at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016: a standoff in which one of the extremists was shot and killed by law enforcement, but whose perpetrators otherwise got off scot-free due to a bungled federal prosecution of their crimes. Any threats against law enforcement during this current situation need to be taken seriously and appropriately.
I’m hoping this series of events will be a wake-up call to anyone in Oregon who thinks that the sickness of Trumpism hasn’t reached us, too. After years of the Democrats winning elections and control of the state government without the gerrymandering and voter suppression that have become standard fare in Republican-dominated states, the state GOP has decided to wreck the state government rather than actually try to become a party that appeals to more voters. It is sad and lazy, and it’s a sign that Democrats need to figure out ways to keep peeling away voters who still side with the Republicans. In the case of the climate bill, it seems as if the Democrats have not made a sufficient case that poor and rural residents will be protected from higher fuel prices, which are more than reasonable concerns. Oregon has a perennial problem with asking fat cat companies like Intel and Nike to pay their fair share into the common good, and the idea that this reluctance causes the party to push legislation less generous than otherwise towards less affluent residents is not a question the party leadership likes to ponder overmuch.