An outburst by a state senator from Roseburg last week reminds us that Oregon Republicans are having a lot of trouble taking the reality of the coronavirus pandemic seriously. The state GOP as a whole has been eager to critique and roll back the various restrictions Governor Kate Brown has put in place, trying to position themselves as the only party that cares about the economy even if it means opposing necessary, life-saving measures. The party also contains its share of outright coronavirus deniers, like Clackamas County Commissioner Tootie Smith, who last month publicly vowed to host a maskless and outsized Thanksgiving in a bold attempt to both insult and endanger the voters who put her in office. Now Senator Dallas Heard has taken up the flag of rebellion against common sense, dramatically removing his mask in the state capitol building last week to emphasize his resistance to masking requirements in the legislature. In demonstrating contempt for his fellow legislators and basic public health measures, and by grandstanding in a way that ensured his contempt would catch media attention, Heard gives aid and comfort to those denying the seriousness of this pandemic and the necessity of public health measures to combat it. In doing so, he betrays the public trust.
Adding to the insanity, Heard indicated that he would have worn the mask if he had simply been asked to, “but you commanded it, and therefore I declare my right to protest against your false authority.” The “false authority” he references is the ability of the state senate to set rules for the safety of its members, which doesn’t seem like a false authority at all. But in other remarks, we get a stronger sense of where Heard is coming from:
Heard argued that state lawmakers and Gov. Kate Brown’s decision to close the Capitol to the public and to require masks was an “intimidation of the people and children of God.”
“This is His kingdom, not ours,” Heard said during the morning session. “The days of your unchecked assault against our freedoms and His children is over. You have oppressed the free peoples of Oregon.”
You don’t have to dig too deep to reach the theocratic mindset behind Heard’s remarks, or the way he brings it to bear against the democratic basics of Oregon government. From Heard’s perspective, Democratic legislators have trespassed against God’s will through the sin of legislating. Heard seems to suggest that Democratic lawmakers, like earthly minions of Satan, are thus making war on God himself, engaging in an “unchecked assault against our freedoms and His children.”
Thankfully, though, whatever their religious beliefs, an overwhelming number of Oregonians believe that the laws of the land should be made by men and women, not by those claiming to speak for their personal God. Claiming otherwise is to advocate for a theocratic approach to government that is at itself at war with American democracy, the rule of law, and the very basic American principle of religious tolerance whereby no one gets to impose their beliefs on the rest of us.
Heard may be an outlier among Republican state representatives in his willingness to exploit religious passions and divisions for partisan gain, but his attempts to use the covid pandemic as a cudgel against Democrats reflects a broader GOP strategy in the state. The Oregonian reports that House Republican Leader Christine Drazan tried to link the coronavirus restrictions in the state Capitol —which included closing the building to the public — to Democratic legislators’ “closed meetings and backroom deals.” It’s slander to suggest that health measures are simply part of a Democratic plan to illicitly pass legislation, but this high-ranking Republican went there, claiming that, “As Oregonians who were locked out of the building, protested and demanded their rightful place in the halls of government, democrat leaders locked the minority party out of the lawmaking process inside the building.” But as Drazan should know as a state representative, in a democracy, the party with more votes does in fact have the right to pass laws on behalf of the majority that elected it. Conflating public health measures with alleged Democratic perfidy isn’t just cynical, but threatens to undermine public trust in health measures for the sake of partisan gain.
Ironically, in their appeals to theocracy and conspiracy theories about public health measures, both Heard and Drazan remind us why Oregon Republicans are in fact not just a minority party, but a dwindling minority party, in the state. When your response to your own unpopularity is to insult democracy and sow doubt about public health measures in order to inflame the fears and prejudices of your shrinking base, you remind all Oregonians of how right most of us have been to withhold our votes from a party so undeserving of the public trust.