We covered this story a couple of days ago.
Republican state senators have gone into hiding to avoid capture. It’s TV drama time.
Without a quorum, the legislature cannot legally vote on the bill.
The stalemate continued into the weekend.
“I don’t think you’re going to see us anytime soon,” Republican Sen. Herman Baertschiger Jr, the state Senate’s minority leader, told Portland ABC affiliate KATU by phone Saturday evening.
The Republicans are being fined $500 dollars/day by the Democratic Governor while avoiding showing up.
A GoFundMe account was started to raise money to pay off the absentee politicians’ fines, which had raised over $37,000 in two days as of Saturday night. State ethics laws prevent the senators from accepting the money, however, unless the donations are tracked through the government’s filing system, called Orestar.
The walkout strategy is not new, has been used by both sides , previously, and has even been successful during the current legislative session.
GOP senators walked out earlier in the legislative session over an education funding bill, but that impasse was quickly broken when Democrats agreed to kill two other bills, according to KATU.
For now the game of hide and seek continues.
State troopers were indeed searching for the senators on Friday and Saturday, Brown said.
They were unlikely to find state Sen. Tim Knopp, who told KATU on Friday he was not even in Oregon anymore.
“I am in a cabin near a lake,” Knopp said during a Facebook video chat interview. “And that’s about all I can tell you.”
The 11 senators who are MIA include Baertschiger, Cliff Bentz, Brian Boquist, Fred Girod, Bill Hansell, Dallas Heard, Knopp, Dennis Linthicum, Alan Olsen, Chuck Thomsen and Kim Thatcher.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Of course the climate youth with propaganda T-shirts had to be paraded with the Governor. Will climate goose stepping follow?
This fight is more than a simple disagreement over a tax. This fight is about defending us against a controlling body that wishes to impose restrictions on the liberty of its citizens for no benefit other than to line the pockets of the fake green industry that fund their campaigns.
I am a direct descendant of a fighter in the American Revolutionary War, of an uncle in the Union soldier ranks, and a direct descendent of an Oregon Trail pioneer. All these men, and the strong women who supported them call from the grave to bring back our true and inalienable individual rights endowed by God and highlighted in our Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
So to those who disparage the conduct of Oregon elected Republicans, look into your own past. See who fought and died for either your continued servitude or your freedom. If you find ancestors who fought for your continued servitude, apologize. If you find that your ancestors fought for individual liberty, hang your head in shame because you are spitting on their graves.
As for me and mine, we hold precious and fragile our liberty, and the lives lost in pursuit of it. Thus will defend it against the slightest provocation. And will defend yours just as voraciously even though you wish to throw it away.
+1
Oregon produces 0.7% of the national output of CO2. This is apparently so dangerous that Brown had to assign this HB2020 legislation as EMERGENCY….. Crap, if we all died here tomorrow we could not reduce the CO2 output. But she is probably right on one thing, this will be historic, historically stupid, overbearing, fascist, devoid of any science, and negligent.
Pardon my ignorance of the law (in Oregon especially).
But couldn’t a GOP legislator or citizen appeal the EMERGENCY designation to the Oregon Supreme Court?
Because of the infinitesimal amount of CO2 produced by Oregon their action would have no consequence until the rest of the US (and India and China) caught up (and that would not be soon); and since the “science” from their Bible, the IPCC report, says catastrophe is several decades away, there certainly is time to hold a referendum.
George,
I’m sure the rational people of Oregon aren’t interested in playing judicial lotto, especially with the wealth of science-challenged judges that populate our courts. Just look at the ridiculous glyphosate verdict, based on no science whatsoever.
No thank you.
This one is for you Oregon….
http://climate4you.com/images/OceanTemp0-800mDepthAt59Nand30-0W.gif
and this one..
http://climate4you.com/images/ArgoTimeSeriesAt59N.gif
and this one..
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
Climate religious leaders are in control and intolerant.
It is odd there is no mainstream media discussion of the real issues. Google problems with Oregon climate change bill.
Nothing but fake news celebrating potential forced spending on stuff that does not work with the hope that throwing government money at scams will result in a breakthrough.
The issue is the people of Oregon do not support a climate change emergency declaration as it removes public discussions concerning what are the estimated cost vs benefits for the ‘climate change emergency bill’, followed by a referendum.
The Oregon climate change problem is costs vastly exceeds benefit for the climate emergency bill, not the GOP.
Forced spending on green scams will have no climate change benefit beyond bragging rights among the cult of CAGW and very high energy prices/job losses.
Germany has proven it is not possible using sun and wind gathering to reduce CO2 emissions by 80%. (Ban air travel, ban construction, ban ranching, ban heavy industry, and so on?)
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/21/oregon-gop-chair-defends-senate-walkout-democrats-using-emergency-clause-to-push-cap-and-trade-bill/#
“Just about every bill that’s been put forward has had an emergency clause attached to it which is supposed to be used — imagine this — in an emergency,” added Currier.
“What the effect of that is, it denies the people having a vote on it because it prevents a referral to the voters. By putting that emergency clause on there, they’re essentially preventing the voters from voting on issues that they don’t want the voters to overturn.”
Currier continued, “We’ve had such massive state-wide protests and pushback against cap and trade here in Oregon … at town halls that the Democrats tried to sell out in the rural areas.” Rural areas, he stated, “are most negatively affected by this cap and trade because it puts the burden on them … in terms of fuel costs that aren’t borne by the urban areas, supposedly to achieve some sort of environmental benefit.”
“It’s really a ponzi scheme — government-sponsored — that installs an energy czar, if you will, in Oregon, who has almost unregulated authority to regulate businesses…
…. Those who are passing laws that hurt them, or those that are standing up [against] something they oppose, which is this cap and trade bill? This is the tool that’s available to the minority, and it’s been used in other states. It’s been used by Democrats in Oregon. In fact, our own Governor Kate Brown used it in 2001. She advocated for it on behalf of Democrats.”
This reeks of the “Four Year Plan”. It brings me mean no pleasure to highlight this.
The sins of the past are being revisited and the will of the people are being ignored.
Thankfully, Gov Brown has President Trump and a currently Republican control US Senate in the way of obtaining much, if any, federal funding and the eventual Federal Government bail-out of another Green dream.
The only thing that will stop this is if either Nike, Intel, or HP makes a call to these democrats and the Governors’ Office but then again these businesses will be largely be able to past these cost on to the consumers – consumers in other states. This one wonders if this gives me standing under the 14th amendment either to sue these companies to ensure that the increased costs of their products stay completely inside state of Oregon or sue the state directly as their tax effects me without representation.
This will have enormous effects on the state’s wine and micro brew beer production. While individually these are small to medium businesses they represent a huge employment base. These are also home grown Oregon businesses.
When I last lived in Oregon(2007) it had a healthy environment. Not sure what could be an emergency only a dozen years later.
I just shutdown a job offer in the bio-engineering and material science space for this reason. I was going to go back to microscopy – one of my favorite scientific endeavors. They even sweeten the job offer – I paraphrase the saying “Trading security for liberty will leave you with neither.”
Nike and HP are bit players in Oregon manufacturing. Nike because while their headquarters are in Oregon manufacturing is overseas. HP has seriously shrunk, they still have the big campus in Corvallis but last couple times I was on site to do a job (6ish years ago now) the campus was a ghost town compared to its heyday.
Intel? They are the big boys on the block as the states largest private employer and have a lot of clout. I’m hoping they and other big businesses are down in Salem knocking heads together.
There has been some local TV news coverage with interviews from both sides but your right, I haven’t seen any print stories. I need to go listen to http://www.larslarson.com pod cast to see what he has to say, I bet it’s good. For those that don’t know Lars was a local TV guy that went into radio and now hosts both a local and national radio programs. He can be a bit over the top at times but has done some damn good work locally getting things changed.
Just so you know, Oregon has a lot of state revenue in hand now and can afford to call many special sessions no matter the cost to taxpayers. Dems would be enriched with each called session while the GOP fines would continue to mount and their respective properties and farms would degrade. Since trying to help the Oregon 11 is a violation of the state Ethics Laws, contributions to the state GOP would be okay along with funds for real science education to counter agenda science.