In Oregon, GOP members of the Oregon Senate have once again walked off the job to deny a quorum. They intend to hold the Oregon Legislature hostage until a bill addressing climate change is killed. In undertaking this action, along with another walkout earlier in the session, the GOP thwarts the will of the voters. It’s a filibuster, of sorts.
In most respects, filibusters are anti-democratic. “In the 20th century, the filibuster enabled southern segregationists to block anti-lynching laws and delay civil-rights legislation. This millenium, it enabled to nativists to block a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers,” wrote Eric Levitz in a recent piece for New York Magazine.
Today in Oregon, GOP senators have twice this session used ability to deny the majority a quorum in an attempt to halt not just climate change legislation, but also a bill to increase school funding. In Oregon, voters in 2018 gave Democrats super-majorities in both the House and Senate, along with the governor’s office. The only way the GOP can influence legislation, besides coalition building and compromise, is to deny a quorum.
Democrats in Oregon have also staged walkouts when in the minority on rare occasions. Unlike their GOP counterparts, however, they didn't leave the state to avoid the Oregon State Police. The Oregon GOP Senators are said to be hiding in Idaho.
There is also a clear moral difference between staging a protest to protect underrepresented communities vs. the coal industry or oil and gas.
Addressing climate change is the most pressing moral issue of our time. As a minister in the United Church of Christ, I take Jesus’ admonition that we free people from oppression seriously. Slavery and Jim Crow are obvious examples of oppression. Climate change is as well. Without taking steps to address climate change, we sentence young people today to a painful and challenging existence.
The reality of climate change is a responsibility we must accept and address. David Wallace-Wells writes in his “The Uninhabitable Earth” that:
Global warming may seem like a distended morality tale playing out over several centuries and inflicting a kind of Old Testament retribution on the great-great-grandchildren of those responsible, since it was carbon burning in eighteenth-century England that lit the fuse of everything that has followed. But that is a fable about historical villainy that acquits those of us alive today—and unfairly. The majority of the burning has come since the premiere of Seinfeld. Since the end of World War II, the figure is about 85 percent. The story of the industrial world’s kamikaze mission is the story of a single lifetime—the planet brought from seeming stability to the brink of catastrophe in the years between a baptism or bar mitzvah and a funeral.
As the administration of Donald Trump works tirelessly to undermine efforts to address this global crisis, it becomes more and more critical for states to do whatever possible turn the tide. Instead, GOP lawmakers and activists deny the reality of climate change, work to undermine solutions, and take advantage of people, such as the #TimberUnity community in Oregon, by telling them that climate change solutions will impact their jobs (as if growing wildfire seasons won’t).
It gets worse, of course. Under Oregon law, the governor is empowered to compel members of the Legislature to return to work with the help of the Oregon State Police. This led Senator Brian Boquist, in his best segregationist imitation, to threaten the police with gun violence if they attempt to arrest him. Such comments demand his resignation or expulsion from the Senate.
Oregon Senate Republicans employee the tactics of segregationists, using the power of the minority to block efforts to address the common good. Unable to win elections, the party will do anything to stop efforts to address climate change, no matter the cost to future generations.
The so-called Oregon 11 should get back to work, return to Oregon, do their sworn duty, and faithfully execute their oath of office. Or they should resign.
Update:Sadly, it appears this morning that the segregationalist tactics of the #Oregon11 have worked. The radical far-right minority looks to have won the day. #hb2020 #orpol #orleg https://t.co/QYNwv4iTSZ
— Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) June 25, 2019
