The Republican War on Democracy has taken many forms — from extreme gerrymandering, to undermining voting rights through voter-ID laws and disenfranchising people with criminal records, to the Trump administration’s foiled attempt to rig the census in favor of white people. In Oregon, Republicans have chosen a different tactic: ratfucking the legislative process, while making open threats of violence.
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The Oregon bill — HB 2020 — would link the state into the existing cap-and-trade network run by California and Quebec. The bill would charge the largest polluters in the state — those with more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually — for the right to pollute. As the cap on pollution is ratcheted down, companies would choose to curb emissions or buy credits on the market. The funds collected by the state would be earmarked for infrastructure and clean energy jobs programs; the bill also contains a rebate provision to cushion lower-income Oregonians from a potential rise in fuel prices.
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Oregon Democrats won a supermajority in the 2018 midterms, so the GOP no longer has the votes to block legislation. But the state’s constitution requires a quorum to conduct business.
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Republican senators, who are opposed to putting a price on carbon emissions, [staged] a walk out.
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Massive logging trucks circled the streets around the capitol, flying American flags in their truck beds and blasting horns, as hundreds of right-wing protesters rallied in support of Oregon’s fugitive GOP senators, whose week-long walkout appears to have killed the state’s ambitious cap-and-trade climate legislation.
The rally was a show of force for rural Oregonians. Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly white men, some in hard hats, some wearing camo and hunting orange, many sporting unruly beards, spilled out over the steps in front of the statehouse.
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John Hanlin, sheriff for rural Douglas County in southern Oregon, took to the mic in uniform with a broadside of cultural lament: “This state was built by the timber industry and by farms, ranchers, construction and other blue collar industries,” he said. “Not on coffee businesses and marijuana dispensaries.” Inside, the cavernous senate chamber was hauntingly empty, echoing with the honking of rigs, it’s business ground to a halt for an eighth day.
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Earlier in this same legislative session, they staged a walkout over raising business taxes to fund an education tax bill — eventually returning after winning concessions, including shelving unrelated proposals for gun and vaccination regulations.
But, from the beginning, this walkout has been charged with an undercurrent of danger. Gov. Kate Brown — who campaigned on climate regulation to win reelection last November — vowed to deploy state troopers to track down rogue Republicans and bring them back to Salem.
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Before leaving Salem, one GOP state senator, Brian Boquist, responded with incendiary rhetoric. On the floor of the chamber, he first threatened the state senate president, Peter Courtney, saying: “If you send the State Police to get me, Hell’s coming to visit you personally.” He later menaced state troopers themselves: “Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” he said on camera. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon.”
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As Republicans scurried from the state, right-wing militia groups threw fuel on the fire, drawing national media coverage. One anti-government III% militia leader vowed on Facebook to provide security and transportation for the Republicans on the run. Militias in Idaho, where several were heading, also offered aid and comfort.
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Democrats have a three-vote cushion in the senate. Two senators were already declared against the bill. The fragile Democratic coalition fell apart when state Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson moved against the bill, according to a senate source with knowledge of the matter.
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Gov. Brown railed against the GOP’s “unacceptable” and “dangerous” tactics — “This is not the Oregon Way and cannot be rewarded” — and suggested the Republicans were opposed not just to the climate bill but to democracy itself.
Rolling Stone
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