The second day of the Oregon Senate Republican walkout is underway. Ten GOP members and one independent were absent from the floor in protest of multiple pieces of Democratic legislation Thursday.
“We made points of order,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp told the Washington Examiner in an interview Thursday. “We have an outside legal opinion that says that it violates Senate rule. It violates the law and very well violates the constitution.”
OREGON REPUBLICANS WALK OUT OF SENATE IN OPPOSITION TO TWO BILLS
The chamber did not achieve the 20-member quorum required to continue business on Thursday — only 18-members were present.
On Wednesday, two Republican members, state Sen. Suzanne Weber and state Rep. Emily McIntire, collaborated with advocacy group Oregon Right To Life, the state's oldest anti-abortion organization, to submit a letter in an attempt to delay House Bill 2002, which expands gender and abortion care.
Marion County Circuit Judge David Leith denied the petition requesting the court to delay the bill, citing a lack of authority to prevent the Senate from performing its role, according to Jefferson Public Radio.
House Bill 2002 was one of several bills that Republicans claimed were not readily understandable according to the Flesch test, which assigns a score indicating the reading level of a text. Under a 44-year-old Oregon measure, all legislation must score a 60 or higher on the test to qualify for enactment.
“And so we're saying simply that the Senate majority needs to follow the law, and these summaries need to be fixed, and we're happy to fix the summaries on bipartisan bills and on budget bills to try to save the session,” Knopp said. “But we are not interested in being forced to violate our constitutional oaths to vote on bills that are clearly not lawful based on the statutes that exist today.”
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Oregon Republicans have been known to stage walkouts over the years, one of the most prominent times being in 2019 to prevent a climate change bill from passing. They walked out again in 2020 to stop Democratic climate legislation.
It is unclear when certain Senate Republicans will end their boycott or negotiate on Democratic bills scheduled.