The threats are coming from INSIDE the legislature
Oregon’s one of those funny states with a reputation for granola hats and peace-loving recycle bins, but the reality is that it has a big share of right-wing god-n-guns types. Apparently they have seized the state legislature.
Oregon’s statehouse shut down for safety concerns on Saturday. But the threats weren’t coming from anonymous trolls or foreign fighters—they were coming from the state’s Republican senators, who have teamed up with right-wing militias to threaten violence over a climate change bill.
Eleven of Oregon’s Senate Republicans fled the state this week to avoid a vote on a bill that would cap greenhouse emissions. The group, believed to be hiding in Idaho, left the state senate with too few lawmakers to hold a vote. But the move is more than a legislative maneuver. The missing senators have partnered with right-wing paramilitary groups to threaten violence, should they be brought back to Oregon.
I’ve thought of a better plan. How about they make peace with the legislature, and instead team up with paramilitary groups to fight the environment? Right? Wouldn’t that be a great idea? It would keep them busy and harness all that rage, and there’s at least a chance that they would win and the environment would surrender and stop being all climate changey.
The state senate had scheduled sessions on Saturday, but cancelled them after reports of several militias’ two-day “Rally to Take the Capitol” this weekend.
“Oregon State Police has recommended that the Capitol be closed tomorrow due to a possible militia threat,” a spokesperson for the senate president told the Associated Press on Friday night.
A rally to take the Capitol. So we’re in the actual junta stage now? Dave Andress has a tweet about how all this rage and violence is at bottom about the doom of climate change. I’ll go find it…
Found it.
Why have western politics apparently gone mad?
It is because, deep down, the reality of climate catastrophe has struck home.
The idea that "the future" will fix everything has gone, decisively, forever.
And so the rational basis of modernity is dead.
— David Andress (@ProfDaveAndress) June 23, 2019
There have been walkouts in Oregon before, from both parties, but they didn’t include threats.
Multiple senators are believed to have fled to Idaho, with right-wing militias flocking to their aid. While leaving the statehouse before the walkout, Republican Sen. Brian Boquist implied that police officers who pursued them should be ready to die. “Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Boquist warned police in a televised interview shortly before his walkout. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”
State police said they were aware of Boquist’s remarks, but were not commenting on them. Boquist and his colleagues are supported by several right-wing militias that made more explicit threats.
After Oregon Gov. Kate Brown called on state troopers to return the lawmakers to the capital, the paramilitary group the Oath Keepers suggested violence against her.
“Gov. Brown, you want a civil war, because this is how you get a civil war,” the Oath Keepers wrote on their public Facebook page. Beneath the post, Oath Keeper fans suggesting hanging, arresting, or taking up arms against Brown.
Bumpy night.
In my opinion, the moment that a lawmaker threatens violence and military takeover, they should be removed from the legislature – permanently. No eligibility for reelection.
It’s what we get because of an inadequate response to Malheur… Not deploying the Guard then was a mistake.
BKiSA – not to mention the fact that they were not convicted once caught and charged. That was an invitation to further militia violence.
Wjhy have they ‘fled’ to Idaho? Couldn’t they just have stayed home to prevent the vote taking place? I’m assuming that the police/government cannot actually drag them to the Senate and force them to do what they are paid to do.
Actually AoS they legally can (US Senate too)
Wow! Thanks. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that those senators will be lauded as ‘patriotic heroes’ by the right. Also, the very fact that they threatened to kill police officers yet still left the state free of bullet holes tells me that none of the fleeing senators are black.
AoS – and the right will conveniently forget that they were outraged, oh so outraged, when Dems from Texas fled to Oklahoma and New Mexico to prevent a vote on partisan redistricting that would have guaranteed removing most non-Republicans from the Senate for probably ever, since once they had the stranglehold (which they do anyway, but this needed the Dems in 2003) to make sure they always did the redistricting.
By the way, for all of you people out there who dislike the Republicans, 2020 is another pivotal year for the Census – we need to take back statehouses all over the country, then we could break the lock that the GOP has on everything everywhere. If people don’t want to go out to vote, remind them of that…
I vaguely remember some Democratic legislators somewhere going into hiding to prevent a quorum some years ago. I can’t remember the details, but I recall approving of what they were trying to do. I don’t like the reason these OR senators are staying away, but the tactic seems normal. The aspect that I find horrifying is the threats to kill police officers.
… and if I had only read iknklast’s post before typing, I would have been reminded of the forgotten details. Sorry!
Glad to help, Sackbut. I was living in Oklahoma and Texas at the time, and remember it well. (No, I wasn’t living with one foot on the border; I lived in Texas during the week and in Oklahoma on weekends).