Four days ago I titled a blog post, "It's a make-or-break week for democracy in Oregon." Well, today we learned that Democrats in the state legislature stood firm in defense of democracy, while the Republicans who walked out basically said screw you, democracy.
Oregonians need to remember this in the upcoming November election. Democrats care about democracy. Republicans don't. It's that simple. Vote accordingly on the local, state, and national level.
The only bright spot in the legislature being forced to close up shop because of the Republican walkout, which was a taxpayer-funded vacation for them, was how Democratic leaders acted this time.
While in 2019 they killed some bills to get the Republicans to do the job they were elected to do -- act as legislators -- this time they refused to make any deals. Good for them. The only deal House and Senate Republicans deserve is to have as many of them as possible voted out of office.
Here's some information about the walkout aftermath that I gleaned from my Twitter feed. The Salem Reporter also has a good story about this, as does the Oregonian. As you can read below, Governor Kate Brown has vowed to make reductions in carbon emissions via executive order, a pleasing move.
THANK YOU, Oregon House & Senate Republicans for demanding a ballot measure for tax increases!
SB 1530 was an energy sales tax.
Oregonians have voted down sales taxes 9 times.
Dishonest democrats thought they could sneak this sales tax through in disguise.
Nope. We won!
Posted by: Skyline | March 06, 2020 at 07:26 AM
Kockamamie Kate can sign all of the executive orders that she wants.....
....NONE of them will will result in a sales tax on energy.
Nice try, Katy. You failed.
Posted by: Skyline | March 10, 2020 at 11:13 AM