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As Texas Democratic legislators flee the state to withhold a quorum from the Republicans who hold the majority there, they have been hailed as heroes by Democrats across the country—in part for their effort to defend voting rights by denying Republicans the ability to pass legislation.
But in Oregon, where Republicans have fled the state the last two years over climate bills, those Texas Democrats have unlikely supporters: the Republican leadership.
Oregon Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod (R-Stayton) tells WW he supports the tactic Texas Democrats are using to deny Republicans a quorum.
“Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the policy that Texas Democrats are protesting, the quorum requirement is a tool that minorities have for holding runaway government accountable,” says Oregon Senate Republican leader Fred Girod. “In other words, our support of quorum rules extend to Democrats and Republicans.”
Of course, the Republican leader delights in the awkward position that the Democrats fleeing Texas places Oregon Democrats in.
“Given how vocal Oregon Democrats have been about prior quorum denials, their silence so far about what is happening in Texas has been deafening,” he said. “They have previously called walkouts threats to democracy and even likened them to ‘terrorism.’ Are they willing to apply the same standard to Texas Democrats, or are they partisan hypocrites? As Republicans, we continue to believe that quorum denials are a rare but legitimate tool for holding a runaway government accountable.”
Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick (D-Portland) indeed likened the walkouts to terrorism in 2019.
“I don’t know what to call it,” Burdick said at the time. “I want to call it terrorism, because they are not doing their job and it has fractured the entire institution.”
Gov. Kate Brown then professed herself disappointed by the preparations for one of several Oregon walkouts, “which would silence their constituents while stifling democracy. It’s not only dishonest, it violates the oaths they took to speak for their constituents as well as the word they gave to their colleagues and to me.”
House Speaker Tina Kotek asked in March 2020: “As Americans, as Oregonians, big questions are looming: Can our democracy keep the people’s faith? Can elected leaders respect their oaths of office and the rule of law that allows us to get things done?” (That was 10 months before a Trump-friendly mob tried to overturn an election by entering the Capitol.)
Presented with this seeming inconsistency by WW, the governor’s office defended a distinction between the two walkouts.
“The two situations are fundamentally different,” says Brown’s spokesman Charles Boyle. “The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy. That’s what is at stake in Texas. In Oregon, Republicans have regularly subverted our legislative process by using walkouts leading up to deadlines and the constitutional end of session as a strategy to control what legislation moves forward, and halt progress on a variety of issues including climate action and education funding. The principles of free and fair elections are under attack in this country, as seen clearly with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. We need to stand up for our democracy, or we risk losing it.”
Kotek’s office said she was unavailable. Burdick did not respond to a request for comment.
But the Oregon House Democratic majority office criticized any comparison between legislation the Republicans in Texas and the Democrats in Oregon are trying to pass as “a false equivalency that distracts from the immorality of blocking people, and specifically Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities, from voting.”
“It’s one thing to take a principled stand on something as sacred as the right to vote,” says Hannah Kurowski, spokesperson for the House Majority Office. “It’s another thing entirely to do what Oregon GOP lawmakers have done, which is to shut the Legislature down year after year after year because they are mad voters reject their extreme ideology.
“It’s also important to point out that across the country there is a coordinated assault on voting rights by the Republican Party after some of the highest voter turnout during the November general election that sent a clear message and rejection of Trumpian politics.”