(Headline USA) A walkout by most Republican members of the Oregon Senate reached a fifth straight day Saturday.
The Republican legislators report that they are protesting Democrats failure to adhere to the state’s legal requirement that bills must be written in clear and simple language.
Oregon Republicans say Democrats have failed to adhere to, and refuse to comply with, a 1979 Oregon law that requires bill summaries to be readable by those with an eighth or ninth-grade education, determined by a score of 60 on the Flesch readability score.
Republicans say that they just discovered the law, and intend to ensure all bills follow its requirements.
Democrats accuse these Republicans of being disingenuous. Rather, they suggest, Republicans are delaying action by the majority Democrats on bills on gun control, infanticide and gender-bending ‘health’ treatments.
In Oregon, the legislature requires a 2/3’s majority, and in the Senate, that means 20 members, thus the GOP’s boycott prevented a quorum, and Senate President Rob Wagner adjourned the body until Sunday morning.
If Republicans refuse to show up to the capital, then they could kill the radical leftist bills proposed by the body’s Democrats.
If Republican lawmakers do kill the bill this way, then they’ll pay a heavy price for doing so. Last November, voters approved a ballot measure that bans lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences from running for reelection.
The boycott comes as several statehouses around the nation, including in Montana and Tennessee, have become battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals.
Oregon has increasingly been divided between liberal population centers like Portland and Eugene and its mostly conservative rural areas.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
