In Oregon, the Republican state senators who were removed from the body for non-attendance have been told that they cannot stand for reelection. (It was explicitly stated in Oregon Measure 113, from Article IV, section 15 of the state constitution, " Failure to attend, without permission or excuse, ten or more legislative floor sessions called to transact business during a regular or special legislative session shall be deemed disorderly behavior and shall disqualify the member from holding office as a Senator or Representative for the term following the election after the member's current term is completed.")
Ten Republican and Independent senators who participated in a six-week walkout this spring won’t be allowed to run for reelection, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade announced Tuesday.
Griffin-Valade wrote that she views voter-approved Measure 113 as disqualifying Oregon lawmakers who received 10 or more unexcused absences during the 2023 legislative session from running for reelection in 2024.
That was clearly what voters intended, even though wording of the full text of the measure said absentee lawmakers couldn’t run in the election “after” their term, whereas lawmakers run for reelection about two months before their terms end. Ballot language and media coverage all communicated to voters that the punishment for absences would impact lawmakers in their next term, not a later one.
“It is clear voters intended Measure 113 to disqualify legislators from running for reelection” to a term immediately following the one in which they have 10 or more unexcused absences, Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “My decision honors the voters’ intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution.”
As the saying goes, you f%$# with the bull, you get the horns.
As an FYI, the ostensible reason for the walkout was that the Republicans felt that the bill summaries for bills creating a right to abortion and enacting some common sense gun regulations were that the summaries for this legislation used too many big words, and they feared that their constituents were too stupid to understand the laws. (As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know.")
In reality, it was an attempt to make sure that women carry their rapists' babies to term and that children would continue to be gunned down in their classroom, because these are core Republican values,
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