Oregon’s cap and trade bill looks really complicated with lots of moving parts, multiple authorities, oodles of exemptions and subsidies, and a strange phase-in regimen. The goal is straightforward, though. They want to make cap how many carbon emissions the state produces and force emitters to bid for allowances. They’re trying to take a leading role in combating climate change, which is already negatively impacting the state.
It’s hard to say how effective the law would be if enacted. It won’t mean much if other states and countries don’t follow along with their own aggressive plans. That’s the risk for all early adopters of serious climate legislation. They could create a competitive disadvantage for themselves without ever reaping a reward. But this is a case where someone has to take the risk and show leadership.
The Oregon Republicans have no intention of being leaders in this area.
Republicans in the Oregon Senate plan to flee the Capitol to stop Democrats’ bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions, after the plan cleared a legislative budget committee Monday morning.
At an 11 a.m. floor session, just one Republican showed up: Sen. Tim Knopp of Bend. Democrats waited on the floor, as sergeants at arms searched Capitol offices to see if they could round up any other Republicans. But they were unable to find any, so Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, adjourned the chamber until Tuesday morning.
This is becoming a regular pattern. The Republicans fled the state to prevent votes on guns and vaccines and now they’re using the tactic for a second time to block climate legislation. As the Associated Press reported last August, the Democrats are already planning to take the issue to the voters:
After two walkouts this year by minority Republican senators in the Oregon Legislature, Democrats said Friday they will ask voters to change quorum rules, allowing the statehouse to convene with only a simple majority of lawmakers present instead of the current two-thirds requirement.
The boycotts by the Republicans prevented the Senate from convening. Democrats dropped proposals on gun control and vaccines and Democratic Gov. Kate Brown ordered the state police to bring the missing lawmakers back during the second walkout.
The Republicans left the state to avoid apprehension, and returned only after Democratic Senate President Peter Courtney announced her party lacked the votes to unilaterally pass a sweeping bill to combat global warming.
Senate Democrats said that Majority Leader Ginny Burdick will introduce a constitutional amendment in the 2020 legislative session to lower quorum requirements. Voters would then decide on the proposed change in the 2020 election.
This is basically what we can expect from Republicans if they’re ever faced with the prospect of congressional action on climate (or guns or health care) in Washington, DC. They will exercise whatever power they have to obstruct to the hilt and deny that the Democrats have the authority or legitimacy to legislate even when they have strong majorities.
This is part of why arguments over policy have to take second place to strategies for overcoming Republican resistance. When you hear progressives talk about seemingly radical steps like eliminating the legislative filibuster or packing the Supreme Court, this is why.
“This is why”
We’re going to need to dig out all the stories we can find from US history of how longstanding majorities that had been disenfranchised behaved when they finally seized power from reactionary minorities. Nationally, there’s the “Slave Power” of the 1850s using every anti-democratic feature of the federal constitution to hold power long after they’d been outnumbered. There’s also the Prohibitionist/nativist alliance of the 1920s that blocked using the 1920 census until the 1932 election.
In Rhode Island there’s the “Bloodless Revolution” of 1935 when Democrats used hardball political tactics to win control of the state government despite the state constitution’s multiple anti-democratic features, and immediately acted to 1) deliver on their campaign promises, and 2) push through structural reforms that broke the back of minority rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Rhode_Island#Democratic_Era_(1930s-present)
As an Oregon resident, I can tell you that this sort of nonsense is pretty new here. Both Oregon and Washington were once known for electing to statewide offices so-called Mossback Republicans, who were relatively liberal, tolerant types. But neither state has elected a GOP governor for 30 years, nor elected a Republican to the US Senate for quite a while, either, because the primaries have become dominated by fire-breathers and the public has consistently rejected GOP candidates for governor and US senator. The GOP candidate for Oregon secretary of state won last time around only because the Democratic incumbent was embroiled in an ethics scandal.
The Oregon legislature has swung to Democratic control because suburban districts that used to elect moderate Republicans now elect Democrats. It’s the sort of dynamic that Martin Longman has written about extensively in the context of the US House of Representatives. So the GOP rump has become progressively more right-wing and has adopted these slash-and-burn tactics to shut down the legislature.