The GOP Walkout That Ended Badly

10 state senators in Oregon are now in the find out phase.

Oregon Senate Republican Leader Sen. Tim Knopp, one of the boycotters hit with a ban on running for reelection. Photo: Jenny Kane / AP

Oregon GOP Senators thought they were being pretty bold and clever by boycotting the state senate last summer. They did it expressly to prevent a quorum, and therefore any business, from happening. 

This wasn’t some novel idea. Representatives from both parties have often staged walk-outs on legislative sessions. It’s usually a “last resort” way to voice displeasure over the policies—and often the dirty, undemocratic tricks—of the other side.

But the Oregon walkout was unique in one aspect: They were repeat offenders, and the voters had expressly warned them not to do it again. Specifically, voters had overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment barring officials from reelection if they had 10 or more unexcused absences.

That message apparently didn’t get through to the Oregon GOP. In 2023, they boycotted the state senate for six weeks, the longest in state history. When the secretary of state found 10 senators ineligible to run for office, they appealed that ruling all the way up to the state Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously against them on Thursday.

What led to this unique set of events? How are the two sides framing what has happened? And what does this mean for politics in Oregon going forward? I’ll review the history of the Oregon GOP’s obstructionist tactics and how voters responded. And since it’s Schadenfriday, let’s also savor what happened in the “find out” part of this story.

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A history of walkouts

Oregon law has something of a disaster built into its state constitution. It’s a holdover from when its state’s founders copied around half the text over from Indiana’s constitution in 1857 (including a ban on Black people living in the state, but that’s another story). One of the provisions was a requirement of a two-thirds quorum in both the House and the Senate. 

Only four states have such a general quorum requirement: Texas, which has seen its share of legislative walkouts; Tennessee, where the legislature seems in constant chaos; Indiana; and Oregon. (Some states have higher quorum requirements for specific bills such as tax increases.) Democrats in the minorities in these states have sometimes walked out to leverage the quorum requirement in protest over redistricting plans, anti-union legislation, and election law changes. Democrats even did it in Oregon, back in 2001.

These walkouts have largely been symbolic and have never really thwarted the majority and its legislation for very long. But Republicans in Oregon began walking out in 2019 and didn’t really stop. They did it again in 2020, and again in 2021. By summer of 2023, they had walked out a total of seven times in four years.

Voters respond

By 2022, voters had had enough of their antics. A ballot measure, known as Measure 113, went up for a vote to amend the state constitution. It would deal with unexcused absences, including a boycott like the one the GOP had pulled, by stripping legislators of their right to run for reelection in the following term.

The measure passed easily with 68 percent of the vote. But a real question remained over whether it would be enforced and whether the courts would uphold it. 

To make things worse, the measure’s proponents did a fairly terrible job with the actual language of the amendment, which stated that 10 or more absences

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

Huh? This language, its opponents understandably argued, was highly ambiguous and seemed to state that the term covered was the one after the next one they could run for.

I’ve admittedly read the clause several times, and it could certainly be read that way, since the officials’ “term” doesn’t technically end until after the election, so the election “following” that term is still one full term away.

There was also a question over whether the measure banned officials who had hit the 10 unexcused absences mark from running for the same seat or from running for office at all.

PSA: When drafting an important state ballot measure that for sure will be challenged in court, please don’t leave these kinds of ambiguities in the language.

The Oregon GOP f**ks around

In 2023, the Democratic-controlled senate wanted to pass legislation protecting abortion rights and transgender health care and tightening gun control laws. The Oregon GOP, adopting a socially extreme position and determined to test the legality of the measure passed in 2022, walked out of the session and stayed away for six weeks. That meant they were now in violation of the 10 absences rule, so now what?

Secretary of State Lavonne Griffin-Valade announced in August that she intended to enforce Measure 113. She moved to disqualify any senators who had hit the limit of 10 absences during their walkout. And she clarified that, after talking to the Oregon Department of Justice, the ban would apply to all offices in the following term, and not just to the same seat or to the term following the next term.

In response, five of the senators, including some who had planned to run in 2024, sued Griffin-Valade to overturn her decision. And on Thursday, the Oregon Supreme Court delivered its answer.

The Oregon GOP finds out

The Court unanimously held that, even assuming there were ambiguities in the language of the ballot measure, the intent of the voters was quite clear given the unambiguous language in the voter pamphlet and the campaign in general. Voters, the Court said, understood what they were voting for and how it was to be applied. And that is what matters in the end.

“The Supreme Court upheld the will of the voters who want their elected officials to show up and work together to solve our toughest problems,” said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber in response to the news of the ruling.

The GOP of course has a different take. “We obviously disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling," said state Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp. “But more importantly, we are deeply disturbed by the chilling impact this decision will have to crush dissent.”

Never mind that their “dissent” was basically to disable the government from doing anything at all, and that the voters, in a very democratic way, set an outer boundary on what constitutes dissent and what constitutes dereliction of duty.

Some of the senators have filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the ban, but a federal judge ruled against them already, and it’s now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which is unlikely to reverse.

So how does this affect things going forward?

There are only 11 GOP senators in the Oregan state senate, so this ruling affects nearly their entire conference. But keep in mind that this ban on reelection doesn’t mean other Republicans can’t win election to those seats. Most are in districts likely to be won by another Republican. 

But it might give serious pause to any future senator thinking about walking out but actually planning to stay in office longer than one term.

As for the ten senators affected by the ruling, four are now barred from running again in 2024, four will be barred from running again in 2026, and two have announced their retirement. 

In the meantime, they are very much acting like sore losers. Sen. Knopp had warned earlier this week that if they lost their case, Republicans would “literally have no reason to show up” in the short session beginning in a few days unless Democrats offered them policy concessions in exchange. So unfortunately, Democrats likely won’t be able to get much done in 2024 while these GOP officials work out their anger and hurt feelings.

As for Minority Leader Sen. Knopp himself, he’s one of the ones barred by the decision from running again in 2024. “Who knows if this is a pause in public service for me and the others, or if it’s the end of a road and a new beginning for something else,” he said following the ruling.

Fun fact: Knopp’s district was redrawn anyway in 2021, and it now has ten thousand more registered Democrats than registered Republicans.

As President Biden would say, “Good luck in your senior year!”