Christine Drazan
Drazan, Oregon House minority leader, represents House District 39 in the Oregon Legislature.
This is not the Oregon Legislature I remember.
There was a time in the Legislature when members of both parties had respect for the legislative process and for the views of minority party members. When Senate President Peter Courtney served as House minority leader in the 1990s, his respectful relationship with Majority Leader Ray Baum showed every day how people with different perspectives, life experience and philosophies could work together. Sure, they disagreed from time to time - sometimes fiercely - but those two guys showed respect for each other, clearly and consistently. That has not been my experience this session.
The 2020 session has been dominated by cap-and-trade politics - and regardless of the numbers game you may hear about the bipartisan passage of modest technical fixes, this session has been anything but bipartisan when it comes to cap and trade.
Each and every amendment Republicans have offered on cap and trade has been rejected, our efforts to refer the measure to Oregon voters have been blocked and the bill ultimately advanced without comprehensive fiscal and revenue analyses. I remained optimistic – up until Monday – that a compromise could be reached.
Cap-and-trade is a poorly-crafted bill. It is, in fact, so poorly-crafted that elements are expected to go before the Oregon Supreme Court for constitutional vetting before it can go into effect. The current proposal essentially taxes businesses and consumers more and more each year as the cap on overall emissions lowers and costs of compliance go up. The program’s proponents concede that Oregon families could see as much as a $400 increase in costs in just the first year – our estimates suggest more like $600 a year – in gas, fuel and electricity. Hospitals, nursing homes, schools, small businesses, families and those on fixed incomes are facing rising costs they just can’t afford. Cap-and-trade will devastate Oregonians from all corners of the state.
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Left with few options for protecting our constituents from a rigged legislative process and a poorly crafted bill, Oregon House Republicans chose to take action. Like our colleagues in the Senate, we made the difficult decision to deny quorum only after engaging fully in the political process in support of our constituents. But the abuse of power continued unchecked. We will not be party to a legislative process that ignores minority voices, rejects opportunities for consensus and rushes bills through without key information from our nonpartisan policy staff. The process that produced this legislation has been a disaster for Oregonians, and the policy itself reflects that.
We’ve heard the rhetoric coming from our colleagues in Salem when they try to define what serving in Salem should look like. They use accusatory language about doing our jobs. Frankly, I couldn’t disagree more about who is shirking responsibilities. Democrats have failed to schedule key legislation for hearings. They have failed to forward needed funding bills through the budget committee to the floor. And they have failed to work together on our shared priorities –instead choosing to use them as political weapons. We have had three weeks to work together and move these bills that are unrelated to cap-and-trade to the floor. We remain committed to these priorities but will not take the blame for the Democrats’ decision to put their political agenda ahead of the needs of Oregonians.
Across the state, we have heard overwhelmingly from Oregonians who support the actions we have taken to insist that this bill be referred to voters. We’ve heard directly from them over the last 24 hours and the message they are sending to us is clear: Thank you, we support you, please continue to stand up for our right to vote on this bill. We will not be intimidated by the attacks from special interest groups who are in line for funding from the cap-and-trade cash cow-- because we know the working people of Oregon have our backs.
These are not the days of Minority Leader Courtney and Majority Leader Baum jokingly conspiring about how they would fight fair and compromise for the sake of the institution and our state.
Over the final two weeks of the session, we will continue to keep the lines of communication open with Gov. Kate Brown, House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate President Courtney. We remain hopeful that Democratic leaders will embrace the opportunity for compromise and a resolution to the 2020 session by choosing to refer cap-and-trade to the ballot.
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"Opinion" - Google News
February 26, 2020 at 09:00PM
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Opinion: Democrats’ ‘rigged’ legislative process left Republicans no choice but to walk - oregonlive.com
"Opinion" - Google News
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