Skip to main content

The Republicans in the state senate of Oregon

 


In 2022, voters in Oregon approved measure 113, which bars from reelection any member of the state legislature with ten or more unexcused absences.  The measure was pressed by public sector labor unions in the state unhappy about the tactic of blocking legislation by avoiding a quorum. 

This year, the mousetrap snapped shut and the mice were caught. Ten of Oregon's state senators, each Republicans, have been disqualified from the ballot. Ten out of a total of twelve in the GOP caucus in that body. 

What strikes me is something in the NATIONAL REVIEW story on this:  https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/court-disqualifies-all-but-two-of-oregons-republican-state-senators-from-reelection/ 

NR's Dan McLaughlin wrote that measure 113 was "barely even opposed by Oregon Republicans who were focused on the Governor's race." 

What a case of strategic malpractice! I don't know if McLaughlin's account is true. But let us take his word for it for a second. The Republicans in Oregon paid no attention to measure 113 when it was put on the ballot. It passed.  The fact MUST have been in all the state's news outlets. The could hardly have missed it. They then proceeded with their avoid-the-quorum trick anyway and passed the newly legislated limits on their absences. 

I am reminded of something Casey Stengel said when he was managing the hapless first-season New York Mets. 

"Doesn't anyone here know how to play this game?"  He is pictured above. 

Apparently not.  (And that sort of incompetence may save us as a republic.) 

Consider the excuse McLaughlin seem to offer them. The Republicans in the state were so focused on the Governor's race that they didn't notice measure 113. Really? Should this make us sympathetic to the plight of those now barred from running for re-election? 

Isn't that a bit like excusing one's walk into a telephone phone booth with, "well, I was trying to chew a piece of gum at the time"? 

Okay youngsters, go ask your parents what a telephone booth is....


Labels:

Comments

  1. Paul D. Van PeltFebruary 17, 2024 at 7:10 AM

    Arrogance and obfuscation have their roots in the fundamental disdain people have for being told what to do. The former president illustrated this by repeatedly eschewing advice from advisors---those getting compensated for giving the best advice available. Some adherents to contextual reality, in the political arena, believe laws or rules will just go away if ignored often enough. Sometimes they are right. They win the round when complacency rules and outcry is stifled. "Reality is whatever we say it is". The mantra is insidious and pernicious.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti
7 comments
Read more

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers
Post a Comment
Read more

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak
13 comments
Read more