Republican members of the Oregon Senate on Thursday extended their boycott of Senate proceedings to a second day, delaying majority Democrat action on bills on gun safety, abortion rights and gender-affirming health

concern.

The stayaway prevented a quorum, with Senate President Rob Wagner calling for another attempt

on

Republican lawmakers have used strikes in the past, but if they stay away this time, they’ll test a law that passed overwhelmingly in a ballot measure.

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November that bars lawmakers with 10 unauthorized absences from running for re-election.

The boycott comes as several state houses across the country, including in Montana and Tennessee, have been battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals. Oregon is increasingly divided between the liberal population centers such as Portland and Eugene, and the mostly conservative rural areas.

Republicans say they are protesting because bill summaries are not written in plain language, citing a 1979 state law requiring bill summaries to be readable by those with an eighth or ninth grade education, measured by a score of at least 60 on the Flesch readability test, Tim Knopp, minority leader in the GOP senate, told a news conference Wednesday.

Knopp was present at the Senate on Thursday. Walking out after the day’s session closed, he said Republicans are still deciding whether to continue the boycott. He later called Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat and former speaker of the House.

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Knopp told a news conference a day earlier that Kotek has an agenda she wants the legislature to approve, especially to combat

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homelessness.

So I think the governor, as a leading official in the state, will have to get involved eventually, because obviously we can’t have a session that goes awry and jeopardizes her agenda for this session,” Knopp said. don’t want the governor’s agenda derailed.”

Knopps spokesman, Ashley Kuenzi, said that during the conversation with the senator, Kotek expressed his willingness to help resolve the deadlock.

The existence of the Readability Act, passed by the legislature in 1979 with bipartisan support, was discovered in April by a Republican caucus worker. Knopp said he doesn’t know when the law was last applied to make accounts summaries easy to read.

But it’s important that we follow the law because if we passed laws today, we’d just expect in, you know, 20, 30, 40 years from now that people will just start ignoring the laws that we have on the books that we’ve all passed , Knopp asked at the press conference. I don’t think we would appreciate that.”

The eviction that failed in Tennessee

Asked if the Republican boycott was due to the gun control and abortion and gender-affirming care bills, Knopp said, “It’s about every bill. But those bills are specifically ineligible under this law as well, and they refuse to resolve them.

Democrats said it is clear the moves are aimed at delaying votes on those bills, which stood a good chance of passage in the Democrat-controlled Ho

And

se and senate.

Some local leaders, labor organizations and activists who support reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights in

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Central Oregon called Knopp, who is from Bend in

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central Oregon, to end the Republican strike.

Senate Republicans are walking away on issues Oregonians overwhelmingly support: the right to make our own healthcare decisions, access abortion and the care we need, and marry those we love, activist group Basic Rights Oregon said in an email statements. The activists planned to hold a meeting later

on

Thursday.

GOP lawmakers used the same boycott strategy in 2019 and 2020 to, among other things, freeze legislation limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Oregon has a two-thirds quorum rule, meaning the state House and Senate require two-thirds of their members to conduct business. In the Senate, that is 20 of the 30 members. Currently, 17 senators are Democrats, 12 Republicans, and one independent.

If Republican senators fail to maintain a quorum for the rest of the legislative session, which doesn’t end until the end of June, they could, in theory, quash bills on gun control, abortion rights and gender-affirming care.

The broad bill on abortion and gender-affirmative care would protect patients and providers from lawsuits originating in states that allow abortion and gender-affirmative care.

now

limited. It would also allow doctors to perform an abortion on anyone, regardless of age, and prevent them from disclosing it to parents in certain cases.

The gun control measure would raise the purchase age to 21 for AR-15-style rifles and similar weapons, impose penalties for possession of undetectable firearms, and allow for more limited concealed carry privileges.