mostlysignssomeportents:

Oregon’s legislature is about to vote on a piece of climate change
cap-and-trade legislation that the Democratic majority are likely to
win, so to avoid the vote, 12 Oregon state senators have gone into
hiding, thus depriving the senate of the necessary quorum.

Under state law, the governor – also a Democrat – is entitled to
dispatch state troopers to drag lawmakers back to Salem for a vote, and
to levy fines on lawmakers who don’t show up for work. Governor Kate
Brown has fined the absent senators $500 each and asked the troopers to
locate and return them.

Meanwhile, the AWOL Republicans are widely believed to be hiding out of
state – the Oregon state cops are coordinating with neighboring states’
law enforcement to locate them – and Republican State Senator Brian
Boquist issued this communique from his undisclosed bunker: “Send
bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political
prisoner.”

The situation has attracted the attention of armed white nationalist paramilitary groups like the 3%ers and Oath Keepers;
Paul Luhrs of the 3%ers announced that the group’s leadership had voted
to support the Republican Senators (Luhrs believes that they are in
Idaho) and has “vowed to provide security, transportation and
refuge…doing whatever it takes to keep these Senators safe.”

Oregon was home to a protracted armed standoff involving a group of white nationalist domestic terrorists who illegally occupied the Malheur wildlife refuge.
The terrorists destroyed public lands, pointed guns at cops and
threatened to shoot them, and were involved in high-speed chases, and were not convicted because they are white.

Oregon’s Republican lawmkers went into hiding in May for four days to avoid a vote on a school funding bill. Oregon Senate Republican leader Herman Baertschiger Jr bemoaned the fact that the minority Republicans are being “bullied by the majority party.”

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/22/son-of-malheur.html