Special Session debacle further reveals voter suppression

By Taxpayer Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

As you may know, lawmakers passed a death row scale-back bill this year that was only supposed to apply to new cases. Only after the bill was passed, it was discovered (SHOCK!) that the bill was a complete gut of the death penalty as it applied to virtually all cases. Roughly 28 of the 29 current death row murderers will now escape voter-mandated death penalty executions. Lawmakers were lied to. The media was lied to. The public was lied to.

One death-penalty reform lawmaker is calling for a special session fix before the law goes into effect. State Senator Floyd Prosanzki simply wants to correct the mistake that was made and make sure the changes does not apply to those existing 28 murderers. It is looking like that Special Session will not happen.

The 2019 Legislature spent much of its time blocking voters from voting on their legislation by attaching fake emergency clauses on bills (Carbon Tax HB 2020, partial Kicker theft bill HB 2975, illegal immigration driver cards) or by canceling protest petitions while they were gathering signatures (HB 2164). Republican Senators staged a widely reported walk-out in protest over the ruling party blocking their voices, blocking their amendments, blocking their minority reports and blocking their demands that the public have a right to vote on many of the Session’s most controversial bills. The ruling party even passed a bill making it harder for ordinary citizens to use the petition process online for which the Oregonian called it “blatant voter suppression”.

Now the same Legislature is blocking their own members from voting on a fix.

Everything about the Governor and the 2019 Legislature is about voter suppression and punishing dissenting voices.

Now it appears that the voter suppression is now impacting the very lawmakers themselves who can’t even convince members of their own ruling party to allow for a vote.  

Such extraordinary measures to protect 28 of Oregon’s most violent murderers.

P.S. Governor Kate Brown looks like she is faking outrage by warming to a special session but doing nothing about it.  This is no different than her publicly favoring transparency laws while secretly being caught opposing them.

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