Sen. Knopp: De-Bunking Lies About Walkout

By Oregon Senate Republican Office:

In a statement released this morning, Senate Democrats made a false statement that “Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp admits walkout is about abortion and gun safety legislation,” citing an article published in Oregon Capital Chronicle on Sunday.

In the article, Leader Knopp reiterated that Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) is knowingly and willfully violating the readability standard explicitly laid out in Senate Rules, Oregon statute, and the Oregon Constitution. He stated: “They’ve chosen to try to force unlawful bills, unconstitutional bills across the floor, and we are not going to allow that to happen.”

Leader Knopp told the reporter that Republicans are willing to end the protest if staff rewrites bill summaries to comply with the law, and if Democrats set aside their most extreme bills whose summaries similarly don’t comply with the law. All Session long, Republicans have criticized the extreme policy priorities pushed by the majority party. We have repeatedly asked that we get back to passing bills that fix real problems facing our constituents. This is nothing new.

Activist special interest groups have continuously lied by claiming Republicans are attempting to “take away abortion rights and deny marriage equality”.

“One thing has become clear: Democrats are unwilling to come to the table and instead, they are doubling down on an unlawful, far-left extreme agenda. Abortion is codified into Oregon law and same-sex marriage is settled. To suggest that Republicans are attempting to restrict abortion access and marriage equality by protesting is a desperate lie. Continuing to shield the truth from Oregonians isn’t going to solve anything,” concluded Knopp.