SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Enough Republican members showed up in the Oregon Senate on Thursday to end a six-week walkout that halted the work of the Legislature and blocked hundreds of bills, including some on abortion, transgender health care and gun safety.
The boycott, which prevented the Senate from reaching a two-thirds quorum needed to pass bills, was prompted by a sweeping measure on abortion and gender-affirming care that Republicans said was too extreme.
The walkout also blocked the approval of the two-year state budget and a gun-safety measure opposed by the GOP that would increase the purchasing age to 21 for semiautomatic rifles.
GOP Minority Leader Sen. Tim Knopp had said the boycott would end only on the session’s last day — June 25 — to pass “bipartisan” legislation and budget bills. But an optimistic mood took over the Capitol this week as GOP and Democratic leaders met to negotiate compromises.
“We asked for lawful, we asked for constitutional, we asked for compromise, and I see that from your side,” Knopp said as he addressed Democratic Senate President Rob Wagner following Thursday's roll call. “We appreciate everyone who was involved.”
Republicans particularly opposed a provision in the measure on abortion and transgender health care that would allow doctors to provide abortions regardless of the patient’s age, with medical providers not required to notify the parents of a minor, especially when doing so could endanger the child, such as in cases of incest.
The gun-control measure originally would have punished the manufacturing or transferring of undetectable firearms with a maximum 10-year sentence and $250,000 fine. Republicans objected to amendments that would limit concealed-carry rights and increase the purchasing age to 21 for semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15s.
The longest walkout in the Legislature’s history happened despite voters passing a ballot measure in 2022 that disqualifies lawmakers with 10 or more unexcused absences from reelection. Republican senators are likely to sue over the measure if they’re not allowed to register as candidates, starting in September, for the 2024 election. Republicans also walked out in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
On June 1, Senate Democrats voted to fine senators $325 every time their absence denied a quorum.
On Wednesday, more than 40 Oregon Democratic House and Senate members sponsored a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the state Constitution to require a majority of each chamber in the Legislature to be present to conduct business. If passed by the Legislature, it would go before Oregon voters in a ballot measure in the 2024 election.
Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek can bring lawmakers back for a special session if the House and Senate don’t approve the budgets by the time the regular session ends.
The Republicans had initially said they were boycotting because bill summaries did not meet a long-forgotten state law that required them to be written at a level an eighth-grader could understand.
The walkout, which began on May 3, is the longest in the 163-year history of the Oregon Legislature and the second-longest of any U.S. state, after Rhode Island, according to a list by Ballotpedia.
In 1924, Republican senators in Rhode Island fled to Rutland, Massachusetts, and stayed away for six months, ending Democratic efforts to have a popular referendum on the holding of a constitutional convention.
That self-imposed exile followed the detonation of a gas bomb in the Senate chamber. Democrats and Republicans both accused each other of setting it off.