Tony Corcoran regularly appears in EW bashing Republican legislators. So what have Democrats been doing in Salem?

They’ve weaponized the “emergency” clause to prevent voter challenges to their decisions.

They’ve violated two recent voter mandates, Measure 97 (gross receipts tax) and Measure 88 (driver cards for undocumented immigrants.

Through an ongoing series of deliberate decisions, each with a bogus “emergency” clause, they’ve incentivized illegal immigration to Oregon. Guess who brings the methamphetamine, heroin and other poisons into our state? Meth-related deaths in Oregon have soared 400 percent since 2010.

Because they can’t put “emergency” clauses on tax measures, they’ve worked to thwart citizen referenda by reducing the timeline for the voting, giving themselves authority to write ballot titles and now, with SB 761, denying you the ability to sign an electronic petition unless you personally download it, sign it and give it to the circulator.

They took an unprecedented step in 2014 with HB 4054 to legislatively hijack the M88 referendum. Thankfully, the Oregon Supreme Court quashed that plan.

They know they can’t get a general sales tax, so they’ve legislated sales taxes on individual items such as bicycles and automobiles. Expect more of this.

Thousands of Oregonians feel totally disenfranchised by what’s going on in Salem but haven’t had the votes to do anything about it. That’s a sure recipe for escalating political strife.

I wonder, in the immortal words of Richard Pryor (RIP): “How long will this BS go on?”

 Jerry Ritter

Springfield

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