Pandemic Pause: House won’t meet until Saturday after COVID-19 reported
Published 5:15 pm Tuesday, September 21, 2021
- Oregon state House seats are empty as a report of a positive COVD-19 case forces postponement of work on election redistricting Tuesday.
A showdown over political redistricting will have to wait until the weekend as the House grapples with an outbreak of COVID-19 among its ranks.
“In the last hour, we were notified that a person who was in the Capitol yesterday has tested positive for COVID,” Kotek said.
Kotek immediately called for adjournment.
Democrats had hoped to vote on new legislative and congressional districts required by the 2020 U.S. Census
Plans to reconvene on Wednesday morning were scuttled Tuesday afternoon by an e-mail from Kotek’s office. Lawmakers should get COVID-19 tests in Salem on Thursday, the results would be back late Friday and the House could be gaveled to order Saturday morning.
O’Brien wrote that the House would not convene Wednesday. Revised plans called for legislators and staff who may have been exposed to the virus to get tested Thursday in Salem.
The goal is to put together a quorum of members to meet. But the math gets tricky.
Debate or Depart
Though Democrats hold a 37-22 majority in the House, Oregon requires 40 House members attend to create a quorum.
No quorum, no session.
No session, no bills.
No bills, no new maps.
If a quorum is not reached, the special session would crash and burn, taking months of maps, data, charts, testimony, alternative public plans and dump it in the trash bin.
Democrats need 40 representatives on the floor to bring the redistricting bills up for a vote. Oregon is one of a handful of states where a quorum is larger than a majority
The Oregon constitution requires two-thirds of members to be present to conduct any business.
The House quorum questions loomed larger Monday as the Democratic-drawn sets of maps sped through the Senate on party-line votes.
The legislation included the boundaries for 60 House, 30 Senate, and six congressional districts. If approved, they would be used for the next decade, beginning with the 2022 election.
Republican rumble-strip
Restricting was already more raucous than usual because of a surprise deal Kotek fashioned with House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, during the regular session in April
Drazan at the time agreed to stop using parliamentary rules to slow the advancement of legislation.
Kotek in exchange added Drazan to the House Redistricting Committee. It would give the parties political parity on the key panel.
The move angered many Democrats who rebuked Kotek for surrendering a majority party’s advantage won over a decade of elections.
“It’s just inexplicable and arrogant,” U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, told Politico magazine after Kotek’s move was announced.
The deal held up through Sunday, with the six-member panel holding 12 legally required hearings. Committee members proposed a total of eight different maps, with additional plans sent to the committee by the public.
But the convening of a new session is a fresh start, with prior legislation and committees erased to create a clear slate.
The session needs new rules, new committees, and new committee memberships.
After the Senate passed the maps over to the House, Kotek used her prerequisite as speaker to determine committee composition.
She cleaved the redistricting panel in two. A new committee now with four members of each party to handle the House and Senate maps.
But the congressional maps would go to a new committee of two Democrats and one Republican.
“We’ve been had,” said Rep. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, a lead negotiator for GOP on redistricting. “I don’t know if that makes me a sucker, but if it does, I’m a sucker with character.”
Kotek calmly argued that the split was needed to break up a stalemate as the Legislature headed toward the Sept. 27 deadline
“Separate committees are the only path the House now has to fulfill its responsibilities,” Kotek said.
The two panels were the best shot, Kotek said, of getting maps to the Oregon Supreme Court on time.
“No map is perfect, and this is a very complex task,” Kotek said. “Ultimately, we are bound to do our constitutional duty and the job Oregonians elected us to do.’
Both parties fired broadsides Monday and Tuesday.
Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake Oswego and House Majority Leader Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland, said the GOP had mistaken a seat at the table as a promise to accept their vision of the state’s political topography.
“Republicans were given the opportunity to engage equally in the redistricting process,” the two lawmakers wrote. “Unfortunately, they refused to engage meaningfully, showing up at the last minute with highly gerrymandered proposals and attempts to obstruct this constitutional process.
Democrats called out Republicans for using a constitutional parliamentary rule to leverage a role beyond their minority status in both chambers.
Republicans said the maneuvers were legal and had been used by Democrats in the past. They said Kotek’s move would poison future relations with Republican lawmakers whether she remains speaker or becomes governor.
“All we have here is our word. All we have here is trust,” said Drazan, the House Republican leader.
The new redistricting committees met Monday evening. The evenly-divided panel recommended the House and Senate maps on a 5-3 vote. Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, voted to send the plans to the floor, saying at least the Legislature would have a say in their future fate.
The congressional maps were approved 2-0. Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, the only Republican, refused to take part in the vote because of Kotek creating an automatic Democratic tilt to the panel.
With the plans now on the floor, the bills can only be approved or sent back to the committee. No amendments are allowed on the floor.
Republicans retain “the nuclear option” – immolating the entire process by boycotting any floor session. If they stay out of Salem until late Monday night, The Democrats’ maps are void.
The Oregon Supreme Court has already ruled that as of Sept. 28, the mapmaking moves to Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who will draw the legislative maps. The congressional plan would be put together by a five-judge panel.
The new deadline: Oct. 18
Filing for public office officially began Sept. 9. No House, Senate and U.S. House candidates can file until the district maps are finalized. Candidates have until March 8, 2022 to get into the May 20, 2022 primaries.
