End Oregon Legislature’s Perpetual Emergency

Oregon- No Fake Emergencies Ballot Initiative:

The Oregon Constitution allows citizens to circulate petitions and refer legislation to a vote of the people. That’s true unless lawmakers declare in the bill that its subject is so important it should be considered an emergency and go into effect immediately. Then, all referral attempts are off.

That makes the emergency clause a great way to quell dissent, and lawmakers have not hesitated to use it that way in recent years — about half of all bills introduced in 2015 bore emergency clauses — though sometimes it’s difficult to see why. This year, too, they had a field day with so-called emergencies.

There are, of course, exceptions, and they make sense. In the case of what the constitution calls “catastrophic” emergencies, including such things as acts of terrorism and earthquakes, emergency clauses are appropriate, and bills passed as a result would be exempt from the change. Lawmakers already are barred from declaring emergencies in measures dealing with taxation. That would not change.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/opinion/editorials/4191250-151/editorial-end-legislatures-perpetual-emergency