OR: Ninth Circuit: First Amendment doesn't protect senators who walked out from consequences

The First Amendment doesn’t protect state senators who walked out in protest for six weeks from losing their chance to run for reelection, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Leap Day decision is a final nail in the coffin for a handful of Republican senators who have been trying to evade a voter-approved constitutional amendment meant to discourage quorum-denying walkouts by punishing lawmakers who miss 10 or more days of work. Ten Republican senators, six of whom would have been up for reelection this year, ground the Senate to a halt for six weeks in 2023 in the longest walkout in state history.

Earlier this month, the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously rejected arguments from some of the affected senators that they should be eligible to run for reelection because the law was poorly written. Sens. Dennis Linthicum, R-Klamath Falls, and Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, pinned their hopes on the federal courts, hoping federal judges would agree that they were engaged in constitutionally protected protests by walking out.

U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken rejected their argument in December, and a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed her decision on Thursday.



https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2024/02/29/ninth-circuit-first-amendment-doesnt-protect-senators-who-walked-out-from-consequences/