Author: Dennis Linthicum

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Assault Against Parents

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin thurssday, november 22, 2023, by devadmin

Ten days ago, I partnered with all of Oregon’s Republican and Independent State Senators to stop a handful of shocking bills that would undoubtably inflict harm on children and their parents. Our efforts to bring transparency, openness, and bi-partisan leadership back into the Senate chamber have been met with deep division and partisan reluctance. 

Oregon’s Senate, like most governing bodies, requires a certain number of members in attendance before transacting business. This is known as a quorum rule. Oregon’s Republican Senators are currently denying quorum in order to slow the majority party’s run-away agenda. 

Stopping the legislative process, due to a lack of quorum, is not “unconstitutional.” It is a tool, used throughout history to prevent the tyranny of the majority and protect the rights of the minority. It ought to be obvious to everyone that without this tool minority voices would be silenced.

My own reasons for denying quorum are well-thought-out and fundamentally sound. I am not violating my “constitutional duties”, rather I am exercising my fiduciary responsibilities to the best of my ability. 

Contrary to the Senate President, Majority Leader and social media pundits – there is no constitutional requirement for anyone to provide a quorum. Oregon’s newly minted Constitutional amendment, which was sponsored by Oregon’s stalwart public employee unions, specifies an additional qualification for holding office in the next term. The amendment makes no demands on today’s office-holders. Legislators are not required to succumb to political rhetoric or bombast. 

I will not bow my knee to the unlawful demands of today’s Democrat majority.

Our current impasse is due solely to Senate President Wagner’s (D-Lake Oswego) continued rejection of all reconciliation efforts by members who are denying quorum. Our minority parties’ demands are easy enough, 1) adhere to Oregon’s constitution; 2) follow Oregon’s Revised Statutes and Senate rules; and 3) fulfill the “bipartisan/open door” pledge made to Oregonians. 

Otherwise, as the news cycle races along, even liberal news outlets and social media pundits are looking for any loose threads that weaken the fabric of the Democrat party’s suffocating hold in Oregon. Shemia Fagan’s forced resignation, brought similar and potentially more illicit money scandals to the surface. Each flaming accusation about corruption, tampering, and potential money-laundering creates a foothold for others to scale the walls of power. Yet, the Senate President is holding fast to his extreme position.

Are Republican and Independent Senators (aka, “the Courageous 13”) willing to sacrifice their eligibility for their next term in office? 

The answer is easy – Yes.

The bills in question are poorly written and they were only advanced because of an allegiance to radical concepts promoted by far-left activists who thrive on bumper sticker slogans, not facts. The bills we have identified egregiously promote a regulatory boundary around healthcare without helping the truly needy. Primarily, these bill will needlessly harm parents and families, in all areas of Oregon and across all fifty states.

Do you recall the incident when the FBI put the “domestic terrorist” label on everyday concerned parents who attended their local school board meetings? These Moms and Dads got snagged via a circular chain of false accusations which were leveled by a DOJ request. The falsity of Attorney General Merrick Garland reasoning is abhorrent. By any standard, this was an intrusive, unconstitutional effort by government actors. It was the heavy hand of government interfering in free-speech rights and denying the right of citizens to petition their government for a redress of grievances. 

Today, Oregon Democrats apparently applaud these unseemly attacks against parental involvement by desiring to enshrine them into law.

HB 2002, 2003, and 2005 perfectly illustrate this problem of government intrusion into the lives of everyday citizens and parents, in particular.

While newspaper headlines claim, “Republicans walk on Abortion and Gun Bills”, this is not true. As I pointed out last week, a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is legal at every step along the journey, from conception all the way through the 3rd trimester and up to the last minute of the pre-birth moment.

The Dobb’s decision from the Supreme Court has no impact on Oregon State law. HB 2002, does not improve reproductive healthcare rights except to place an unscientific and purely political statement into Oregon Law.


HB 2002 is not primarily about reproductive health care or a woman’s right to choose.

Rather, it promotes the Biden administration’s blatant assertion that caring parents are “domestic terrorists.” HB 2002 strengthens this faulty worldview by painting parents as untrustworthy and all Dads as incestuous monsters. Within HB 2002 it becomes against the law to inform parents of any and all reproductive or gender altering care provided to their minor children. Why?

Why would the legislature deny a parent’s right to be fully informed about medical procedures that their child might be under-going? This is a bad idea and will endanger the health and safety of minor children while sowing discord between parents and their children.

Sen Golden (Ashland-D) claims, “youngsters will have serious qualified adult guidance through any of these procedures.” This begs the question, regardless of qualifications, how does some unrelated adult usurp a parent or legal guardian’s rightful place in the lineup for medical decision making? After all, these highly paid adults will simply go home while parents and their children will be forced to deal with the life-long consequences of this guidance.

Additionally, this new “law” would apply to every parent or guardian, in every circumstance, without any due process or judicial review. This amounts to a “color of law” declaration which grants the state a primordial custody interest in children and comprehensively denies that parents have any legitimate rights, obligations or concerns.

The language used in HB 2002 violates multiple facets of common-sense, legal precedent and tradition. It tramples the deeply-held religious and cultural freedoms that were enshrined at the foundation of our constitutionally federated republic.

Legal opinion also suggests that HB 2002 would result in the Legislature violating the property right of parents as expressed in ORS 109.030 (The rights and responsibilities of the parents …, are equal, and each parent is as fully entitled to the custody and control of the children …), not to mention creating conflicts with numerous other laws.

Is no one willing to question the motives for hiding medical information and facts from parents when a healthcare provider delivers gender-altering services or the termination of a pregnancy?

How did Mom and Dad become the new enemies of the state?

When the medical services are less risky, why are parents allowed any voice? Why do we require parental consent with regard to dental work, eye-glasses or the delivery of a Tylenol tablet.

What’s going on here?

This is a run-away healthcare agenda. It will raid the public treasury for decades upon decades to fund services and industry profits while needlessly damaging families and potentially providing secrecy to sex-traffickers and abusers.

This is child abuse top to bottom.

This is but one example of why I am willing to stand my ground. Oregon can do better and to that end I will continue to deny quorum.

In conclusion, tyranny is born through the abandonment of legal, traditional, and historic norms for life and livelihood.

The good news is, “Oregon’s Courageous 13” will not waver in our resolve!

We will not aid and abet the culture of corruption which has fully captured Salem. We will stand firm and let the truth ring loud and clear.

The family has historically been the primary and irreplaceable force for substantive human flourishing. HB 2002, is a flagrant, unwarranted and deliberate attack against children, their families and their parents’ Natural and Divine rights.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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Thoughts on Oregon’s Ballot Measures

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, november 22, 2023, by devadmin

This November’s General Election has a batch of proposed measures which are included on your statewide Ballot.

Ballot Measures, 111, 112, 113, and 114 are presented in the Voters’ Pamphlet without any critical analysis. The information provided is like a restaurant menus written by various maître d’s in a vain effort to tease people into the shop. Everything presented sounds like a home-baked delectable but is really a coagulated mess of costly ingredients that will be difficult to chew and harder to swallow. Not to mention the long-term digestive ailments that will plague the citizens for decades.

Today, I will provide just a quick summary of these gastronomic dishes.

For example, Measure 111, is just a bad idea that has been dressed in garnish on a silver platter. But it is only socialist tripe. Then, Measure 112, looks attractive in the dim light of history, but will have disastrous impacts on Oregon’s Criminal Justice Budgets and will eventually be a backdoor into “defunding the police.”

Measure 113 is simply an attempt to mask majority rule by over-powering the voices of the minority. It will force the minority party legislators into compliance and deny rights to engage in civil disobedience.

Lastly, Measure 114, is an unconscionable measure that will negatively warp or destroy the lives of anyone seeking avenues for self-defense. Most especially, women, racial and ethnic minorities will get caught-up in the dragnet as their rights to self-defense gets obstructed by an ungodly menagerie of expensive rules and unattainable law-enforcement requirements. The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association (OSSA) estimates that Measure 114 will cost nearly $40M annually to implement. This measure is masquerading as a crime prevention measure but instead it will effectively “defund the police.”

Please, don’t be snookered by grandiose schemes for having government solve your neighbor’s condition. Government can’t do it because, when we force state-wide power into every crevasse of an individual’s life, you will introduce more absurdities that will require more government power, more taxpayer money, and more new-fangled solutions that will never fix the original problem.

Therefore, be comfortable and rest assured knowing that your, “NO Vote,” along with some common-sense will help put a stop to the tyranny which oozes from every pore of an unaccountable bureaucratic state.

Over the next several days I will provide a more in-depth analysis of each Measure, starting with a full-fledged analysis of the disastrous wording in Measure 111.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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“If Not Conservative,  What … ??”

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin frisday, november 22, 2023, by devadmin

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has a Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), which is the premier organization for holding lawmakers accountable. The CLA produces the longest-running conservative congressional scorecard. Their state program is the only one in the nation that scores all 8,000 lawmakers in the 50 states across every policy area.

Last week I received CLA’s highest score for the Oregon Legislature. I am honored to receive the award for the “Most Conservative Legislator in Oregon.” Only 7 Oregon lawmakers earned awards from CPAC for their conservative ratings of 80% or above, while 45 Oregon Democrat party lawmakers earned CPAC’s “Coalition of the Radical Left” award for ratings of 10% or  below.

You can see their vote tally here:  Oregon Lawmaker Scorecard or download the PDF guide.

My legislative record allows you to see some of the principles that motivate my thoughts. At the most fundamental level, my voting record aligns with our Founders’ vision for this so-called American experiment.

The big-ticket item is our unalienable rights. Every individual’s right to Life, Liberty and their own just pursuits should be a sacred, undebatable, unalienable, and indefeasible right. Yet, the Left often argues that when seeking the  “common good” more importance should be given to the state than to individual people. We must never reject the idea that we have been endowed with rights that can never be stripped from us by a truly just government. Otherwise, our culture will fall prey to injustice under the guise of justice.

We all can clearly see the shortcomings arising from the false promises of the political elites. Whether they are tax and spend destructionists, defund-the-police anarchists, clean-energy hypocrites, big-government cronies, menstruating men, or drag-queen story-hour proponents their efforts will leave your family embattled in cultural turmoil, higher prices, more regulations, and fewer opportunities.

As “conservatives” we must fight for conserving and preserving the ideals of our founders’, our history, freedoms, education, logic, science, traditional values, culture and prosperity.

I appreciate you and your unfailing support for our Constitutional rights and freedoms. Thank you for standing with me as we continue our struggle to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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Made it  —  Halfway!

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin sunday, november 22, 2023, by devadmin

The 82nd Oregon Legislative Assembly has reached the halfway mark. The same party is still in control and there are still many bad bills that could very well become law. Most of these bills seem to target traditional norms and family values. They want to employ government as a moral force in place of religion, free individual agency, and the free enterprise values that have helped Oregon prosper.

My goal is to keep the information cycle alive by focusing on the principles that are at stake. Often, newsletters get tangled up in Bad Bills and Good Bills. This helps generate a lot of attention and calls for action, yet underneath it all, the majority is bankrupting the public.

There were more than 4,500 bills submitted for this session. This is too many bills to process. Legislators cannot make truly prudent decisions regarding some of these enormous policy issues with any reasonable degree of propriety or understanding. My floor speech against SB 704, the bill that seeks to set up the universal health care measure that passed last election, is an example of this. Watch my floor speech here.

I believe SB 704 sets up dominoes for a tragic chain of events that will happen in Oregon’s future because it promotes medical science data miners, which may be legitimate, but by opening those avenues for data mining, it also allows others to navigate through those data systems and create fraudulent entries. I haven’t seen anything to indicate Oregon will take care of the private health care data in its charge.

Oregon does not have a stellar track record when it comes to protecting data. For example, the Oregon Employment Department was audited three separate times, each with the recommendation to update its out-of-touch computer systems, and despite being awarded millions of dollars from the federal government to do so, the OED did not take steps to protect Oregonians’ sensitive information, making it possible for thieves to steal countless unemployment checks from hard-working Oregonians in 2020-21.

As people who care about right/wrong, good/evil, and the deliberative political process that comes with our federally constituted republic, our society needs to swiftly develop a reliance on over-arching principles that can guide our decision making, rather than allowing government to do as it pleases. We cannot afford to get trapped by our own subjective preferences. We must be willing to stand on constitutional values and principles, such as limited government, free markets, and federalism.

For example, I gave a remonstrance on the Senate floor about the corruption and lack of transparency in Oregon’s education system. Watch here.

Oregon has plenty of room for improvement in all areas of transparency and accountability, especially in education. Kids in Oregon schools are not performing well. A recent article noted Oregon school achievement scores have been “dropping at every grade and subject tested — some as much as 10 percentage points.”

The report continues, “According to the latest data, which reflects the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 44% of Oregon students tested were proficient in English language arts. About 30% were considered proficient in math and 29.5% in science. By comparison, in 2019, about 53% of Oregon students tested proficient in English, 39% in math and 37% in science.”

It’s statistics like these that shed light on why school districts don’t want to share the hard data about how their schools are performing, and it isn’t because “domestic terrorists” (or parents who care about their children’s education) will flush them out. No, they would rather hide than share the truth.

Our schools have violated their sacred duty of shaping young minds by focusing on activism instead. The government has abandoned our children on the altar of mediocrity and bureaucratic ineptitude. Changing the current education paradigm must remain a top priority and your neighborhood school is a great place to start.

One item that would have provided education freedom to students and their families is my bill, SB 706. It would allow Oregon students to attend any school in the state, opening school choice opportunities across both rural and metro areas. The bill would improve academic prospects for schoolchildren and incentivize creative ideas for innovation in educational services.

Stay tuned, as we stay in the fight and stand strong for common sense solutions for Oregonians.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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What’s up with Ballot Measure 112

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin tuesday, november 22, 2023, by devadmin

Ballot Measure 112 – Repeals language allowing slavery or involuntary servitude as criminal punishments and authorizes an Oregon court or a probation or parole agency to order alternatives to incarceration for a convicted individual.

This measure is poorly structured as a constitutional amendment and neglects the real issues surrounding criminal justice, incarceration, parole, probation and other alternative options that would be better suited to statutory changes.

  1. It relies on the emotionally powerful, but purely rhetorical, ideation for “doing away with the antiquated racist legacy of slavery in our State.”
  2. It fails to recognize differences between institutional slavery and involuntary servitude as the latter refers to the serving of time in detention or incarceration following a criminal trial.
  3. The new legal battles over mandatory sentencing, regardless of duration, will sculpt an entirely foreign landscape with regard to new, yet unimagined, definitions of “involuntary servitude.”
  4. It promotes the modern social justice or Humanist propensity for promoting criminal rights without consideration for the victim, or victims’ rights.
  5. It steps deep into the incarceration, probation, parole, and pardon quagmire without fairly addressing the details associated with criminal justice, sanctions, punishment, recompense or rehabilitation.
  6. It may eventually lead to fair wage compensation for incarcerated individuals, followed quickly by cost overruns and the eventual “defunding of police.”

Everyone knows that legalized slavery is a foul and abominable crime against humanity. The inhumane treatment and bondage of exploited human beings is universally repulsive.

We believe our nation is a uniquely indivisible melting pot. We know it is comprised of people from many cultures, races and ethnic backgrounds. We believe in the equal application of all laws, across all people, in all circumstances for the protection of their lives, their personhood, individual liberty and personal property.

Although legal forms of slavery have long been outlawed in the US, slavery still exists in many parts of the world. In fact, more people are in bondage today than at any other time in history. Widespread exploitation for illicit purposes, in countries around the world, impacts people from ethnic, religious and racial  minorities, women, children and impoverished populations.

However, none of this is because of some leftover clause in Oregon’s Constitution.

In fact, Section 34 of Oregon’s Constitution closely resembles the wording in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and nearly repeats the words in the US Constitution.

There are no legal forms of slavery anywhere in the US due to the thousands of souls who argued for abolition and the Christian ideals of human dignity. The US Civil War was thought to be the final push for ending racial prejudice, where many hundreds of thousands fought and died. Lastly, there were thousands of stalwarts who argued, preached, advocated, and secured the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US constitution.

So, the issue is not “slavery” the issue is how to handle and administer justice, for those who have been harmed by the deviant or criminal behavior of others.

The concept of justice is easy, give every person their due. In real life it is much more difficult. We have a conscientious duty to discharge justice to all parties, both the victim who deserves restitution and the criminal who may deserve some form of sanction, punishment and/or imprisonment.

As a side note, passing this responsibility to local jurisdictions, where the cost or benefit to the local community can appropriately be weighed sounds reasonable. But remember, this is a constitutional  amendment not a statutory change. Measure 112 fails to address the real, deep, and concerning details of our criminal justice system.

The proposed language by-passes justice and reform, ignores any relevant costs or benefits for victims, criminals, community and society. The suggested language delegates authority to any and all parole or pardon agencies who may “order” a sentencing alternative. This flies in the face of judicial review and oversight and begs the question, who is in charge here?

This proposal seems to be a “get out of jail” free gimmick. The proponents talk about human dignity and idly suggest that a more fair, civil and polite society will blossom after individual responsibility and accountability have been stripped from our criminal justice system.

For example, in California a thief can steal up to $950 of merchandise from any large or small business on main street without criminal repercussions. This is hardly fair to the store owners because without law and order our businesses cannot survive. Nor is this fair to the thief who is never brought to terms with their criminal actions.

The deeper issue that never gets addressed is our own individual moral agency and human consciousness. Our society requires each of us to make conscientious assessments of individual actors and their actions. There is no alternative.

Lastly, Oregon’s Criminal Justice system is in need of reform. However, this is the wrong path forward. Ballot Measure 112 would be a gross disservice to our communities and the universal concept of justice.

Therefore, I suggest a “NO VOTE” on Ballot Measure 112.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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Way-Off-Kilter

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, november 21, 2023, by devadmin

Together We Can Restore Freedom, Free Markets,
and Constitutionally Limited Government.

Let’s OPEN Oregon’s Economy NOW!

Last month’s thunderclap from Governor Brown’s pen has successfully dismantled Oregon’s commercial and industrial economy, from farm and ranch all the way to Main Street. Every municipality, un-incorporated city and wayside business district throughout Oregon has been thoroughly crushed.

All of this has been done under the guise of saving lives, but the numbers just don’t add up. CDC estimates that a range of 46,000 to 95,000 deaths occurred during the 2017–18 flu season. Based on new models and estimates COVID-19 will be less tragic than many previous strains of seasonal influenza.

The full spectrum, age bracket, death rates presented in mid-April’s CDC report shows COVID-19 results which vaporize the lock-down narrative. Among the 17,229 deaths in CDCs newly expanded “confirmed or presumed” COVID-19 categories nearly 80% of these tragic losses occurred with individuals over 65 years old. However, it is not age alone because there are other statistically relevant factors impacting the lives of these individuals.

Specifically, other chronic morbidities are more powerful predictors of impacts of COVID-19 on health. Elderly people who have chronic life-threatening morbidities, such as high blood pressure, obesity, respiratory illnesses, Type 2 diabetes and renal disease are the individuals who are more susceptible to the COVID-19 virus.

Unfortunately, Oregon’s misguided “one-size-fits-all” policy hamstrings the entire economy regardless of age, co-morbidity or any capricious designation regarding the “essential” quality of a business. Legislators, rule-makers and bureaucrats typically build exceptions and exemptions into their regulatory machinery to avoid capturing their own cronies. They are also extremely clever when it comes to choosing which portion of the private sector to tax, burden, regulate or bless as an “essential” business enterprise.

But, never forget, it is for the greater good.

It behooves officials to make their case with a nod to “science” in order to successfully persuade the public. But as time passes and our knowledge increases it is easy to see through the CDC’s faulty models and statistical rigmarole. The statisticians are now jiggering the numbers by including Influenza Like Illnesses (ILI) and COVID-19-Like Illness (CLI) to the total case and mortality counts in order to camouflage the weaknesses in their arguments.

Re-definitions of this type shouldn’t surprise anyone because in our lifetimes we have seen a constant stream of redefinitions; run-of-river hydro-power electric generation is no longer defined as “renewable energy”; Tumbler’s gender identity list for 2020 has 112 newly minted identities; a pregnant mother is only carrying a “baby” if the mom wants to allow the child to stay snug in her womb; during this “COVID crisis” shopping at some retail outlets is permitted while shopping at other retail spaces is not; outdoor activities like walking your dog, jogging, or biking in your neighborhood is permitted, but walking, jogging or biking in your local park, or the other 58% of Oregon’s millions of acres of public space is not permitted.

This top-down, one-size-fits-all mentality is more pernicious than the dreaded disease because it exterminates our humanity and shrouds our community in distrust. It fails to allow for our God-given natural freedom, our human dignity and our individual preferences.

Imagine the uncertainty business owners face while re-opening. When will they be “allowed” to open, who will set the timeframes, what are the rules for getting permission? Will plexiglass barricades be a new requirement between the public and employees? Will food servers at your favorite brew pub be required to serve your dinner and drinks cloaked in PPE (personal protective equipment)? How will businesses appropriately shun the marauding diseased that might roam through their stores?

How will businesses operating in retail, hospitality or food service re-engage their employees while complying with Oregon’s predictive scheduling requirements? Is it fair to demand 14-day advance notice for any changes to an employee’s schedule when the hoped-for customer demand may never arise?

Political economist Mark Thornton writes, “This Bust Wasn’t Caused by a Virus.” Even the WSJ reported on estimates from Stanford scientist John Ioannidis, “the U.S. fatality rate could be as low as 0.025% to 0.625% and put the upper bound at 0.05% to 1%—comparable to that of seasonal flu.”

Ioannidis added, “If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”

In Oregon, there are hundreds of thousands of people capable of putting in a full day of work while providing much needed industries, goods, services and normalcy to their communities. This is especially true for disenfranchised, impoverished or lower-middle-class employees and business owners who have been barred from work by virtue of a mis-applied “nonessential” government label. Our community, state and national economies have been entirely flatlined because of this mis-labeling naiveté.

In fact, the entire world economy is now way-off-kilter. West Texas Intermediate oil, for May delivery, plummeted to negative $40.32 per barrel. That’s right, they would pay you $40.32 to haul away a barrel of oil. The unemployed can now earn 130% of their normal working wage without working. Gone is any semblance of normalcy.

The unfortunate reality is that when 26.5 million people file for unemployment benefits nationwide and 300,000 Oregonians are furloughed, the severity of the damage to individual lives, families, and communities is incalculable.
The Constitution was written to cap, or limit, the extent of government’s responsibilities, not to expand them. Its purpose was well-understood, back when words had meaning. The meanings were known and understood without room for arbitrary changes in policy, authority or power.

Which is why it is appropriate to ask; how did the Governor gain so much unchecked power? Did past legislators who codified these statutory powers, consider the ramifications? Did they presume that only an elected official could faithfully exercise wisdom, good sense, justice and the warm feelings of humanity? Don’t all of us do that on a daily basis?

Continuing Oregon’s flawed, shut-down policy is devastating to individuals, families and businesses. New problems are already arising because of government fomented distrust within our communities. People now face isolation, financial ruin, bankruptcy, unemployment, loss of privacy, impoverishment and unwarranted fear of public spaces. As individual liberty is ravaged there will also be secondary and tertiary ramifications from psychological damage, suicide, violence and other, as yet, unperceived issues. The economic turmoil will continue for decades to come.

Now is the time to unleash the economic engines of Oregon and admit the statistical COVID-19 case curve has been flattened.

It’s long past time to visit our barbers, hairstylists, doctors, dentists, ophthalmologists, physical therapists, specialty retailers, local restaurants, brew-pubs, malls and shopping centers. Together we can bring needed rejuvenation and vitality back to Oregon’s families and businesses.

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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American Dream or Progressive Nightmare

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin thurs, november 21, 2023, by devadmin

As American citizens, we know that freedom and liberty are God-given, non-negotiable rights. We believe in the, uniquely American, ideal that all people are created equal. We believe free speech and the freedom to peaceably assemble must be protected. We believe that America is just, not unjust. Our economic system gives everyone the best chance for success and comes from our freedom to live within the risk and rewards of our independent lives and personal responsibility. America is, by far, the most tolerant and diverse society on the planet. This is true, regardless of nationality, race, creed, religion, sex, or socio-economic status. Our freedom and unity depends on our belief in these ideals, not from the state’s power to force us into living by the arbitrary dictates of the majority party.

The last four years have been extremely rancorous in Salem because of the collectivist elites who want to control and run your life. Does life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, belong only to our rulers or to people as individuals? Is the American Dream open to Oregonians? Are people free to initiate appropriate and just pursuits as individuals and families? Will the Democrat supermajority allow the citizens of Oregon to pursue human flourishing or will our individual endeavors require a license or permit with endless fees and paperwork that serve no purpose, but to generate revenue for the administrative state?

During the last two legislative sessions as the Minority Whip, I strongly encouraged the Senate Republican body to stand fast in their historic decision to drop all pretense with regard to having a bipartisan session.

It was obvious, the Democrat supermajority wanted only control – all-encompassing control. The supermajority refused discussions tailored for rural counties versus their utmost-priority– the Portland metro-area.

Republicans strove to protect the inalienable rights of our constituencies and stood together to specifically stop three destructive and unconstitutional bills. First, was a bill that would have denied the right to self-defense through unconstitutional gun regulations. Second, was a horrendous Cap & Trade greenhouse-gas taxation scheme, and last was a non-consensual mandatory vaccination and medical service regulation that would have denied schooling to any child with pre-existing medical conditions related to vaccine uptake.

We also worked to stop a fourth bill; a gross receipts sales tax disguised as an education bill that Oregonians had already defeated at the ballot box in 2016. But the Democrat supermajority ignored the voice of the people in favor of gouging taxpayers to fund their special interest friends.

You see, Democrats have enough votes to pass any legislation, without a single Republican vote; including new taxes, increases for existing taxes and fees. As the super-minority, Republicans had only one last protection against the biased and unrepresentative actions promoted by Oregon’s radical left. We denied quorum to the Senate Chamber and fled Salem on three occasions. We took this drastic measure to stop the tyranny of the majority and to protect the hard-working, law-abiding Oregonians who reside within our beautiful state and were denied their appropriate voice.

Following our actions, Governor Brown called upon Oregon State Police to give chase and issued orders to forcibly return Republican Senators to Salem so that the Democrats could pass their radical agenda. Thankfully, we were successful in our mission to represent hard-working Oregonians. These horrid infringements on our constitutionally protected liberties and inalienable rights were stopped.

Salem is out of balance and the marbled halls have been organized to preserve the powerful. Republican bills, amendments and ideas are readily dismissed, while public access and comment is limited or completely denied.

As we all know, 2020 has been a year unlike any other in Oregon’s history. The COVID-19 uncertainties, the lockdowns of schools and businesses and the subsequent permanent closings of so many small businesses within our communities. The dictatorial abolition of the right to assemble and religious freedom is un-American. It is heartbreaking to witness the struggles of everyday Oregonians desperately juggling home, work, and their children’s education. Although President Trump has provided financial support for small businesses and unemployment claims, people must be free to resume their normal lives. Already struggling businesses must have the freedom to serve their customers as they see fit and not face the fear of executive agency bureaucrats fining them into bankruptcy or forcing their closure.

Senate District 28 is clearly saying that they don’t want the riots, mayhem and violence that is erupting within the Democrat controlled metro-areas of our state. They want Senators who are willing to stand strong against the leftist indoctrination of our youth and the re-writing of our Constitution’s proud and historic legacy of – Freedom and Justice for All.

Although the imbalance in the legislature creates roadblocks, I was able to pass significant legislation which includes increasing the number of providers who would be eligible for Oregon’s Rural Medical Tax Credits; improving Oregon Tech’s standing as the west coast’s most modern technological institute; increased funding for community colleges while allowing 2-year colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees; changed arbitrary rules which would have denied access to school funding for small school districts and preserved due process for water-right holders.

My endorsement list includes:

  • Oregon Right to Life PAC
  • Oregon Firearms Federation Political Action Committee
  • Oregon Farm Bureau Federation
  • Timber Unity PAC
  • Associated Oregon Loggers
  • AG-PAC
  • Oregon Dairy Farmers Association
  • Oregonians for Food & Shelter
  • Oregonians for Medical Freedom PAC
  • Parents’ Rights in Education, PAC
  • Coalition for Healthy Oregon
  • Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs
  • Oregon Chiefs of Police Association
  • Sheriffs of Oregon

As the current incumbent and office holder for Oregon’s Senate District 28, which includes all or part of five counties – Jackson, Klamath, Lake, Deschutes and Crook – I am running for my second four-year term in this November’s General Election.

Thank you for your vigilance in defending the American Dream against the anger, riots and destruction allowed, excused and nurtured by those who deny America’s greatness and seek to destroy the unity that blossoms within the American dream.

Join me and together we will continue to fight for our traditional American values – our freedom of speech, assembly and redress; our private property rights and water rights; the right of parents to choose appropriate educational opportunities for their children; our right to consensual medicine and healthcare; the freedom to worship when and where we please, and our right to keep and bear arms without infringement.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

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Twisted

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, november 21, 2023, by devadmin

“Rome has spoken; the case is closed.” – St Augustine

Governor Kate Brown has stepped onto thin ice, again. She recently issued a mandate for masks at all indoor locations across Oregon’s 36 counties. Her statement can be seen as a clear threat, “I do not want to have to close down businesses again, like other states are now doing. If you want your local shops and restaurants to stay open, then wear a face covering when out in public.” Meaning if your business doesn’t enforce to her liking she’ll shut you down again.

Yet our role as participants in the great American experiment about Life, Liberty and our own just pursuits, or happiness, demands that we analyze, discuss and push back against unfair and abusive power plays by those engaged in policy making.

The Governor also claims that science, data and modeling guide her decision making, but we’ve seen bad modeling before. Her claim that “our hospitals could be overwhelmed by new COVID-19 cases” is 1) not a certainty and 2) doesn’t justify why there is a ridiculous demand for masks in counties with no deaths and few cases.

The governor has spoken, the case is closed.

The mask demand is galling because common masks are only 3% effective. Dr. Fauci told the public, “…in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks. Right now, there is no reason for people to be walking around with a mask. … When you are in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better … and it might even block a droplet but it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is and often there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and people keep touching their face.”

Here, Fauci lets loose that masks do little more than make people “feel” better. The Democrat majority specializes in this tradecraft with a magician’s keen sense of misdirection like gun control, cap and trade, mandatory vaccines, banning straws, plastic bags and more. ­­­

In the TSA screening line at the airport, everyone submits because they’ve been told it will make the skies safer. Yet, patting-down granny, your wife or 13-year-old won’t make America safer because these individuals never posed a threat. Millions of travelers have been treated as if they were a threat when they weren’t. The same concept holds true with masks.

In the airport example, when the TSA throws away your soda or water bottle the agents all know, without a doubt, your bottle poses no threat to the passengers, airport personnel or the airliner. They also know there are no explosive liquids present. We know too, because they simply pitch it into a garbage bin filled with other travelers confiscated stuff. If there was any serious consideration of danger, they would clear the area, bring in the robotic bomb-mobile, shut-down air service and explode the device on some out-of-the-way section of the tarmac.

It is not about safety; it is about compliance and conformity. Bureaucracies have their rules, regulations and checklists. They follow instructions and gaining compliance from you and your business is at the top of that list. The point is, we are universally treated as potential terrorists by the TSA and the same is true with the mask mandate where everyone is deemed diseased.
Instead of simply isolating and protecting the most vulnerable, i.e., the elderly with underlying health conditions, residents of nursing homes, etc., our state government is using this “crisis” to further their socialist agenda. This mask mandate forces businesses and schools to be the enforcement arm of state government without any liability protections.

Oregonians have had their businesses crushed and their lives upended not by a virus but by policy mandates spilling from our Governor. The public has been forced into compliance by the innumerable possibilities of regulatory threats to their businesses, education, travel, worship, employment and access to markets if they fail to walk the line. This threat is very real and quite serious because our state is nakedly authoritarian.

The state can selectively enforce control over a business through licensure requirements, hiring, wage limits, advance scheduling and absurdly ridiculous safety demands. In essence, business owners, across all socio-economic strata have lost their business enterprises to the iron-handed demands of the state.

This stranglehold is on more than just businesses. It has enveloped every aspect of life, family and community over the last three decades of Oregon’s march toward socialism. The COVID-19 fearmongering has made this evident.

The authors of the COVID-19 rules have placed their chief confidence in censorship, vain repetition, and the suppression of truth. In doing so, they are destroying the real interests of the people of Oregon by the grossest statistical fabrications and absurdities. These so-called policy advisors have imposed these mindless dictates upon diverse and disparate groups of people, both healthy and unhealthy alike, and in turn have wreaked havoc in every community across Oregon.

Peoples lives are harmed when they are not allowed the necessary freedom, and peace of mind, to develop as individuals to make decisions for their families, their education, their businesses, their places of worship, and for those most vulnerable within their neighborhoods. The current authoritarian system stifles the development of any sort of individuality, while keeping people constantly off balance and in a state of demeaning dependence. There is no better way to protect individuals, families, children and the elderly, than to fight for the rights of people to make their own distinct medical choices, raise their children, protect their grandparents and run their own lives. Only then, will we see progress in the real world which happens to be filled with complexities, risks and rewards.

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

 

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Sands of Despotism

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin saturday, NOVEMBER 21, 2023 by devadmin

The Governor’s emergency powers are wreaking havoc across our state. The COVID emergency is statistically over and has been over for months. The real Public Health danger in Oregon is not coming from SARS-CoV-2, it is coming from government’s overreach.

The headaches, nausea, and cold-sweats which the public is suffering from comes from fear. The Fear of Big Brother, or Karen’s, or neighborhood snitches or do-gooders who are trying to do right, but never-the-less create a very real and palpitating tension and uneasiness.

People find themselves constantly worried, not about infecting anyone, they know they do not suffer from COVID-19. They know they have immunity, natural or otherwise. Yet, they are always wondering who might demand what? Can I be normal in this store? Where’s my mask? Will I have to show my paperwork? Is a mask required for my grand-daughter? Does my teen need a vaccine card? Will I be banned from participation here, or there?These questions of self-assessment and personal review are untoward and degrading, and are frankly, unconstitutional.

Last week, on the Senate Floor, I made a motion to bring Senate Joint Resolution 23 to the floor for a vote. My motion was necessary because SJR 23 found itself aground on the sands of political despotism fortified by Oregon’s committee-centric majority party process. Yet, ensuring the protected constitutional rights and representation for the public is the legislature’s most basic responsibility. Governor Kate Brown, has engineered executive overreach and become a super-legislator who has chosen to neglect her responsibilities as outlined in the US and Oregon Constitutions.

Oregonians should have a say in how they are governed, period.

SJR 23 would have put the question to Oregon voters as to how they would like their elected representatives in the legislature to constrain or check the Governor’s power via unelected bureaucrats. SJR 23 went down to defeat with every Republican voting YES and every Democrat voting NO. Oregonians have been denied their rights to constitutional governance, once again, by the Democrat super-majority.

As background, Oregon has detailed legal procedures for addressing communicable diseases and for testing, treating, quarantining, or isolating individuals believed to pose a threat to public health.

Oregon’s existing statutes, akin to those upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court in Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), express a fundamental legislative determination that the appropriate response to serious communicable diseases was to delegate to the State Public Health Director or others the power to petition a court for an order to isolate or quarantine a person or group of persons as necessary (ORS 433.123) or use emergency administrative orders as needed (ORS 433.121).

No absurd, inconsistent, or arbitrary rule-making was ever needed. No lockdowns were necessary. No mandates for healthy people would be required; these measures have never been tried in all of human history. Lastly, no violations of the separation of powers and other provisions of the Oregon Constitutional is required to implement such safety procedures to protect the public welfare in cases of epidemics. The public’s protections have been codified in our state’s own Constitution.

Specifically, Article IV, § 1 of the Oregon Constitution provides:

  • “The legislative power of the state, except for the initiative and referendum powers reserved to the people, is vested in a Legislative Assembly, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”  No legislative powers are vested in the Governor.

Article I, § 21 of the Oregon Constitution provides:

  • “. . . nor shall any law be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution”.

Article I, § 22 provides:

  • “The operation of the laws shall never be suspended, except by the Authority of the Legislative Assembly.”

Article III, § 1 of the Oregon Constitution provides:

  • “The powers of the Government shall be divided into three separate (sic) departments,  the Legislative, the Executive, including the administrative, and the Judicial; and no person charged with official duties under one of these departments, shall exercise any of the functions of another, except as in this Constitution expressly provided.”

Now is the time for the legislature, citizens in Oregon, and citizens across these fifty United States, to focus on educating ourselves and the next generation to understand and appreciate our founding documents. Our history, traditions and constitutional form of governance gives great weight and unprecedented value to the people in order to check the power of the powerful.

As Thomas Jefferson warned,

“Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power…

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

– Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions [1798]

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

Posted on

Collateral Damage

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, NOVEMBER 21, 2023, by devadmin

In the movie, Collateral Damage, Arnold Schwarzenegger saves the day at the last minute. Aside from the bad guys, explosions, and the lustre of an action movie, there is another lesson – Don’t be fooled by kind words and false pretenses. In Oregon, businesses are being forced to submit to a miasma of safety measures for “their own good.” The result is untold collateral damage caused by grasping hands of overreach, manipulation and coercion.

The Governor’s office finds itself battering against a historical bulwark of common-sense, sound business policies, and prudent governance. Policy inconsistencies have spawned interventions which are becoming more nakedly absurd and less scientific as time progresses while reasonableness and balance have been cast-aside.

As noted in my Press Release [below], there is a perverse logic in the latest lockdown actions. For instance, last week restaurants could turn-on their state owned and licensed lottery machines, but they could not serve food.

What local Mom & Pop restaurant can afford to open their doors, keep the lights and heaters on to sell a handful of lottery tickets without welcoming diners who stop in for a meal? What statistical evidence do we have to warrant these new rules?

Ultimately, this is simply a slap in the face of the hard-working, independent entrepreneurs who have barely survived the past eleven-months’ worth of shutdowns. The New York Times has even reported hat Oregon has some of the most restrictive lockdown rules and is only one of the two states in the US where businesses are “Mostly Closed”.

Remember, Oregon has the 4th lowest death count for states within the US. Oregon’s ratio for total death count (2,031) to active case count (147,932) is 0.0137. This ratio is not significantly different from seasonal flu statistics over the past decade. Certainly, elderly patients with co-morbidities require greater protection, but it seems Oregon is more intent on managing everyone’s life not just the various sub-populations which warrant greater attention.

Should customers of a local bar be forced out onto the street at 10:00pm because of COVID regulations? Is there any science that justifies this outlandish requirement? How can 12 customers be welcome, safe, warm, and merry inside at 9:59pm then be thrown out into the cold, dark night under a blanket-edict that mandates this will be safer for the community. How are the state’s actions justified by the data? Besides, do we have any evidence that SARS-CoV-2 knows how to tell time?

A study published last November, with nearly 10 million enrolled participants from Wuhan, substantiated that asymptomatic carriers are unable to produce replication-competent virus or infect susceptible hosts. Is this study unknown in Oregon?

The study, published in Nature, confirms that if asymptomatic carriers do exist, they make up an insignificant percentage of any population (0.00029%). Given these results, one should ask why are businesses across Oregon still facing draconian fines, threats, and shutdowns for trying to keep their businesses afloat?

From my perspective, these centrally planned policy mandates are being ramped up and are not diminishing, but they are not working either. We can see this by trying to assess and quantify collateral damage which is well-hidden beneath the rhetoric of “saving lives.”

If the Governor started a campaign to “End all Traffic Fatalities”, would there be brute force mandates, county risk assessments and new flashing highway lights? Would Amazon delivery trucks be essential but not food delivery or school buses? Would Multnomah County be stuck at a speed limit of 15MPH because there are more traffic accidents in that county than elsewhere, like Sherman County?

This leads me to my final questions regarding the cultural, societal, and economic destruction that is sweeping through our counties. First, how many businesses can actually survive and thrive in this turmoil? Second, how many people, families and individuals will continue to put up with the overt regimentation and intrusions into their private, constitutionally protected concerns?

Lastly, we are endlessly told that diversity is the answer. If we truly believe this, then it is surely time we let our diverse communities, churches, schools, families, individuals, and their private enterprises have the freedom to take the precautions they feel are most appropriate and necessary, given their situation and circumstances.

As author Jeffrey Tucker explains, we can do better:

“We do not need to destroy society, lock people in their homes, tear down businesses, close schools, traumatize kids, drive people to alcoholism and drug abuse, divide society between the clean ruling class and the dirty working class, ban travel, close churches, abolish choirs, close the arts, and whip up the population into a frenzied psychological meltdown in order to deal with a new strain of a respiratory virus.”

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense… No one will!

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28