The simple solution

The whole business of the Oregon Legislature being paralyzed because Republicans are boycotting is ridiculous. There's a simple solution, long overdue: Change the rules so that a quorum for doing business is half those entitled to vote plus one – not two thirds. Oregon is one of only a few states with a two-thirds quorum rule, and it's a relic of the bygone days when Republicans were being reasonable. It isn't working, and isn't likely to work any time soon. It's basically saying "Let's not have a legislature."

What's especially absurd is that we've been going through this for several years now. And in response, Oregon voters passed one of our jiffy ballot measures, which disqualifies any legislators who boycott from running for their offices again. Unfortunately, the measure was drafted by bad poets, and its language is so unclear that now everybody's arguing about when the disqualification would take effect – the boycotter's next term in office, or the one after that. And the constitutionality of the whole idea of disqualification, whenever effective, isn't exactly settled, either.

But to me, the biggest flaw in the ballot measure is that disqualifying these birds isn't much of a disincentive to acting up. By getting kicked out of the legislature, they lose a gig that doesn't pay squat and takes up an enormous amount of time that they could spend mowing hay or skeet shooting or selling used cars or watching Fox News or playing golf or whatever the heck it is that a person does as a Republican. It probably doesn't take too many commutes back and forth to Salem before the smarter ones want to be bounced.

Of course, to change the quorum, you first have to have a quorum, and so there's no way for the Democrats to get this rule changed on the floors of the legislative houses at the moment. I guess it will take another ballot measure, in which case let's get on with it. Just please, get somebody with a clue to draft it this time.