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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

The bit where the first vote failed because one of the senators who ended up voting in favor didn't feel comfortable being in the same room as one of the Republicans who had been hiding in Idaho to deny the senate a quorum, and who had threatened to kill Oregon State Police if they were sent to find him was kind of over the top though.

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Really? Sounds like they don't have the spine to represent their constituents properly if they're willing to let legislation fail because a colleague is making empty threats. Kinda sad that they were too uncomfortable to do their job because someone else was too insane to do their job...

She showed back up. I don't have a lot of details so we'll wait and see what shakes out. The important thing is the bill passed. There will be disciplinary hearings of some kind for the R who made the threats. Because of the walkout, everything got compressed into two final days, so I don't think they had time for that beforehand, which was unfortunate, as he certainly wasn't doing his constituents a favor with that kind of talk.

Anyway, it was pretty crazy and a real nail-biter.

Disciplinary hearings? Imagine the hearing you'd get if you publicly threatened to assassinate members of government with a specific intent of preventing the government from functioning.

In some minds, the threat that senator made is roughly equivalent to someone saying "if you come to arrest me for being gay, I will resist violently".

I'd personally blame the insane person.

Why not both?

I'm really not sure what I'd do if a coworker fled the area to avoid being compelled to do their job, threatened to murder anyone who tried to get them to do their job, then showed back up at work. It's just totally beyond the pale. But I can't really blame someone for being uncomfortable in the situation.

Imagine you're a safety inspector for a manned spacecraft launch, and know that launching today will result in everyone onboard dying. However, through bureaucratic incompetence, you do not have the ability to get this information to someone who can cancel or delay the launch. There is no backup for the position you hold, and if you fail to appear on the day of the launch the launch will be cancelled.

Is showing up to work that day doing your job?

It's not a perfect analogy, but in my opinion it fits.

Pretty generous to use an analogy where the people running away from their jobs are doing so in the interest of someone's health lol

You can't know that a threat isn't empty until it's too late.

Or you could realize a sitting state senator in the chambers of their congress literally has no means of harming them besides their fists due to the security force of the state?

How do you know they didn’t bring a gun? There’s no reason to feel safe around someone who recently made a credible murder threat.

There were rumors he wanted to bring his gun to the capitol, which is apparently legal. No, I don't think he would have actually done anything, but it's too bad he couldn't have been dealt with in a fair and calm way in order to ensure her concerns had been assuaged.

It was kind of a maddening sideshow: in normal times, he would have been reprimanded in some way, and she would have been made to feel safe, but they were in a crazy rush to finish.

> she would have been made to feel safe

Personally, I find it interesting that the focus here is on her feeling safe, and not actually being safe - because she already was.

Only with the benefit of hindsight. She did not know if she was safe then.

Her decision on whether to stay is, of course, based on her assessment of her own safety. Making it safer is one way to make her feel safer.

I wonder if you spend as much time attacking the character of representatives who flee their state and threaten to kill law enforcement as you do attacking someone who doesn't want to be in the same room as the lunatic.

A year ago the right-wing militia types took over a bird sanctuary and ended up getting in a shootout with the state police.

It's not unreasonable to feel unsafe around these people; maybe the burden of safe and civil governance should fall on the people making death threats, not someone who could reasonably consider herself the target of such violence.

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