Today the Daily Astorian begins the first of a series of occasional columns by longtime Oregon Congressman Les AuCoin.

To listen to Karen Minnis, the Oregon House Speaker, you’d think that she and her fellow House Republicans were the veritable voice of Oregon’s poor, elderly, and infirmed.

Minnis announced that the House Republicans are shocked – shocked! – by the pending across-the-board cut in programs for the medically needy, elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and the state police.

The Republican leader said her party wants to restore $15 million for these programs because to do otherwise would “Let people die, and that would be morally irresponsible.”

Such a lofty and, yes, tearful declaration! It’s enough to move almost anyone who cares about a compassionate Oregon.

Almost.

Before you give too much weight to those Republican crocodile tears, check the roll call vote on House Bill 5100 in last year’s fifth special session.

In the event of the defeat of Ballot Measure 28 – which was shot down in the January special election – HB 5100 imposed $310 million in across-the-board cuts, including each of the cuts the House Republicans now say they want to restore.

Now, who do you suppose voted for those cuts in the first place? Speaker Karen Minnis and most of her Republican colleagues, that’s who – the same folks who are now pretending to have located their moral responsibility.

Can you spell “chutzpa?”

These legislators remind me of the man who kills his mother and father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.

What’s really going on here is that the Republicans are running for cover now that the practical effect of their budgetary irresponsibility is becoming apparent.

When angry voters come after them in the next election, they want to say that – gol’ darn it – they tried to prevent these mean-spirited, draconian spending cuts in the worst way.

Well, they found the worst way. First, they voted to impose the cuts if Measure 28 failed. Then, they successfully campaigned to defeat Measure 28 and the revenue that would have prevented the cuts.

P.T. Barnum once said, “A sucker is born every minute.” The old carnival barker would fine himself at home in Oregon’s Republican House.

Look for Minnis and her troops to go through elaborate contortions to keep this game alive as long as they can. They’re even considering bypassing the joint Ways and Means Committee – the House-Senate panel that has jurisdiction over spending.

The effort won’t of course go further than the House – if it even goes that far. In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike are dead set against engaging in political theater. They know that instead of reopening the current biennial budget, the Legislature These legislators remind me of the man who kills his mother and father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.must tackle a budget hole of more than a billion dollars in the next biennial budget. Besides, the revenue projection for the current budget is expected to drop by up to another $300 million in March, making the House Republicans’ grandstanding even more churlish.

As one veteran lawmaker said, “Why are we having this debate about $15 million when we may have a (multi-million dollar) problem on our hands in March? Not to mention the budget predicament we face in the next biennium?”

Why? Two reasons. The first goes back to P.T. Barnum, who has become patron saint of the House GOP. The second is that Minnis and her minions are desperate for a floor vote as a fig leaf to cover their budgetary sins.

That’s why.

But of course this empty effort will not provide relief to the innocent victims of the across-the-board cuts. Their fate was sealed by the GOP-led defeat of Measure 28.

As for the anti-tax, budget-whacking House GOP, this is the bed they made for themselves. Now they have to lie in it.

Which may be the real source of those Republican tears.

Former Congressman Les AuCoin is an Ashland writer and professor of political science at Southern Oregon University.