Five Hundred People. Forty four minutes. Twelve questions.
Senator Jeff Merkley held a Senatorial Town Hall in Ashland, Oregon on Friday at Noon.
Here is what happened.
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| Jeff Merkley |
The event was publicized by Facebook and by emails to people in Senator Merkley's database of emails. The room was filled to capacity. There were 400 chairs facing a lectern. Another hundred people stood.
Attendees were invited to sign in: name, email address, zip code, and phone number. People were invited to take a ticket if they wished to ask a question. Numbers would be drawn at random.
At 12:04 the mayor of Ashland, Oregon John Stromberg welcomed the crowd and said it was his honor to introduce Jeff Merkley. Thirty seconds.
Senator Merkley has a look.
He dresses down. He presents as the "regular-average-guy" on a Saturday spending the day at home, doing outside chores and going out to shop at Home Depot or the Grange Co-op store. He was dressed slightly less well than the audience of mostly-seniors.
Merkley took the hand held microphone, thanked people for coming, and said it was his tradition to introduce the audience to some special person from the community and he brought forward a woman representing Ashland Food Angels, a group that gathers food from farmers, bakeries, and grocers and distributes it to local people in need. She talked for two minutes.
Senator Merkley said he was there to take questions and began immediately.
1. A woman thanked Merkley for introducing legislation to investigate the dangers of radio waves from mobile devices, a danger she said is now acute with the growth of 5G.
Senator Merkley said he was happy to introduce the legislation and said that the subject needed investigation.
2. A question/comment about the outrage of intentional family separation policies by the Trump administration.
Senator Merkley described his trip to the border to investigate--an action that had thrust him briefly into the national spotlight.
3. A question/comment in support of carbon capture and environmental action.
Senator Merkley said that government inaction on climate was the direct result of Citizens United. Climate was a bipartisan issue until the fossil fuel industry could make unlimited contributions, at which point support ended abruptly. Merkley asked the audience to inhale and hold their breaths for three seconds. The audience did. He said that the air we had taken in had increased in CO2 by 33% in his lifetime. We are changing the air we breathe, he warned, and we need to stop it.
4. A man said the USA should be an "offshore balancer."
Senator Merkley said he didn't quite understand the question, but upon clarification agreed we should be a good, reliable ally..
5. A questioner said he was a veteran and had friends killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the Democratic establishment should have supported Tulsi Gabbard when she was slandered with the meme that she was a Russian agent.
Senator Merkley said he agreed and that people in public life should avoid personal attacks.
The questioner became loud and angry. Hillary Clinton is the most powerful Democrat, he said, and she attacked Tulsi Gabbard. He said Merkley has an obligation to condemn Hillary by name, and that anything less than flat out denunciation of Hillary was unacceptable.
Merkley maintained a quiet tone and shifted to saying that the assassination of Soleimani was dangerous escalation in the Middle East and we should not have done nation building in Afghanistan and that removing Saddam was destabilizing. Merkley was generally non-committal, which was unsatisfactory to the questioner. Merkley said he did not yet know enough facts to be clear that the Soleimani assassination was flat out wrong, but that he was clear that the power to declare war was Congress'. Merkley moved on.
6. A question commented that the NSA records and analyzes every single phone call, text message, and email and does data mining of it and asked Merkley to confirm that.
Senator Merkley said he wasn't aware of the full extent but knew it was significant and then switched to saying that private companies do it as well, that facial recognition technology in public spaces was dangerous, that we saw in China how it empowered tyranny. Merkley warned that airlines had planned to put secret cameras inside every entertainment screen on every airline seat.
7. A questioner asked if the assassination of Soleimani wasn't really just a wag-the-dog diversion from impeachment.
Senator Merkley said he was adamant that this president not lead us into war.
8. Another question regarding child separation policy.
Senator Merkley said the president is now planning internment camps instead of separation, and that he had been successful in getting it slowed in the Senate. He said there are 15,000 refugee children in detention today.
9. A questioner cited Article One, Section Eight, the war power. When are you going to get your power back? The room erupted in applause.
Senator Merkley said that in 2001 Congress gave the president Authorization for the Use of Military Force in some conditions and that it turns out to be too broad. Merkley is trying to revoke the AUMF, he said. The Commander in Chief power is to execute a war, not to decide to go to war, Merkley said.
10. Andy Seles, who comments on this blog from time to time, asked a question regarding a Democratic Party policy to blacklist venders who assist in primary elections against Democratic incumbents. He objects to that.
Senator Merkley said this was an official governmental Senate Town Hall, not a campaign event, and that the question and answer was not appropriate in this setting.
11. A comment expressed concern over the national debt.
Senator Merkley said we were wiping out the debt back in 1998 to 2000, but then we had the Bush tax cuts, an unpaid war in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus unpaid for Medicare Part D, and then the 2017 tax cuts. He then said that the solution was the For the People Act, which would reaffirm real democracy in America through assuring voting access, reducing gerrymandering, and limit donor influence.
12. Another comment/question about cell phone radiation danger.
Senator Merkley reiterated that there was reason for concern and it needed study.
Conclusion, 12:48 p.m. Senator Merkley closed with a brief statement saying we needed a dramatically engaged citizenry. We needed to reduce drug prices and stop price gouging. Americans should pay no more than do people in Canada and Europe. He said the great problem to our democracy is the power of big money.Big Message: Earnest, Genuine, Low key.
Jeff Merkley is not big drama and show business. No fireworks. No memorable sound bites. No zingers. No stem-winding call to action.
He is not anti-Trump--some liberal or Democratic version of Trump. He is something entirely different from Trump, a completely asymmetric alternative. Unpretentious. A regular guy doing his job, quietly. Low affect.
It seem to work. It is Jeff Merkley's brand. Five hundred people showed up to see him.
5 comments:
500 people showed up because it's Ashland in the age of Trump.
Merkeley himself is a near non-entity. He's Robin to Wyden's Batman.
Have you forgotten his pretend presidential-feeler campaign? Oh he can put out the sound bites. Nothing resonates.
Probably the most unimpressive & predictable congressional rep from Oregon in my lifetime.
Sounds like he was out taking the pulse of his constituency, as he should, and it sounds like it was a supportive audience.
Since he is up for reelection these town halls would have a campaign overtone without being overt, as he was basically reiterating what everyone already knows about him. At this point he doesn't have any opposition to speak of...
The Senator is a solid Progressive soldier in the Senate. Reading his record one is struck by the his thoughtful consistency to promote the values that will move us towards greater social and economic justice. We need more like him.
It is a rare Senator that doesn't eye the Oval Office, and we are somewhat the lessor that he isn't a more viable candidate, but he will be a terrific sidekick for Pres. Warren!
Five hundred Jackson County voters showed up to let Merkley know we’ve got his back! In contrast, Republican Greg Walden’s last Town Hall in Eagle Point was sparsely attended with less than 50 people there. Rogue Valley residents are tired of lame duck Walden’s attempts to boast about his flimsy legacy and are more enthusiastic about hearing from a legislator with a spine and a true moral compass. Trump’s campaign has reportedly promised to spend money in Oregon and views Oregon as “in play.” Apparently Trump and his minions don’t have a pulse on the second Congressional district which is still quite “red”, but with a strong network of active resistors and supporters of politicians like Merkley. Happy Blue Year 2020!
Great report on the meeting. I could not be there, due to medical reasons and parking distance from the hall, and would have had too much trouble hearing to have gotten much out of it. I wanted to be there to support him and ask him to introduce a bill to protect the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument expansion.
Sounds like Merkley handled the heckler well. But if questioners were random picked, it is scary that the nutcases turned up more than once. There is a huge faction of the public paranoid about fringe issues like microwaves, vaccinations, and such. The anti-science crowd is growing, it seems. Saying that research is needed was a good response.
Merkley's facebook page is full of these people calling him names (surpassed maybe only by the ones on Gov Brown's page) and I agree that having his back will be important in the elections. He is a great man, and we are so lucky to have him!
Just to clarify my question to Merkley: I got to meet him personally at Jackson County Dem headquarters several weeks ago. I had asked him if he was aware that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (a PAC) was blacklisting (into perpetuity) vendors and consultants who work for candidates who challenge sitting incumbents in the primaries. He said, "I am not aware of that." I did my homework. The DSCC does, in fact, blacklist said vendors and consultants, as does the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) thus throwing a very large wet blanket on our "democratic" primaries. Why do they do this? Because they like to hold onto "proven" incumbents who are adept at dialing for dollars (from you know who) instead of having to teach novices the quid pro quo ropes. It's a vicious circle: money buys candidates, buys money and we get the best government money can buy! Don't donate to these PACs, donate to individual candidates. BTW, I was expecting Merkley to pivot; I just saw a chance to educate 400 plus people; some thanked me.
Andy Seles
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