Oregon Rep. Bonamici among electeds inexplicably locked out of U.S. Education Department
Oregon's U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat, and about 20 other Congressional Democrats gathered at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C. on Feb. 7, 2025 to meet with the acting director. Instead, they found the building locked and doors blocked by federal agents. (Photo courtesy of Rep. Bonamici's Office)
Armed officers blocked Oregon U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and other Democratic members of Congress from entering the U.S. Department of Education building on Friday morning as they sought a meeting with the agency's acting director about reports that President Donald Trump was preparing to take illegal action to abolish or dismantle the agency.
The incident, one of several examples this week of Congressmembers being barred from federal buildings, comes as Bonamici and colleagues who oversee the education department push for information. While most school funding in Oregon comes from property taxes and the state school fund, the federal department provides targeted funding for schools with students in poverty and students with disabilities, administers federal student loans and need-based grants and protects students from discrimination. About 14% of Oregon's annual education budget comes from the federal government, amounting to more than $1 billion each year.
Bonamici, a Democrat who represents Oregon's 1st Congressional District, and 95 other Democratic Congressmembers wrote to Denise Carter, acting director of the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday, requested a meeting in light of reports that Trump was preparing an executive order meant to dismantle the agency. Eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, as Trump has advocated, would require an act of Congress.
'Over the years, Democrats and Republicans have had policy differences, but this is way more than a policy difference. This is them dismantling government without the consent of the people,' Bonamici said. 'This is not normal. Nothing feels normal right now.'
She and about 20 other Democrats walked to the department on Friday, seeking that meeting. Instead, they found the building locked and doors blocked by a plainclothes administrator named Jim Hairfield, who works in the agency's security and facilities office, according to the education department website. A video filmed and shared on the social media site Bluesky by Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost, also a Democrat, shows Hairfield outside the building and several officers from the federal Department of Homeland Security behind the doors, labeled 'All Access Entrance.'
Representatives from the federal education department did not respond to emailed questions from the Capital Chronicle about who directed Hairfield or the DHS agents to block the entry, or whether it was legal to dispatch them to bar elected officials from entering the public building. Hairfield's government-issued work email listed on the department website is no longer operational.
Earlier this week, Democratic lawmakers including Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were barred from entering the U.S. Treasury building and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which Trump and his unofficial advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, have attempted to shut down.
Bonamici said she was 'still processing' the scene outside the education department several hours later.
'I honestly did not expect to be locked out when I went there this morning,' she said. 'He (Hairfield) said things like: 'You don't have a meeting,' and 'you have no business here,' which was really offensive.'
Bonamici has been in Congress for more than a decade and has oversight authority of the education department as a member of the Education and Workforce Committee and the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The decades-old mission of the U.S. Department of Education is to 'strengthen the federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.'
More than 83% of Americans — and 85% of Oregonians — have, on average in the last decade, sent their children to public schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
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