Latest news with #JanelleBynum
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rep. Janelle Bynum calls Republican-backed tax bill ‘trash' during town hall in Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. () — U.S. Representative Janelle Bynum (D-OR) held a town hall in Portland Tuesday night, in part to rail against the Republican-backed tax bill she voted against. The public event was open to all and focused on her pushback against the policies of President Donald Trump's administration. It was the second town hall in a 10-part series this summer, taking place across Oregon's District 5. 'Lot less trash': PPB ratchets up deflection referrals The Lewis and Clark College Agnes Flanagan Chapel in Portland hosted Rep. Bynum's self-described 'Give 'Em Hell Tour' event, representing the sixth total town hall she has helmed since joining Congress. Many people at the town hall expressed worry about the future, especially when it comes to potential cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and SNAP benefits, all targeted in the piece of legislation. The , which Bynum called 'trash' at one point, recently passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives by a razor-thin margin. Nicknamed by its supporters as the 'big, beautiful bill,' it includes huge spending reductions, stricter requirements for federal aid programs, and increased border funding, among other things. The 1,000-page document also slashes billions from SNAP or food stamps. The bill is now headed to the U.S. Senate. Pokémon cards worth $1K+ stolen from game store Bynum has joined in condemning the bill. On Tuesday night, she emphasized that she voted 'no' during the reading of the bill, which went late into the overnight hours, in Washington D.C. last week. 'One of the reasons we're having these townhalls is to raise awareness and put public pressure on my Republican counterparts to not cut things that are so precious and important to Americans,' Bynum said. Bynum's constituents expressed similar disdain for the proposed law. However, others at the town hall also criticized the lawmaker for other issues, such as her stance on the Israel-Gaza war. At one point during the proceedings, a couple of people heckled Bynum for what they said was in protest of the congresswoman allegedly accepting funds from pro-Israeli groups. However, emcees at the event quickly shut down the commotion. One woman asked why Bynum voted 'yes' on the Laken Riley Act, a law aimed at cracking down on immigrants charged with certain crimes. 'What are you doing to make up for this shameful vote, protect immigrants, and protect due process?' the woman asked. Bynum will be in Albany next week, the third stop in her 'Give 'Em Hell Tour.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oregon Rep. Janelle Bynum plans 10 summer town halls as Democrats push back against Trump
U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Oregon, speaks with constituents in Silverton. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle) The first-term Democratic congresswoman in Oregon's closest congressional district plans to hold seven in-person and three telephonic town halls over the next three months in a major change from her predecessor, whose lack of meetings inspired constituents to question a cardboard cutout. Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Oregon, plans to hold meetings in big cities and small towns through Clackamas, Deschutes, Linn, Marion and Multnomah counties as part of her 'Give 'Em Hell' tour. She described it as an effort to connect with constituents of Oregon's 5th Congressional District and fight back against the Trump administration. 'Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the rest of this administration are making life more expensive, tanking our economy, and ripping away key programs that we rely on, all while dismantling the foundations of our country in the process,' Bynum said in a statement. 'We can't let that happen. I'm traveling across my district to turn up the heat on Donald Trump and Republicans — they will hear our stories and they will feel our outrage. Let's give 'em hell Oregon!' Democrats nationwide have stepped up their use of town halls following Trump's return to the White House, but Oregonians have long been accustomed to frequent in-person town halls. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley famously hold town halls in every county every year, and Wyden has won multiple awards from a grassroots national group for having more open meetings with constituents than any other U.S. senator. But Bynum's predecessor, one-term Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, deviated from that practice. Instead of public meetings in the district, she held quarterly telephonic town halls, which she defended as a more efficient way to reach all constituents. Activists in the district organized a series of events where constituents asked questions to a cardboard cutout of Chavez-DeRemer and volunteers tried to answer them based on her public statements and their own research. Bynum has held five town halls since taking office in January. Her full summer schedule, with details of most events to be announced: May 10: Sisters with Merkley 5:30 p.m., Sisters High School, 1700 W. McKinney Butte Road, Sisters, OR 97759 May 27: Portland June 2: Albany June 10: telephonic June 16: Lake Oswego June 28: Redmond July 16: telephonic July 28: Molalla Aug. 2: Silverton Aug. 4: telephonic Merkley has additional May 10 town halls scheduled in Crook and Jefferson counties, with details here. Other members of Oregon's congressional delegation haven't announced summer town halls yet, but Oregonians can find meetings as they're announced by Wyden, Democratic Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Maxine Dexter and Val Hoyle and Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz on their congressional websites. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, shares town hall information on social media and constituent newsletters. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
In rural Oregon, U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum talks health care, business and fighting back
U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Oregon, speaks with constituents in Silverton. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle) SILVERTON— U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Oregon, had a promise for the crowd of dozens she faced on a coffee shop patio Saturday afternoon: She would go wherever her constituents wanted her to be. 'There can be two of you and I will show up,' Bynum said. She had done just that earlier in the day, when only three people showed up for a roundtable discussion in Silverton about health care. Residents who attended that discussion or the larger town hall later in the day said they appreciated that their member of Congress showed up at all in a town usually bypassed by elected officials. 'I don't remember the last time that any of our other representatives, (former Democratic Rep. Kurt) Schrader or (former Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-)DeRemer ever came to Silverton,' said Karyssa Dow, a hairstylist, salon owner and 2024 Democratic candidate for state representative. 'We're really small — we're only 10,000 people — but we matter too.' The three-person roundtable discussed the lapsed contract between Regence BlueCross BlueShield and Salem Health. Teri Butler said Bynum was the first government official she had heard from who was looking into the issue. 'Your survey was the first thing that I had seen of any government entity stepping in and saying, 'We need to look at this,'' Butler said. 'I really appreciate you doing this, because somebody needs to be looking into this. Somebody needs to be asking some of the hard questions.' Bynum, a first-term Democrat who represents Oregon's 5th Congressional District, expected to talk with a dozen people. But she was unfazed by the low turnout — she recalled holding even smaller town hall meetings during her eight years as a state legislator. 'What's most important is that you show up for them,' Bynum said. 'You get the ball rolling, but you have to plant the seed.' Her visits this weekend to the Marion County cities of Silverton and Mount Angel are part of what Bynum calls the best part of her job and how she tries to spend most of her time in the district, which crosses the Cascade mountains to include Bend, part of Portland and vast expanses of farmland and mountains in between. The portion of Marion County that Bynum represents, which stretches north and east of the capital city of Salem, is full of farms growing hops, Christmas trees and fruit orchards. It leads from the Willamette Valley to the western slopes of the Cascade range, and Silverton boasts of being the gateway to Silver Falls, a popular state park where hikers can view 10 different waterfalls in a single 8-mile loop. It's also one of three counties Bynum lost in 2024 to Republican then-incumbent Chavez-DeRemer, now the nation's labor secretary. Chavez-DeRemer garnered nearly 9,000 more votes than Bynum in Marion County. As Bynum eyes a return to the campaign trail in 2026, narrowing the Republican edge in rural counties could give her a clearer path to reelection. 'I think the further away you live from Portland, the more skeptical you can be of power structures,' Bynum said. For her, the way to connect with voters in deep-blue Portland, dark-red Linn County and everywhere in between is to focus on the personal. Many of her conversations focus on what constituents want for their kids and grandchildren, like the talk about health care issues. Regence is Oregon's largest private health insurer, with about 30,000 customers in Marion and Polk counties. Salem Health operates the only hospital in Salem, a hospital in Dallas, urgent care centers, clinics and other medical offices. While the Santiam Hospital & Clinics are still working with Regence, Butler said many of the employees she works with as a human resources manager at Freres Lumber Co. have long used Salem Heath because of its proximity and doctors' specialties. Now, Butler said, one employee who needs knee surgery and has a pacemaker has to choose between paying out-of-network at Salem Health or driving to Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. And she's worried about her 87-year-old mother, who still drives to Salem for doctor's visits. Ellen Wilt, a retired federal wildlife biologist who now runs an organic farm in Sublimity with her husband, Greg, said she gave up the doctors who treated her for years and now plans to drive to Portland for care because of the insurance issue. 'The orthopedic surgeons and doctors that I've been working with for years are at Salem Health,' Wilt said. 'The guy that fused my foot bones and the guy who fixed my rotator cuff, I'm not going to them anymore.' Bynum said she learned from the roundtable and her survey that she needed to highlight the issue for Gov. Tina Kotek and the Oregon Health Authority. 'What I've found over the eight years of being a legislator is that people will default to this statement that says 'I don't have the authority to do that,'' she said. 'I reject that. I take care of my people. I don't care what authority I have or don't have; I need to find somebody with the authority to fix this.' In Mount Angel, a city of about 3,600 settled by Bavarian immigrants, Bynum and her staff lunched on locally made sausages at the Mount Angel Sausage Company under a patio cover owner Jim Hoke said was funded by the federal Inflation Reduction Act. Hoke and his wife, Robin, operate a restaurant, country store and sausage factory. Hoke was interested in his similarities with Bynum, who owns four McDonald's restaurants in the Portland area with her husband, Mark. Hoke described himself as a blue-collar high school dropout who learned management skills on oil fields in Montana before getting into the restaurant business. In the food industry, Hoke said, he subscribes to basketball star Michael Jordan's famous political quote: 'Republicans buy sneakers, too.' 'We're kind of Switzerland,' he said. 'We don't discuss a lot of politics.' Back in Silverton after lunch, Bynum met a fired-up crowd ready to protest on the patio of a coffee shop overlooking Silver Creek. The event, billed as 'Brews with Bynum,' was meant to be a set of low-key conversations with Bynum and constituents. Instead, she stood on the patio, surrounded by dozens of people and fielding pointed questions about why congressional Democrats aren't responding to the Trump administration with the urgency their voters want. They asked why she voted for the Laken Riley Act, a law that requires the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants charged with crimes including theft, assaulting a police officer and drunken driving. 'This is not fighting,' declared one woman who left before the event ended. 'This is not putting your body on the line. This is business as usual.' Bynum rejected that, saying she and other Democrats are pushing hard against the Trump administration. 'Democrats are fighting in the courts, fighting in the streets and fighting in our community,' Bynum said. 'That's my strategy and that's why I'm here today. I don't know how much you saw Lori (Chavez-)DeRemer. I don't think she ever did an in-person event like this.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oregon Democrats take fired federal workers to Trump address, warn cuts will make fires worse
U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, left, brought fired U.S. Forest Service field ranger Liz Crandall as her guest for President Donald Trump's address to Congress. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum's office) Liz Crandall was supposed to spend Tuesday renewing the wilderness first responder certification she needed as a field ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. Instead, Crandall is in Washington, D.C., as U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum's guest to President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress, where she'll face the man whose administration fired her and thousands of other federal workers. Crandall and more than a dozen colleagues abruptly lost their jobs at the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District in the Deschutes National Forest in mid-February when the White House's Department of Government Efficiency fired probationary employees across government agencies. 'Liz is a dedicated public servant and played a key role in public safety,' Bynum said during a call with Oregon reporters Tuesday. 'Her firing benefits no one, and it certainly doesn't lower costs or create jobs or improve quality of life.' Her decision to bring Crandall as her guest to Trump's first address to Congress is in line with other Democrats in Oregon and around the country, who are using the event to highlight Trump and special government employee Elon Musk's cuts to the federal workforce and federal programs. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, both Oregon Democrats, will also bring federal workers as guests. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Oregon, will show up with a local firefighter to highlight cuts to wildfire mitigation programs and the federal agencies that work with state and local firefighters to extinguish blazes. And Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, is skipping the speech entirely. Instead, he'll host a virtual town hall, livestreamed on Facebook, for Oregon residents. 'I always think it's important to remember that there is a human face behind every policy that we make, and I would hope that it's hard for the president to look someone in the eye that he directed that their job be terminated through no fault of their own,' Bynum said. 'And I would hope that by bringing her forth and bringing the stories that she's carrying forth, that those people would have their jobs reinstated.' Crandall has worked for the U.S. Forest Service for nine years, mostly as a seasonal employee, before landing a full-time job in 2023. Most federal employees are on probationary contracts during their first year or two at a full-time job, before they gain the full protections of civil service employment. If she hadn't been fired, she said she would be spending the early spring working on prescribed burns and keeping the public from burn sites. She also would be training for summer firefighting work, including taking an annual test that involves carrying a heavy backpack on a trek through the forest. 'We must come together as a united nation to protect our federal workers, who consist of your neighbors, your family, your friends, or just local community members,' Crandall said. 'In doing so, we are protecting our communities and our public lands, which boast our history, natural beauty and draw visitors from around the world and around the country.' Merkley's guest, Isabella Isaksen, is a U.S. Army veteran and Olympic pentathlete who worked as a public information officer for the Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grassland before her sudden firing. 'Let's be clear: workers like Isabella aren't fraud, government waste, or numbers on a spreadsheet,' Merkley said in a statement. 'They're real people performing essential everyday duties in our communities. Isabella agreed to bear witness to this speech with me, as she and thousands of other public servants across this nation deserve an explanation for why they were illegally fired without any consideration to the immense expertise, value and economic benefits they bring to our communities.' Dexter, a Democrat who represents the 3rd Congressional District that stretches from Portland to Hood River, will bring Alan Ferschweiler, legislative director of the Oregon State Firefighters Council. Ferschweiler told the Capital Chronicle that many of the federal employees who lost their jobs held the incident qualification card, or red card, that serves as an interagency certification for fighting fires. Firefighters from federal, state and local agencies and rural fire service districts work together to combat blazes, and those federal employees are crucial to keeping small fires from growing bigger. 'The main issue is trying to keep them small with the workforce that's out there, and then supporting us as they do get bigger,' Ferschweiler said. 'We work hand in hand with all the agencies federally to be able to help suppress them, either on the line or through logistics, and it's a big cut, especially to Oregon, to the potential wildfires that's coming up.' Oregon's congressional delegation has signed onto multiple letters urging federal bureaucrats to restore fire positions and funding for mitigation, and Gov. Tina Kotek personally urged the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support Oregon's fire efforts during a meeting at the White House last month. But so far, Dexter said, their pleas aren't being heard. 'It really is clear that there is nothing efficient about letting our communities burn, which is effectively what they are signing us up for,' Dexter said. 'We have had increasingly intense and prolonged wildfire seasons, and it is 100% putting lives at stake in the name of politics.' Bonamici will bring Arielle Kane, a maternal health policy analyst who was fired from her job at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Firing her blocks work that saves lives of mothers and babies, Bonamici said in a statement. 'I'm not here to say everything is perfect in the U.S. health care system, but when you fire the people working on making it better, you aren't going to fix anything,' Kane added. 'Maternal health outcomes in the U.S. are the worst among high-income countries and gutting the team that's working to improve outcomes at lower costs won't make them any better.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats Voting for Trump's Immigration Policy Should Be Ashamed, Says Portland City Councilor Angelita Morillo
Mary Matthews, Gal Pal Productions On a recent weeknight, I got home from work after a long day as a member of Portland's City Council. At 28, I'm one of the youngest councilors in Portland's history. I came from grassroots organizing, anti-hunger policy work, and I'm the first city councilor to have experienced homelessness. I am also the only immigrant currently serving. Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take Between everything happening at the federal and local level, it was a hard week. I put on my sweats, kissed my cat, turned on the fairy lights, and laid on the couch to doomscroll (as is my tradition). That's when I saw a video from Attorney Martinez, an immigration attorney who has more than 2 million followers on TikTok, about the Laken Riley Act. The bill would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to detain and deport undocumented immigrants accused of a crime before they've had a trial. Out of curiosity I looked up how my representatives voted. I assumed, as most did, that I shouldn't even have to check: The one Republican representing Oregon would vote in favor and all the Democrats would vote no. Right? Wrong! A junior Democrat, Janelle Bynum, whose seat we had worked tirelessly to flip from red to blue, had voted in favor of the bill that would strip undocumented immigrants of due process and increase racial profiling. My jaw dropped. In response I made a TikTok informing Oregonians about how their newly elected Democrat had failed immigrants. That video went viral. Seemingly countless comments flooded in from constituents who'd been unaware of Bynum's vote. Some of these people said they had written letters for her campaign and knocked on doors to get out the vote. They did everything 'good Democrats' are supposed to do, only to end up with a representative who voted similarly to her Republican predecessor. From Janelle Bynum to John Fetterman, Democrats are suffering from an identity crisis. Too many members of our party are guided only by feckless centrism and an allegiance to norms and bipartisanship that cannot withstand the rise of fascism in the United States. In response to my video, I received an influx of praise from Oregonians, grateful to anyone for speaking out. I also received backlash from well-connected party insiders and politicians, displeased that I wasn't 'holding the party line.' To the old guard, 'holding the line' means massaging the egos of powerful people within your party, even when they vote to harm vulnerable communities. These politicos finger wag at young leftists, and insist our leaders allow us to sacrifice certain communities to keep their seats, even as our institutions crumble before us. With fascism on the rise, Democrats need a new vision for holding the line. Say goodbye to decorum as usual. Democrats are accustomed to doing things by the book, legally and performatively. For fear of coming off as too hardline or unreasonable, the party capitulates to the status quo even as the status quo hurtles us toward authoritarianism. An unelected billionaire performed what many of us understood to be a Nazi salute on the world's highest stage. The veneer of civility has been stripped away. Republicans aren't following the rules; they're wielding raw power to overwhelm any obstacle in their way — and Democrats need to match them in approach. Democrats love following rules. So let's encourage the party to use them to their advantage! This is the time to wield every parliamentary tool possible. Just a single 'no' vote can hamstring the Senate's fast-track approval process. Grind the Senate to a halt with quorum calls. Block unanimous consent. Filibuster till you fall asleep standing up. The right-wing agenda is intended to inflict harm; Democrats need to do everything they can to slow it down. Senators, pause your book talks. Cancel dinner plans. You were elected to serve your country and the stakes are as high as they get. Take the same energy and force you leveraged against student protesters who were begging for an end to genocide in Gaza and use it against Trump's cronies as they take over the US Treasury and the Department of Education. When South Korea's President Yoon tried to institute martial law, lawmakers in that country scaled walls and fought soldiers. Follow suit. Chain the doors. Chain yourselves to the doors. Physically obstruct them in every way possible. The party has to stop endlessly dissecting messaging and start fighting for the working class. To address messaging without addressing the material needs of ordinary people is to create a marketing campaign without a product. It is no longer enough to say, 'The other side is really bad, so vote for us because we're slightly less bad.' Democrats have to produce a vision for a better world that does not include capitulating to the whims of billionaires and tech oligarchs. Give people hope, and then prove to them that hope is not misplaced. After taking a stand, I've been asked if I'm worried about my career prospects. But I didn't run for city council as a stepping stone to the next big thing. I thought this was the right place for me to be at this moment in history. Questions about career prospects reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're experiencing. Taking cautious votes to save your seat in two years assumes we'll still have a democracy in which to run if we don't take a stand now. I'm under no such illusions. Democrats need to put everything on the line to protect that future. Speaking out has shown me that I won't be in this fight alone. Thank you for giving me courage. If you'll be brave, I will be brave too. Editor's note: In an email to Teen Vogue, Rep. Bynum's spokesperson Koray Rosati said, 'Rep. Bynum is focused on passing legislation aimed at reducing costs, growing jobs for the next generation, improving her constituents quality of life, and winning back the House. Anything outside of that is a distraction from the work HER constituents sent her to DC to do. Follow her lead.' Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue Want more Teen Vogue immigration coverage? The School Shooting That History Forgot I Was Kidnapped After Coming to the U.S. Seeking Asylum Ronald Reagan Sucked, Actually The White Supremacist 'Great Replacement Theory' Has Deep Roots
