1 week Ago By Julia Shumway
PORTLAND — Speaking to a crowded room of high school students worried about the impact of another Trump administration and adults focused on the ongoing war in Gaza, Oregon’s senior U.S. senator urged Oregonians to stay engaged with their government and keep fighting.
The town hall was the 1,101st of Wyden’s career, and he used it to answer questions and talk about his plans for the next few lame-duck weeks in the Senate. “The American people made a choice on Tuesday,” he said. “I don’t happen to agree with the choice that was made on Tuesday.
I agree with the choices that most of you are asking government to make. We can get those choices, we can get those opportunities, but it’s going to be a battle. We are going to have to mobilize in every nook and cranny of Oregon and our country.
” He spoke before an auditorium of students and Portland residents at David Douglas High School, Oregon’s largest high school and one of its most diverse. Questions alternated between the students and adults, with most students asking short, specific questions — should their undocumented friends and family be worried about deportation? What is Oregon doing for women’s reproductive health? — and most adults giving speeches about their views on the Middle Eastern conflict and preserving the Owyhee Canyonlands in eastern Oregon. Wyden, who has gone from being one of the youngest members of Congress as a 31-year-old House freshman in 1981 to one of its older and most influential members as chair of the Finance Committee, said it was important for him to hear directly from young people about their concerns.
“A lot of young people didn’t seem to vote,” he said. “Those that did said, ‘Well, I wasn’t completely sure. I really needed more information,’ and I’m having this meeting here for a reason.
We’re handing the torch off to all of you.” Pro-Palestinian advocates brandished a signs and pummeled Oregon’s senior Democratic U.S.
Sen. Ron Wyden with questions at his town hall at David Douglas High School in Portland on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024.
(Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Pro-Palestinian advocates A small group of pro-Palestinian protesters waited outside the school, brandishing signs calling for a ceasefire and calling the war in Gaza a genocide. Inside, a woman in a mask silently held up a sheet of paper with “war criminal Wyden” printed in white on a black circle, raising it higher when a man asked Wyden about antisemitism. “I’m an American Jew, and I almost didn’t make it here,” Wyden responded.
“And that’s not just having traffic on the road. My parents fled the Nazis, and not all of our family got out.” He said he never imagined something like Oct.
7, 2023, when Hamas slaughtered more than 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages, including 12 Americans. He added that he feels strongly that most Palestinians oppose Hamas, and that he will push for a ceasefire in Gaza. “What I always come back to, is I want to do my best for the Jewish mom and I want to do my best for the Palestinian mom, because they have much more in common than they have differences.
So what I’m working on, because of my committees, are approaches like a two-state solution, so that Jewish people and Palestinians can coexist and work together peacefully and raise their children peacefully.” That wasn’t enough for the protesters in the crowd, several of whom unfurled a banner that said “Stop Arming Israel” and others who continued shouting over Wyden as he answered questions. Those demonstrations have been more common at town halls over the past year and Wyden wants constituents to exercise their First Amendment rights, his staff said.
He told students who were worried about Trump’s immigration policies that they should be concerned and vigilant about what Trump and allies describe as plans for “mass deportations.” “We have to start watchdogging every step of what’s being talked about,” Wyden said. “You’ve got to tell me and your friends and speak out about it when you see that people have been abused and mistreated, which is what has been seen in the past with mass deportations.
” He said he’ll also be watching in the Senate for federal attempts to undermine access to abortion. Oregon is better off than many states, Wyden said — Oregon and Vermont do more to protect abortion access than any other states, according to the Guttmacher Institute — but some issues, including regulating medication abortion, are still handled at the federal level. Wyden told supporters of preserving the Owyhee Canyonlands that it’s not time to ask President Joe Biden to designate the area as a national monument, as Gov.
Tina Kotek and other supporters have requested , saying it needs legislation, not executive action to preserve 1 million acres of wilderness. Wyden’s latest proposal to protect the area has made it out of a Senate committee and awaits a vote by the full Senate. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
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