Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley held his 32nd town hall of the year on Friday, Aug. 2, when he spoke with constituents in the auditorium of the Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
Since taking office in 2009, Merkley has kept his promise to hold an open town hall for each of Oregon’s 36 counties every year. “Over the course of the more than 570 town halls I’ve held since Oregonians sent me to the Senate, I’ve seen how these events provide respectful, safe spaces for people to express their unique points of view during these often-divisive times,” Merkley said.
Topics brought up by those attending the Newport town hall covered everything from local, state, national and international issues.
One person asked Merkley about the lack of progress on the construction of a new Big Creek Dam in Newport. “Why is it taking so long, and what can you do to get it done before it breaks and floods everything, and what can we do to help that process?” she asked.
Merkley said he was able to help get $60 million in federal funding allocated for that project. “That’s step one. Now we’re trying to raise the money to tackle it. The money in the Infrastructure Bill is wildly oversubscribed by dam projects across the country, so federal money is hard to get for it, but we’re trying.”
Another person asked how Lincoln County might access more homeless emergency shelter funding, as well as outreach in local homeless encampments.
“One of the best ways is through community-initiated projects,” Merkley said. “I’ve gotten funds for different shelter projects all over the state. The main funds come from the federal government through the state, and that means advocating for elected state members.”
On a topic of national concern, Merkley was asked about the crisis on the U.S. southern border. “A lot of our policies for people coming here, especially for people seeking asylum, are critically inhumane,” one person said. “What are you doing, and what can you do to make that better?”
Merkley replied, “We need to have rule of law on the border, and one thing that has happened with the internet is word has gotten out around the world that if you come to the border and you say the word ‘asylum’ that it will trigger certain rights. These were designed to accommodate a small number of folks who were victims of torture or other things, but not a massive inflow from all those who say we want to immigrate to the U.S. outside of the normal immigration laws of the U.S. So we have a challenge.”
Merkley said the U.S. needs to have a humane, accommodating structure for people who are truly fleeing political persecution or torture or risk of life, “but we cannot have an open border where people think if you say the word asylum you get free entry into the United States,” he said.
“It’s very broken, the structure, right now, and in order to restore it, we have to have a lot of funding,” added Merkley. “It is a huge frustration. A few months ago we had a bipartisan agreement on a massive investment in asylum judges, border security, intercepting fentanyl, a whole host of pieces of the puzzle, and a candidate for the highest federal office said to members of his party, ‘Bail out and vote against it because I don’t want anything to pass before November,’ and so it died. It’s become a political football instead of common sense solutions.”
On the international scene, one person asked about the possibility of a war with Iran. “You are a U.S. senator. You have the pulse of what is going on there, and what I want to know what we can do, as U.S. citizens, to prevent more bloodshed. What’s going on in Iran can only mean devastation for us all.”
Merkley said it all centers on the animosity between the Israelis and Palestinians. “I believe that the only way to break the cycle of hate and violence is to have two states for two people. That means the U.S. needs to back a Palestinian state,” he said. There is a plan the administration has been working on to try to persuade Israel to be part of the coalition that will support the Palestinian state, he said. “The odds of this are extremely small, but this is the slim possibility that maybe we can create the structure that we do not see this continuous animosity. Out of every conflict, you draw a new generation that hates each other. I’m hoping we can break this cycle of war and hate. It’s going to matter a whole lot what happens in the November election, and it’s also going to matter a whole lot what happens in terms of day-to-day events right now.”
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