STATE
BlueMountainEagle.com
Oregon legislator
suggests dropping
voting age to 16
By Paris Achen
Oregon Capital Bureau
Christine Bynum, 17, can be
charged and sentenced as an adult,
drive on interstates with adults, work
and pay income tax, but she can’t vote.
Bynum, daughter of state Rep.
Janelle Bynum, D-Happy Valley, went
to the Capitol on Feb. 18 to urge legis-
lators to change that.
“If I can be tried as an adult,
why can’t I vote like an adult?” said
Bynum, who attends La Salle High
School in Milwaukie, during a press
conference Monday at the Capitol. “I
pay income tax like an adult. I drive
like an adult. I can be charged and sen-
tenced as an adult. Why is something
so important such as voting limited to
people who are our present and not our
future?”
State Sen. Shemia Fagan, D-Port-
land, has proposed legislation to
place a measure on the Oregon ballot
in November 2020 to allow 16- and
17-year-olds to vote. It could make
Oregon the first state to open up voting
to people younger than 18, Fagan said.
The proposal piggybacks on a
national movement, Vote 16 USA,
which campaigns for lowering the vot-
ing age to 16.
No states have decreased the voting
age to 16, but places such as Takoma
Park, Maryland, and Berkeley, Cali-
fornia, have allowed 16- and 17-year-
olds to participate in certain local
elections.
Fagan said she sponsored the legis-
lation because, while she was canvass-
ing for election, she encountered vot-
ers who said they wanted to decrease
the voting age.
That wasn’t long after 17 students
died in a school shooting in Parkland,
Florida, on Valentine’s Day 2018.
The shooting sparked a movement
by students, who can’t vote, for gun
policy reform.
“After the horrific shooting, the
nation … watched as that generation
stood up to the most powerful people
in the world to say enough is enough,”
Fagan said.
In 2017, Oregon legislators passed
a law that allowed those at least 16
to pre-register to vote. The law was
intended to reinforce information the
teens learn in civics classes in Oregon
schools.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
A9
Walden questions Trump’s border wall emergency
By Jayati Ramakrishnan
and Phil Wright
EO Media Group
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden’s town
hall meeting Feb. 18 in Boardman
was his first public appearance in
the area since being re-elected to
Oregon’s Congressional District
2. By noon he was in Pendleton
for a speaking appearance with
the Pendleton Rotary Club.
During the two events he
touched on immigration, energy,
the government shutdown and
more.
Wall emergency
The Republican congress-
man talked about the recent tur-
moil in Washington, D.C., as
President Donald Trump shut
down the government for 35
days over funding for a wall at
the U.S.-Mexico border. Walden
said he broke with his party on
some aspects of the shutdown,
saying he felt employees at agen-
cies, such as the Forest Service
and Department of Agriculture,
shouldn’t be suffering over a bor-
der security issue.
He said he was pleased to
see a deal to avoid another shut-
down and fund the federal gov-
ernment that included money for
55 miles of new border wall but
also money for humanitarian aid
on the border, more border agents
and to help handle the increase in
a years-long backlog of asylum
seekers.
Audience members asked
Walden how he would vote if
Congress tried to stop Trump
in his declaration of a national
emergency over the border wall.
He said he was against execu-
tive overreach and did not like it
when President Barack Obama
made that kind of end around
Congress.
“If what Trump is doing
exceeds the authority Con-
gress has given him, I’ll have a
big problem with it,” he told the
Rotary audience.
The other problem, he pointed
out, is the precedent this sets.
What happens, Walden asked,
when the next president uses
executive power to declare an
emergency?
“I wish he hadn’t done it, quite
frankly,” Walden said.
EO Media Group/Kathy Aney
"Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, speaks about former Port of Morrow
Director Gary Neal on Feb. 18 at a town hall in Boardman before giving
him an honorary plaque.
Still, Walden stopped short
of saying for certain he would
oppose Trump, and Walden
called the Trump administra-
tion’s policy of separating chil-
dren from their parents at the bor-
der “a real mistake,” but said he
too supports securing the south-
ern border.
“We see people coming for a
better life, but we also see peo-
ple coming across for human
trafficking, drug trafficking,” he
said.
But he said border control had
always been a bipartisan issue,
and cited the Secure Fence Act
of 2006, which authorized about
700 miles of fence along the
southern border. He said several
Democrats, including Oregon
Sen. Ron Wyden and then-Con-
gresswoman Darlene Hooley,
voted for that bill. Walden also
said the country needs an immi-
gration system that provides for
workforce needs and a path to
citizenship.
Changing climate
Walden also talked about his
goals for forest management and
reducing forest fires in Oregon.
An audience member in
Boardman, Steve Murray, noted
in response to the recently pro-
posed Green New Deal, Walden
had said Republicans have better
ideas on climate change.
“But on the Energy and Com-
merce Committee, you didn’t
hold any hearings on climate
change,” said Murray, who had
traveled from The Dalles to hear
Walden. “The biggest reason
we’re having forest fires isn’t
forest management — it’s cli-
mate change. Something needs to
happen.”
Walden said he agreed some-
thing needed to happen, but said
he focused more on expand-
ing the energy grid to use more
renewable energy.
“Climate change is real,” he
said, and the question is what to
do about it. He said he comes
down on the side of innovation to
provide the answers. He pointed
to the recently announced Wheat-
ridge project, which will be built
in Morrow County to combine
large-scale wind, solar and bat-
tery storage power.
“This is the kind of innovation
I’m for,” he said. “If we don’t
have the right capacity, we can’t
put renewable energy into it.”
And the U.S. has a responsi-
bility to tackle climate change.
“It should be us,” he said.
“We helped create this mess, we
should help clean it up.”
He also said while he thinks
climate change is a factor in for-
est fires, he focused on forest
management.
“Shouldn’t we try to reduce
the fuel load to cut those cata-
strophic fires?” he said.
Bob Haechrel, also from
The Dalles, said he had called
Walden’s office, wanting to
understand if there were parts of
the Green New Deal on which
he felt he could work with
Democrats.
“To your point on the Green
New Deal, it’s a resolution, not
actually implemented legisla-
tion,” Walden said. “Clearly,
there are things we can work
together on.”
But he said he was against
some components of the pro-
posed resolution.
“If the goal is to put down
the cattle industry in 10 years,
I’m not for that,” he said. “If the
goal is to put us all on high-speed
rail, I don’t think that will work
very well. I don’t want the fed-
eral government taking over that
much,” he said.
Debt and pot
The national debt reaching
$22 trillion is a concern, Walden
said, but the real problem are
programs, such as Medicare and
paying the interest on the debt as
opposed to defense spending. As
Americans, he said, “we’re going
to have to have a pretty serious
conversation” about the federal
government not funding as many
programs.
And Walden is changing
his tune on marijuana. A pro-
pane dealer in southern Ore-
gon said the government needs
to change something, Walden
said, because his clients pay in
stacks of cash. Walden said he
is not “quite there” in legalizing
cannabis, but maybe the federal
government could manage it like
alcohol.
But items, such as marijuana
gummy bears, smack of the
tobacco industry’s Joe Camel
methods to lure younger users,
he said, and if the feds did treat
marijuana like booze, states are
not going to receive federal help
with treatment programs.
Walden will return to Uma-
tilla County for a town hall at the
Eastern Oregon Trade and Event
Center, Hermiston, on March 15
at 4 p.m.
1188’s Spring Crab & Craft
Friday - Saturday, March 22nd & 23rd
Fresh crab from Astoria caught the day prior to serving
and flown in – tickets for crab need to be purchased in
advance
Tickets on sale now at the pub. They can also be
purchased over the phone at 541-575-1188.
We will have live music throughout the day, please watch
our Facebook page for more information.
Brut 26 IPA
• Craft beer, wine and spirit tastings
available throughout the day
through a variety of vendors.
• There will be a new beer release,
and new wine selections.
• We will have a separate menu
available for those that do not like
crab with a variety of items and
prices.
Check our Facebook page regularly
where we will add details over the
next couple weeks.
99483