Posted by Jamie Jackson {OR} on 06/20/09

Just got back from speaking with Rep. Kurt Schrader, Dem., 5th CD Oregon.  It was a brief meeting due to location (outdoors at a farmer's market) with many others waiting.  We presented him with some more petitions supporting HR 1207 and mentioned that it's now supported by over 230 rep's.  He says he hasn't had time to read 1207 yet, but is generally in favor of some kind of oversight of the Fed.  He said he recently asked Rep. Frank about how the Fed seems to have so much independence and Frank shared his concerns.  Schrader says he's busy working on other things such as climate change and health care for now, and probably won't have time to get to 1207 for another month or two.

Due to being very tired I wasn't swift enough to ask him if he makes a general habit of withholding support for any bill until he's read it; that would be a good followup question IMO and I'll ask him next time I meet with him if someone else doesn't beat me to it by then. 

Michael Matthews, our state coordinator, was there with me and did most of the talking.  Additionally he got the meeting on video (thanks to another friend who was there) so we may have that available later.

 
Posted by Jamie Jackson {OR} on 08/17/09

Wow!  This time around was a completely different ball game.

Rep. Kurt Schrader held a town hall meeting at 9 this morning at a seniors center in Salem in conjunction with (Oregon state) Senator Peter Courtney and (Oregon state) Rep. Brian Clem (all Democrats).  These 3 men all are deemed to represent me, so it's certainly apt that I should be there, and I was.  The topic du jour was "health care reform".  Hmmm.

I got to the event just a few minutes before it began, and found a queue of dozens of people lined up to get in the door of the senior center.  As I took my place in the slow march, a news team from KGW TV news approached the queue to get some face-in-the-crowd interviews.  They began with a woman just behind me, asking a rather generic question, something like "what brings you out to this town hall meeting" or whatever.  My first clue that this event might not be the chorus of leftists calling for gummint health care occurred when the woman (probably in her 60s or 70s, by the sound of her voice -- I didn't turn around to look at her) replied that she was worried about the government taking over the health care industry.

Probably an exception, thought I.  Surely most of these other good folks are paid to be here, or otherwise eager for socialism.  ...WRONG.  While there certainly were plenty of those types in attendance, as the meeting (SRO in a room which holds 350) progressed, the crowd grew restless, and the majority of them were voicing our concerns:

- How will all this be paid for?

(New taxes and reducing existing inefficiencies) 

- I've watched the government grow all my life; when are you going to reduce it?

(Not right now) 

- Isn't this bill a trojan horse? 

(It is "transformational") 

- I'm a medical professional who spent 5 years helping the former Soviet Union clean up the mess which socialism made of their medical system; isn't this bill making us more of a 3rd-world country?

(This isn't leading us to socialized medicine IMO) 

And one you gotta love:

- Where does the Constitution state that health care is a right?

(Where does it say it can't be one?) 

As these questions -- and the boisterous, spontaneous crowd responses -- went on, it became obvious that the majority of the crowd was generally not only not clamoring for socialized medicine, but outright hostile and angry at the possibility.  At least it sure seemed that way from my seat near the back of the room.

There is much more than what I can put into a blog entry without maing it a tome.  The above is representative of the overall "flavor" of the event, though.  I, like most who attended, never got to speak, so no "audit the Fed" moment occurred.  However, what did occur was fascinating.  I hope a video of the entire event surfaces (and it should; there were at least 4 tripod-mounted cameras around the edges of the room the whole time), because this was one town hall I won't soon forget.  If you can get to one near you, DO IT!

 
Posted by Jamie Jackson {OR} on 09/13/09

Wow, what a day.  We hadn't had any strong idea of how many to expect at today's Salem Tea Party, but it turned out to be another one like April 15, with several thousand filling the capitol steps and Court St. and spilling onto the south end of the park.  The weather was warm and a little muggy, but the crowd was excited to be there.

I had planned to use my entire allotted time of 4 minutes for my speech, but opted to shorten it and just "hit the high notes" re: auditing the Fed, with an "altar call" at the end to bring folks over to our booth to sign petitions.  They responded!  We had 4 stations of people signing, with lines at all 4 for an hour!  Many people thanked us.  We also gave away quite a few Constitutions and many folks took fliers and info sheets about C4L and/or our issues.

Hopefully there will be some videos uploaded soon; I'll post another blog entry if I become aware of any.  (We were shorthanded at the C4L booth, so our plan of having my speech recorded by another member didn't end up happening.)

Thanks to Michael Marsh and Lynne Wadley for showing up and working the booth while I spoke and ran off to make more copies of the S.604 petitions.  Also thanks to all the organizers and sponsor organizations; it was a tremendous team effort and it came off beautifully!