ASTORIA, Ore. — Elias Hess wanted to stir things up.
On Saturday, more than 700 people attended a town hall event with U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and Sen. Jeff Merkley at Clatsop Community College, but only a few of them got the chance to ask the lawmakers a question.
People asked how the Democrats planned to push back against numerous recent actions by President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Among people’s concerns were the seizure of taxpayer data, the firing of thousands of federal employees and actions that threaten resources for veterans and students.
Hess was the last person to be called on.
The microphone he was handed worked intermittently, so he shouted to be heard.
“I want to challenge you,” Hess began. He said it is clear to him that many of the actions and plans by the Trump administration are troubling and potentially illegal.
“We know the details,” he said and questioned the measured response and commitment to following procedure. He asked, rhetorically, what the Republican response would have been if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had breached personal data or if President Barack Obama had made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. He called for more dramatic and definitive action from Democrats.
People screamed, cheered, clapped and drummed their feet on the bleachers as he finished, making an echoing, thundering din that briefly overwhelmed the room.
Hess wasn’t expecting quite that level of response.
“No, but I was gratified by it because it means that the message resonated,” he told KMUN afterwards.
“First, let me be clear. Bonamici and Merkley are the good ones,” he added. “They’re great … but they’re working very closely within the limitations of what historically they’ve done. And we’re past that time. No one’s following the rules. And that’s why I wanted to be dramatic in order to encourage them to think larger.”
Merkley told KMUN he has heard the kind of frustration voiced by Hess and the crowd at every community stop recently — and the level of frustration seems to be growing.
Town halls Bonamici and Merkley held in Oregon last week were packed and their offices are being flooded regularly with messages from constituents. Merkley’s office has been receiving over 2,000 calls a day. Bonamici’s office received around 6,000 emails in just one week.
In Astoria, Bonamici and Merkley pointed to the work they are doing as members of what is now the minority party in Congress to slow or impede certain actions. But, they repeated throughout the event, they need regular people across the country to speak up. They emphasized that they need to know how the government’s actions are impacting people’s lives and communities.
Merkley assured Hess that he and his colleagues are “using every tool we have and … being as ferocious as we can. And we’re asking all of you to be on the outside, speaking up and protesting and joining affinity groups because together..” He stumbled a bit and then added, “I sense that: ‘That’s not enough, Jeff. That’s not enough, Suzanne.’”
But, he said, “I’ll tell you what we’re not doing. We’re not breaking down the doors. … You don’t restore the rule of law by breaking down the doors.”
“But,” he added, “there is a moment that I am concerned about that will be the future where I will be asking all of you to come and be on the streets in (Washington, D.C.).”
That moment for major protest, in his mind, would be if the Supreme Court “fails us” in an upcoming case having to do with the separation of powers, legislative power and the authority granted to elected entities, or if the president refuses to follow a ruling by the Supreme Court, Merkley told KMUN.
These are uncharted waters, Bonamici said on Saturday.
Like Merkley, she plans to continue to use the tools and levers available to her, but this month Bonamici did something she has never done before as a member of Congress: She rallied and protested outside the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in D.C.
“And that’s something I haven’t done before,” she said during a press conference before the town hall, “because that wasn’t something that was within the role of a member of Congress, but it certainly is now — to call attention to what they’re doing, decimating these agencies.”
Josie Kero, the president of Clatsop Community College’s Associated Student Government, got to ask the first question at the town hall on Saturday. She asked the lawmakers what they were doing to lower the cost of education and safeguard and strengthen the resources available to students. She also asked what students leaders could do to help.
She didn’t feel like Bonamici and Merkley answered the last part of her question, she told KMUN later. She would have liked more information about what kinds of concrete actions she and other students could take. But she really liked Hess’ question at the end where, she said, “We got a little spicy.”
“It just goes to show how the emotion is there, you know, like students are so fearful in the community, too,” she said. “But it’s really great to have a town hall and an opportunity to speak.”