Town Hall today 2-3pm, Beaverton Area: Doherty, Holyle Lininger, Williamson, Burdick and Devlin

Saw this posted on OFF's facebook page just now. Really late notice But I hope some people can make it.


Legislative Town Hall with
Senators Burdick and Devlin
Representatives Doherty, Hoyle, Lininger and Williamson

Today May 9, from 2:00 to 3:00
Multnomah Arts Center
7688 SW Capitol Highway, Portland

We really need to keep on top of these Town Hall announcements!!!!

 

What, you didn't go?

I was able to make it, but got there late. The "town hall" was 1 hour long. Hoyle did NOT show up. I probably got there about 15 minutes late due to my only learning about it today.

The first 30 minutes seemed to be taken up by each of the politicians getting to talk about themselves and what they were doing in the legislature. I got there as the last few politicians were giving themselves a pat on the back. It looked like prior some members of Everytown had presented some nice, big 2'x3' framed presentations with 4 pages of Everytown releases displayed in the cases. One for each legislators. I wonder who paid for those?

The last 30 minutes were taken up by post-card submitted questions, and as much time as the legislatures wanted to take to answer and talk about themselves. There were probably about 8-10 questions asked/answered in total. More on that below, but overall it wasn't a town-hall as much as a campaign stop for the politicians to look and sound good.

Campaign finance did come up. I was simmering as they talked about the corrupting influence of outside money overtaking the system, how bad it is, and how we need to do something about it. Exactly what Bloomberg did.

As for SB941? Only a few spot statements by the politicians on "I supported gun-safety". No questions were asked or read about the bill. Of the people that seemed to be there for support from MDA/Everytown I noticed that the average demographic was strongly 65-70 retired women who appeared to be stereotypical of someone you might find in an antique store, or craft store shopping for comforter supplies. They definitely have time on their hands.

Which got me thinking: for those who have watched MDA evolve over the last 3 years: they use to support gun bans and every other gun-control measure under the sun. But they have changed their marketing to be more specific on just a handful of items. Background checks being the main one. They also changed their language. Who hasn't heard "I support the 2nd amendment, but.....". Or "no one is coming to take your guns". Each statement meant to divide and reduce the size of the opposition, or to sound less rabid.
Here's an interesting video from Stossels show about manipulation of language in politics.

My point being, how to play this against that 65-70 demographic? Maybe feed them something else to take up their idol time?
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An aside on how the town-hall was ran: The format of the town hall was 30 minutes of politicians speaking followed by 30 minutes of politicians responding to questions thru note-cards. If you wanted to ask a question, you were expected to fill out a note-card and submit it to an aid. These were rolled up to a single aid who was reading the questions. Of course, those aid's serve the politicians. The trick? Pretty obvious for those who watch politics:

• The aids get to choose which questions get read. Strike one for the voters.
• The aids get to decide how to read and ask the questions. Strike two strikes for the voters.
• The politicians get to take as much time as they want to answer the questions. Strike three.
• The voters attending are not expected, and discouraged, from speaking up or asking a followup question - Strike four

Only at the very end were people allowed about 5-10 minutes, at most, to speak directly with a legislature (the lines filled up pretty quick). This method it meant to control the town halls and avoid controversial issues, or having to defend themselves from hard questions in a public setting. And by combining two or three districts it leaves very little time for each politician to take center stated for long. But they can all claim they had a "town hall". As I said above, it was a campaign stop.

Edit: And almost forgot to ad: as I was looking for a parking spot, noticed the three (four?) parked police cars staged around the block. And inside, there were at lest three "black suits" in the back of the room watching over everyone.

 

There was an empty seat at the table. I think she might have been invited to receive on of the Everytown planks (they had an extra one at the end).

 

Possible, if they held up the card before reading it. Otherwise, it gets sorted into a stack.

As for social-security: I meant more along the lines of something that actually helps people or save lives: helping kids of domestic violence, or suicide hot-lines and such.