Wyden draws Sisters crowd to start C.O. town hall swing

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., addressed a wide array of topics in questions from the public at a town hall in Sisters Monday evening, the first of his three such.meetings he’ll hold in Central Oregon this week.

“Tonight, in Deschutes County, as I have been doing all over the state, this matter is so important,” Wyden said. “I am not going to let it get swept under the rug.”

Wyden made that promise numerous times about various topics Monday.

More than 800 people packed the Sisters High School auditorium to ask questions or voice concerns about the hot-button issues of the day.

One audience member expressed concern about President Donald Trump’s possible financial ties to Russia. Wyden said one step by the president would clear up that issue.

“Given the fact that every single presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has published their tax returns for the last 40 years, it’s time for this president to do it as well,” Wyden said.

Another question focused on the president’s immigration policies. A member of the crowd said one of the things that makes the country great is how welcoming it is and wondered what Wyden or citizens could do to keep it that way.

Wyden replied that this is a nation of immigrants and that he believes the temporary travel ban from some Muslim-majority countries is unconstitutional.

At town halls across the state, Wyden said, education and health care are among the top concerns.

“There’s no part of the country that is having this many community meetings as ours,” the senator said. “The fact that citizens are doing what our Founding Fathers thought our country was all about, it makes me proud to see Oregonians doing that.”

Other issues raised by audience members during the evening included preventing the sale of federal lands, the Dakota Access Pipeline, keeping the Office on Violence Against Women, the Second Amendment, cyber-security, after-school programs and accountability for both political parties.

“At the end of the day, elected officials understand they have to accountable to the real faces they represent, or those people are going to get somebody else,” Wyden said. “It’s not rocket science.”

Wyden, who just marked 20 years in the Senate, after 15 years in the U.S. House, will again visit each Oregon county for town halls at least once this year. He will be at the Crook County High School for another town hall on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. and at the Madras Performing Arts Center on Wednesday at 10 a.m.