PORT ANGELES—The standing room crowd that packed Rep. Emily Randall’s Town Hall meeting here, Sat. March 15, erupted in boos when the Democratic lawmaker denounced the “betrayal” by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and other Democrats in voting with Republicans to approve a Continuing Resolution to avert a Federal shutdown.
“The last twenty-four hours have been some of the most challenging,” she told the crowd of 482 voters in a theater at Peninsula College in Port Angeles. “The impact of the continued cuts, especially to Medicaid, the overwhelming sense of being let down, of betrayal…” The crowd roared.
This was the fourth Town Hall since Randall, elected in a landslide last Nov. 5, returned from Washington D.C. All of these report-back meetings have been jampacked with angry voters demanding that the Democrats do more to fight back against the Trump-MAGA rightwing steamroller, thousands of Federal workers fired, vital services terminated.
Randall’s Town Hall in Tacoma was packed with a standing room crowd. She then drove that same day to Bremerton and spoke to a cheering crowd at one of the largest meeting halls in the U.S. at a naval shipyard city where her father worked as a union shipbuilder. So many were unable to get into the hall, it was emptied, filled again, and she spoke a second time.
The overflow crowds at Randall’s Town Hall meetings have been replicated in similar outpourings at Democratic Town Halls across the nation. By contrast, Republican leadership ordered servile GOP lawmakers not to appear at any Town Hall meetings.
The order came after angry hecklers recently confronted Republican lawmaker, Chuck Edwards, at a Town Hall in Asheville, N.C. War veteran, Sam Bingham stood face to face with Edwards, poked his finger in Edwards face and denounced him for cow-towing to cutbacks in the Veterans Administration ordered by billionaire Elon Musk and his DOGE. The crowd cheered. Private security agents physically ejected some of those booing Edwards. Trump sneered that the disrupters were “paid troublemakers.”
Randall, wearing her signature denim jacket, denounced President Donald Trump’s “gutting of Federal agencies from inside….eroding government from inside, destroying the sense of democracy. I am deeply concerned about the attacks on civil rights, voting rights, Medicaid. We must lift up the real stories of the impact of these cuts.”
She was bombarded with questions from the floor. One woman told the crowd she is 67, this her first political meeting. “I am not sleeping at night,” she said. “I see what is happening. I see what we are losing.”
Later, a mother told the meeting her son is autistic, will never be able to hold a job, earn enough to own a home, pay for healthcare, marry, have children. He is totally dependent on Medicaid, and now fearful of the “removal of programs that so clearly serve the needs of my son. What can I do as a parent? What can I do?”
Said she understood
Randall told the woman that she understands this crisis from personal experience. Her sister, Olivia, was born with severe disabilities. Finally after 18 years, the family received access to newly expanded Medicaid, a lifeline for the family.
She pledged to keep fighting back demanding full funding of Medicaid.
“The Republicans talk about ‘fraud.’ That is how they like to talk about Medicaid.” But the federal government handled two million cases of Medicaid in a recent year and found 42 cases of fraud.
Randall replied, “This is unlike anything we have faced before. It is terrifying.”
She said the House Democratic Caucus has been meeting, struggling behind the scenes to convince every Democrat and a handful of Republicans to unite and fight to stop the Trump-Musk juggernaut. “There is not one way that is going to get us out of this terrifying experience, to survive the next two years.”
Another questioner said his father was a U.S. soldier who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the main battle on the western front during World War II against the Nazis. He pointed out that ninety-three years ago, was the 53rd day of Hitler’s takeover of Germany. That is how long it took Hitler to destroy German democracy. “The German people largely stood by silently,” he said. “Yesterday was Trump’s 53rd day…” The crowd burst into applause again at this warning of the fascist danger facing the American people. “We need to awake the public, mobilize the public not just convince your fellow lawmakers…”
Randall nodded in agreement. “It is the collective power of the people that is going to deliver us.” She urged the crowd to reach out, convince family, neighbors and friends to telephone or email her office and the offices of her colleagues demanding that they stand up against Trump and the MAGA Republicans.
She blasted Trump’s executive order terminating funds for any program to implement “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or DEI. “Jobs are being terminated that have nothing to do with DEI,” she said, and these mass firings undermine the ability of healthcare workers, firefighters, researchers, inspectors, food, drug, and safety code enforcers, to protect the lives and health of the public.
She urged the crowd to fightback against Trump’s war on immigrants. “Know your rights,” she said. “If you are in touch with people who have reason to be nervous, there are things you can do to protect them. Please get in touch with our office…”
A young man asked, “How are you appealing to the working class?”
Again, she cited her own background, her father a union shipyard worker, her mother of working-class Mexican heritage.
The Democratic Caucus is holding meetings with non-profit civil rights and civil liberties groups, with unions that represent fired federal workers, to share ideas on fightback. She cited the Progressive Caucus co-chaired by her Washington State colleague, Pramila Jayapal.
The Republicans and a few Democrats, she said, claim that “opposition to the Budget Resolution is ‘far left.’ When so many people are against it, it is no longer ‘far left.’” She added that “the billionaires are getting a better deal than we are.” The crowd again erupted in cheers and applause.
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