Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, repeated her compromise plan to end the federal government shutdown Wednesday evening during a telephone town hall — build the $5.7 billion wall along the southern border that President Trump has called for, while giving legal certainty to the “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors.
“Both sides have something they’re after, and my view is why not give it to them,” she said. “To marry those two ideas together is the answer to ending the shutdown.”
Herrera Beutler, who announced earlier this month that she is expecting her third child, took questions for more than an hour, addressing the shutdown, power grid, transportation and maternal mortality.
“I recognize the frustration over the shutdown, and it’s a frustration I share,” she said. “Unfortunately, both negotiating parties are digging in their heels, and it’s getting worse.”
Herrera Beutler has joined Democrats to vote for several funding packages to reopen federal agencies, despite the fact that those proposals had no provisions for the wall Trump is demanding to end the shutdown. She said she supported the funding out of concern for federal workers who aren’t receiving paychecks, and because opposing the bills would not have earned any additional leverage.
“In the real world, you still have to pay your mortgage, you still have to pay your creditors,” she said. “I don’t feel that transportation workers should be held in limbo for this, because I don’t think it gets us where we want to go. … No one ever gets further into where they want to be by holding other pieces hostage.”
Still, she defended Trump’s push for the wall, saying Democrats’ description of it as a radical idea is a recent development.
“Supporters of a wall talk about the pressing need for more security on our border, and I believe they’re right,” she said. “It’s not an outside the box idea. … It has not been controversial until recently.”
She also took several questions on a replacement Interstate 5 bridge between Washington and Oregon, criticizing Gov. Jay Inslee’s calls for the project to include light rail and possibly be funded by tolls.
Another question on transportation focused on electric cars, and she used it to promote her efforts to bolster Washington’s electrical production and protect hydropower.
“We would lose the grid power that we have now (if dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers are breached),” she said. “No one’s gonna be driving electric cars, because we can’t power them if we breach those dams.”
Meanwhile, she promoted her recently passed bill to address maternal mortality, which will mandate reviews for maternal deaths and come up with recommendations based on those findings. That’s especially important, she said in response to a question about racial disparities, in light of the fact that women of color are disproportionately likely to suffer maternal death.
Herrera Beutler also criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request that Trump delay his State of the Union address or deliver it in writing due to the shutdown.
“I was disappointed to see that Speaker Pelosi disinvited the President from the State of the Union, which is unprecedented. ...To say, ‘You can’t come,’ you lose the ability for her to call them out.”
