Opinions in Washington D.C., according to U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, can get pretty “circular.”
The Democratic 3rd District Representative touts a relatable moderate persona, in person and on social media, where she earns criticism from both parties.
But, in a Thursday night town hall in Packwood, constituents’ questions were rooted in a variety of political viewpoints. Mainly, questions were variations of “What will you do about…?” and “Why did you vote to…?”
Among the latter was her vote against a student debt relief plan, where she crossed party lines to side with House Republicans. The vote earned Gluesenkamp Perez “vicious online trolling from the left,” the New York Times wrote in late July.
Criticisms included calling the vote hypocritical, The Oregonian previously reported, because the auto repair shop Gluesenkamp Perez co-owns with her husband in Portland, Dean’s Car Care, received a $64,000 loan during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was forgiven in April 2021.
Asked to address her opposition to the debt forgiveness plan on Thursday night, the congresswoman said tuition has risen 481% since she was born in 1988 and that “something like” 4% of people employed in higher education are graphic designers.
“The amount of money that is being spent on publishing, like, shiny magazines and recruitment efforts and advertising has really ballooned,” she said.
The congresswoman also cited a “divestment” in career and technical education, and said recent generations were raised on the idea that “if you’re not book smart, you’re not smart at all.”
She said the federal budget is a limited resource, and one that is already in a deficit. She’d rather support quality education and funding career and technical education, she said, than “pursue party favors for a limited portion of the population that has a college degree.”
She was criticized throughout an opinionated piece by Slate on Thursday, most harshly for the very same stance. Slate said she should have supported another Democrat’s efforts to waive tuition fees for four-year schools, community colleges and trade schools alike.
Several Packwood town hall attendees, though, clapped when she finished explaining her vote against debt relief.
Next, an attendee asked Gluesenkamp Perez why she voted against a bill that, per the language in House Resolution 734, would have banned people whose assigned “sex at birth was male” from participating in girl’s and women’s sports in “school athletic” programs.
The questioner said Gluesenkamp Perez’s vote against the resolution “really bothered” him.
She argued that rules around the topic of gender and sports should be left to individuals, families and local governments, not the federal government, calling the bill a “huge federal overreach.”
She and the questioner went back and forth a few times. The congresswoman’s argument, in summation, was that inequity in sports wasn’t enough to warrant “inviting the federal government into your locker rooms.”
Gluesenkamp Perez’s vote against a bill funding the VA, in line with all other Democrats in the House, was also questioned on Thursday. A few questions before, she and a local veteran went back and forth agreeing with one another on the VA’s inaccessibility, especially for East Lewis County residents whose nearest clinic is in Olympia.
The VA funding bill, according to a news release from the organization “Transgender & Diverse Veterans of America Action Group, Inc.” defunded the VA and restricted access for minorities.
Another news release sent to The Reflector, from the Congressional Leadership Fund said on the same legislation, “House Republicans passed legislation to fully fund: veterans’ benefits, veterans’ healthcare, (and) all other veterans’ programs. Notably, every House Democrat, including Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, voted against it.”
So what did Gluesenkamp Perez say? She responded to a questioner that the legislation included $168 billion less than the “agreed upon” amount.
“They were defunding the VA and calling it patriotism and calling it fiscal responsibility,” she said.
In the final question of the night, Gluesenkamp Perez was queried on electric cars and gas prices soaring in Washington. She blamed state-implemented taxes for the latter.
She said a lot of “oxygen” is given to costly environmentalism, where more money could be spent on “practical” fixes.
“I am hearing about people who use a gas-powered generator to power their Tesla in rural communities. That is just crazy pants to me,” the congresswoman said. “So (we need to be) really ensuring that we have a pragmatic approach and we are really in a fact-based reality here.”
