My wife and I attended a very interesting town hall meeting with Carolyn Long on Saturday, July 7, in Mossyrock (her 24th town hall, and she had two more that day). She is running for Congress in the 3rd District.
There were roughly 12 people there, and pretty much everyone participated in the conversation. Long discussed a wide variety of topics, including: trade and tariffs, cyber security, infrastructure (especially the lack of fast internet service to our rural areas), the recent tax cut (and the GOP discussion now of having to cut Social Security and Medicare to help pay for it) and immigration.
There was a question regarding her ties to the pharmaceutical industry, which I have read about in several letters in this newspaper. Her husband does work for a pharmaceutical company (but is not a top executive) and they do own a small amount of pharmaceutical stock. That certainly does not put her in the pocket of big pharma. David McDevitt owns stock in a medical device company and in two international mining companies, but that does not mean he is in the pocket of either industry.
One of the most refreshing things about the meeting for us was when she discussed her desire to bring back some civility to our public discourse and to Congress. She wants to help make Congress the deliberative body our Founding Fathers intended.
Our founders certainly disagreed on many issues, but they came together and made compromises to form our country. She is willing to talk with Democrats and Republicans to try to find solutions to problems, and she has had years of practice doing just that since her husband of 34 years is a Republican!
A man came to the town hall but left pretty early. She said she was disappointed he left because she wondered if he disagreed with something she had said. She wanted the chance to speak with him and understand his concerns.
She thinks it is important that more people participate in our democracy and is hoping if that happens, we can lessen the polarization that has intensified lately. If we talk more, we will realize that we have much in common.
We encourage everyone to attend one of Carolyn’s town halls. You can check her website www.electlong.com to find out when and where the next one will be (her calendar is under the Get Involved tab). She continues to hold them all over the district. My wife and I are certainly going to vote for Carolyn.
Frank Hackett
Onalaska
