Rep. Schrier addresses public lands, voting other national issues in Leavenworth town hall

LEAVENWORTH —- U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) met with constituents at Leavenworth’s Cascade High School on Sept. 9 to answer questions about public lands, healthcare, voting, immigration and more.

“I'm glad that you all decided to come. Our office phones are busy. Like, I can tell that there's a degree of worry in the community,” said Rep. Schrier.

Prior to the town hall, Rep. Schrier said she met with tree fruit growers to discuss the Farm Bill and threats to family farms, such as labor costs and availability and supermarket exploitation.

“The Farm Bill was so good for this district in terms of research, and it was not perfect. And I'm sure there's people in here who might be unhappy with me for voting for this farm bill because it did not restore all of the food provisions that have been taken away,” said Rep. Shrier.

She also met with local stakeholders for a roundtable discussion about wildfire management, which included county officials and emergency responders.

“It seems like an overwhelming task to be able to manage all of this forest land…I will continue to push to increase the scale and the speed of forest management to hopefully prevent these catastrophic wildfires,” Rep. Schrier said.

The representative added that she has been “hounding” the Forest Service and administration to guarantee a number of acres for thinning and wood supply to mills. Rep. Schrier noted previous investments had been made to boost wildfire resilience, but were not renewed.

According to the Forest Service, the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) invested approximately $5.5 billion in the agency’s lands and programs to reduce the risk of wildland fire and restore ecosystems over the course of five years.

“Even in the best of times, the pace and the scale that we need to protect homes is almost unfathomable,” she said.

Additionally, she characterized the overuse and undermanagement of the Enchantments as “outrageous,” noting that she was in the process of drafting a letter to the Forest Service, in partnership with local stakeholders, asking for specific changes to the management process.

Voting was another major focus during the town hall discussion, including concerns about mail-in voting in the upcoming election.

“Here's what I am advising: operate as though we are under normal circumstances. When you get your ballot, do not fritter away time. Fill it out quickly and put it in a drop box,” Rep. Schrier said.

Rep. Schrier defended her vote against the SAVE America Act. Though she expressed support for showing identification for voting, she said that such requirements needed to be free, have a longer implementation timeline, and ways to ensure all voters are supported in re-registering, such as senior center residents.

“I was looking for my parents' birth certificates, and I don't know where they are…So even in my own family, we would have a problem right away. If you're a married woman who changed her name, then you would also have to produce your marriage certificate. You would have to get this all done, by the way, before this next election. The time frame is so unreasonable,” she said.

She also called for independent evaluations on a president if they are considered unfit to hold their position and an end to partisan redistricting.

“It feels like a time for, like, a nuclear disarmament treaty to happen,” she said, suggesting lines be redrawn by an independent third-party.

Rep. Schrier called out healthcare systems and AI companies for taking advantage of the American public, including insurance companies exploiting Medicare Advantage and AI companies consuming large amounts of resources for data centers. She added that basic guardrails needed to be established to ensure innovation is safe.

In regard to immigration, Rep. Schrier said her party made a mistake in pursuing comprehensive reform over securing incremental wins, such as protections for migrant farm workers, military informants and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

“I think we need to go piecemeal and not keep having this aspiration for solving everything at once…There are so many people who are living today in so much fear because we didn't get those individual pieces taken care of,” she said.