In this heated political/governmental time, though far still from the next major elections (in the Northwest anyway), you wouldn't ordinarily expect an unusual amount of activity putting elected officials in front of groups of constituents.
An unusual amount of it does seem to be happening, though. In Oregon, and among Democrats, notably.
Some of this has long been institutionalized, especially by the two U.S. senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who have been working through their tours of all the counties, as they have for years.
But the U.S. representatives (including Republican Cliff Bentz) have been visiting counties more rigorously than usual this year, sometimes along with the senators.
For members of Congress or governors to do something like this isn't far outside the norm. But others have begun doing it too.
Secretary of State Tobias Read has been undertaking a tour of counties, and especially their election offices.
And new Attorney General Dan Rayfield has started to do some of the same thing.
On Tuesday, his office "announced plans for a town hall series to connect with Oregonians in communities across the state. The "Safeguarding Oregon: Federal Oversight Forums" will launch in April."
The first three, running in April and early May, are planned for Eugene, Portland, and Bend, with others expected in the months to come.
Ordinarily, such event from an attorney general might seems like a non-starters. This is a guy most people expect to be in court (or supervising those who are), not out developing policy with the general public. But in fact, in this time of already-large and prospectively larger conflict with the Trump Administration, such events make perfect sense. People have a lot of questions, and the answers to some of them involve legal analysis. And the solutions often may have to do with legal action.
One of the major problems we have these days in serving as active citizens governing ourselves through elected officials is the information conundrum: Too much bad or false info0rmation and not enough that's really useful. Town hall meetings between constituents and officials are one way to cut out sometimes counterproductive middlemen (said as someone who sometimes fills that role).
More town halls? Bring em on.
(image)