Eastern Washington’s freshman Representative to the U.S. Congress Michael Baumgartner held a somewhat infamous town hall at the Cowles Auditorium at Whitworth University last Monday, March 17th. He deserves some credit for appearing in person at a town hall. Many other Republican congresspeople are either avoiding town halls entirely or withdrawing to “telephone town halls” where constituents with tough, probing questions can be avoided by curation and critical audience response cannot be heard.
Saturday and Sunday, March 22 and 23 the Spokesman, to its credit, published a total of a page and a half of letters from writers, most of whom attended the event at Whitworth in person. As you read the letters copied below, remember that these writers were the folks later characterized and dismissed by Baumgartner on a talk radio interview as “unhinged lunatics”. I believe these letters deserve a wider airing than the Spokesman opinion page provides.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
Our representative at the crisis
Michael Baumgartner was courageous and maintained his composure in the face of a hostile audience at his Monday town hall at Whitworth University. A more eloquent and nimbler public speaker might have found a way early on to let out some pressure: acknowledge the depth and sincerity of the emotions in the room or to emphasize a shared concern over the DOGE sledgehammers and Executive overreach. The questions were good, the Whitworth students doing particularly well.
But if the questions were pitches, Baumgartner whiffed every time, bringing his bat back to narrate some personal history or what-abouting over some failing of Biden or reminding the audience that he and Trump had won their elections, while the ball went over the plate. So, emotions were vented, the evening went nowhere, and we all left in our individual huffs.
Still, I hope liberals will not give up on our representative but remember that he is our point of contact in our country's drama. On Monday, Baumgartner said, "You have a perception that America is spiraling to some kind of constitutional crisis." Maybe he will join us in that perception.
William Siems
Spokane
Fear for future doesn’t mean craziness
I was present at the Baumgartner town hall at Whitworth, along with hundreds of "lunatic, unhinged" people. We are his constituents: parents, educators, farmers, veterans, federal workers, people of color, legal immigrants, health care workers, researchers, forestry managers, and just regular citizens. Experiencing the reckless actions of this administration, we are angry and afraid, but not crazy. We fear the impacts to our children's education, loss of health benefits, job loss, losing financial security, potential cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
Vets struggle as their claims are stalled or denied. Farmers with broken contracts.
We fear for the future of America.
We don't' want a dictator!
Baumgartner did not commit these acts of job firings, agencies being closed, grant monies being frozen, DEI attacks, but he maintains the MAGA message.
He suggested that we not be a sanctuary state, that immigration controls are necessary because of fentanyl and criminals entering, that we shouldn't take Canada, but Greenland is another story, and that all of these cuts are necessary to trim the fat.
People did yell in outrage.
What other tools do we have when the needs of his constituency are being ignored, when our lives are turned upside down, our protests are called domestic terrorism, and we have no representation? He's out of touch with his constituency.
Tuesday morning, I cut newspaper articles documenting the impacts on our community and delivered them to his office.
The paper has done a good job reporting on this and he should read them.
Eileen Martin
Spokane
Baumgartner’s answers lacked reasoning
I attended the Whitworth town hall Monday evening to give Congressman Baumgartner a fair chance to respond to the pressing issues that many of his constituents are now facing. I will give Rep. Baumgartner a thin slice of credit for one thing - he never attempted to placate the crowd, or tell them what they wanted to hear.
On the contrary, knowing that he was addressing a majority crowd who did not vote for him, he almost seemed determined to recycle GOP talking points, and to remind us that he won with 61% of the votes.
Three key issues stood out to me from his remarks:
He repeatedly spoke of how wrong it was to pass a national debt of $37 trillion on to his children, while he failed to acknowledge that his president had added $7 trillion (in tax cuts for the wealthy) during his first term.
He spoke of DOGE as an "advisory only" board to Congress, while side-stepping the fact that millions in preappropriated payments have already been blocked by Musk and his group.
He spoke of the need for peaceful protests, while failing to acknowledge that his president has pardoned and freed hundreds of Jan. 6 criminals from prison.
He was given ample quiet and respect to answer each of the well-constructed questions presented.
Booing and jeering came as a result of the quality and/ or truthfulness of the answers he offered. Quite possibly the attendees took the meeting more seriously than Baumgartner did.
John Cross
Spokane
We deserve better
I attended Michael Baumgartner's Town Hall at Whitworth Monday night as a constituent of District 5.
He recently spoke to AM-770 KTTH and called those of us in attendance "unhinged lunatics" and "radical activists" who "snatched up tickets."
I am the advocacy chair for the Washington Homeschool Organization.
In this position, I represent the 19,049 home-schooling families in the state of Washington.
As you might imagine, this group runs the gamut from the far left to the far right, and everyone else in between.
Not once in the past 20 years have I referred to anyone in my constituency as "unhinged lunatics."
Not once in the past 20 years have I referred to my constituents as "radical activists."
Not once have I divided my constituency between those who share my politics and those who don't.
Not once have I accused my constituency of "snatching up" tickets.
Not once have I dodged a question that was asked of me - even when it was personally painful.
When I haven't had an answer, I have always tabled it so that I can find the answer, and I have come back with an answer.
Those of us who disagree with Baumgartner's positions aren't the enemy: We are his constituents.
We deserve better than Baumgartner's post town hall smear campaign.
Jennifer Garrison Stuber
Newman Lake
Baumgartner quotes give pause
There was a lot to unpack from the recent town hall held by Representative Baumgartner. In particular, it will be interesting to see how well Medicaid, relied on by so many of us Eastern Washingtonians, fares under pressure from the recent Continuing Resolution. But I'll focus on the remarkably bizarre with a couple quotes from the representative: "I think it would be America's strategic benefit if we had Greenland. America has had strategic benefit from being imperialistic in the past. That's how we had Western expansion."
Maybe we need to post the Ten Commandments in more than just Southern and Idaho schools, because I'm pretty sure there's one that covers taking things that don't belong to us.
"I don't support us absorbing Canada; Canada's been a good neighbor."
Suddenly, in MAGA America, the criteria of whether we're going to commit a hostile takeover of a nearby country is whether it's been a "good neighbor" or not? I don't think this is what any of us want.
If any of this seems unconstitutional or unethical to you, it's easy to phone the Representative's office - D.C. office: (202) 225-2006, Spokane office: (509) 353-2374 - or email him. We desperately need Congress members who are going to adhere to their constitutional oaths and stand up to President Trump when he goes off the rails.
Jeffrey Ellingson
Liberty Lake
Disappointed but not surprised
Rep. Michael Baumgartner has claimed, in his weekly newsletter and elsewhere, that he wants to represent all his constituents, whether or not they voted for him. Thus I found it interesting, and very revealing, that in his Spokane town hall on Monday, when challenged by members of the audience, he responded by asking who had voted for him and Donald Trump. He then proceeded to dismiss the concerns of his questioners, saying they were only angry because he and Trump had won.
So clearly Mr. Baumgartner isn't actually interested in hearing the concerns of all of his constituents, but only those of the people who share his thinking. His actions speak far more loudly than his words. As one of his constituents, one who in fact did not vote for him, I had hoped he really meant what he said. I'm disappointed - but not in fact surprised.
Jessie Norris
Spokane