HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) – In the auditorium of his old middle school just blocks from where he still lives, the congressman who is a lead author of the stalled House Republican health care bill was treated like the villain in a class play.
It didn’t matter that Rep. Greg Walden was on a first-name basis with many of the roughly 800 attendees. Or that Democrats like Gov. Kate Brown call him congenial and bright. Or that Walden was just re-elected to a 10th House term with 72 percent of the vote in a safely Republican eastern Oregon district. Or that he is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Walden, 60, encountered the same angry buzz saw at town meetings last week that has greeted his Republican colleagues at similar sessions and prompted others to not even bother holding them. President Donald Trump and his party’s policies on health care, immigration, the environment, the arts and Syria have whipped up Democratic voters and liberal organizers while dividing Republicans as well, and they’re letting GOP lawmakers know it.
“Connie, I tried to answer you,” Walden, standing alone on stage in a blue blazer and plaid shirt, pleaded to Connie Burton over resounding boos. Her children played with Walden’s when they were little, but the 63-year-old Burton was now demanding that the lawmaker oppose Trump’s voiding of rules blocking harmful emissions.
“Yes or no,” the audience yelled when Walden answered indirectly.