I do not consider myself to be a Democrat. I used to consider myself to be a Republican, but my distaste for the party's shifting attitudes reached a breaking point in the times of the Clinton/Dole debates (I was no fan of Clinton, either).
Anyway, what started out as my decision to not vote to re-elect Rep. Walden shifted from a quiet personal choice to one I decided to voice.
I live in Talent, Oregon, in the state's 2nd Congressional district.
This district is just under 70,000 square miles in size, and covers the central and eastern two-thirds of the entire state. It includes about 684,000 people (in 2010). The population of the entire state in 2013 was 3.93 million.
Greg Walden has been the representative of this district since 1999, and he usually carries the district with about 70% of the vote. I will not be among that 70% this election year.
My first interaction with Rep. Walden came in 2012...
Professionally, I do computer stuff. The vast majority of this work involves the challenge of keeping accurate time on computers and computer networks.
If you happened to be watching "Fox News Sunday" on October 19, you might have seen a story about "The man who keeps America on time." That man is Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, chief scientist at the US Naval Observatory's Time Service Department. Midway through the segment, the story turns to the Time Transfer room, where time is disseminated from the USNO Master Clock. There's a shot of a computer featuring a digital clock readout, and voiceover narration that says "At the tone, Eastern Daylight Time...". The computer in question bore a label that read:
NETWORK TIME PROTOCOL (NTP)
I started using NTP in the late 1980s and I became NTP's Project Manager in 1996. Eventually, the difficulties posed in keeping the NTP Project up and running using an unaffiliated group of volunteers became untenable. In 2011, I decided to create Network Time Foundation, a non-profit entity to support the work being done to address the issue of maintaining network time.
About the same time, I learned of an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) contract project helping the U.S. Air Force figure out and fix problems they were having with NTP. A perfect opportunity for us. Upon contacting the USAF, we were told that that we were exactly the sort of folks they wanted participating in their SBIR program. We were also told that should our proposal be rejected, we would be given a detailed debriefing as to what we should improve for our next submission.
We prepared a first-phase proposal designed to demonstrate our ability to accomplish what the Air Force needed done. Despite a mid-effort budget reduction communicated to us by the USAF, we remained confident that the proposal clearly made its case regarding our ability to deliver a viable solution to the problems the Air Force was having with NTP, even with their smaller budget.
Our proposal was rejected, we asked for the promised detailed debriefing to help us improve our next SBIR submission. What we received instead were three short sentences that failed to detail shortcomings of our proposal and that was, from our perspective, a bit out of touch with reality regarding the problems at hand. Repeated requests on our part to garner more information were met with silence, all the way up to the SBIR Program Manager.
My next step was to ask my Congressman for help. I visited Congressman Walden's website. It features a banner, prominently displayed, that reads "Ways Greg Can Help", and the first item listed is "Help with a Federal Agency". Today, the first two sentences on that page are:
"As your U.S. Representative, Congressman Walden will do everything he can to help you address any questions, issues or problems you may be having with the federal government. While he cannot ask an agency to go against any laws or policies, he will do whatever he can to help resolve your issue and get your questions answered."
Great! Just what I'm looking for! And his top priority is "Jobs for Oregonians". Also great - just what I'm trying to do, too! And he's on the Energy and Commerce committee, two places where accurate time is really important!
So I wrote a letter to Congressman Walden. After a couple of weeks without a response, I called his local office in Medford. I was told that mailed correspondence is no longer a good way to reach a Congressman. So I scheduled a meeting with one of the two staffers there. Arriving at the appointment, I learned the staffer we were scheduled to meet with wasn't available, so we met with the one who was there. We discussed Network Time Foundation and how I was trying to bring about a useful number of well-paying jobs to the area as we staffed up the Foundation and its projects. I also asked if the Congressman's office would be able to get the Air Force to honor their commitment to give us a proper debrief of our SBIR proposal. I dropped off a full copy of the Air Force's request, our proposal, the Air Force's 3 short-sentence "debrief", and our 5-page detailed response indicating where we believed the Air Force had clearly "missed the mark" in its evaluation of our proposal.
I was told we'd be hearing back from somebody soon.
I never received an acknowledgement or reply to our request for assistance with the USAF.
Over the next two years, including the Congressman's re-election year, I repeatedly called, emailed or spoke with the two staffers asking for progress reports or updates. I was always told that somebody would get back to us in a few weeks' time.
It never happened.
Eventually, I gave up. And I didn't take it personally.
After all, Congressman Walden has a lot of work to get done on behalf of his constituents. His campaign information notes that he's in favor of rebuilding the timber industry here, and that he wants businesses to succeed. I also read that Congressman Walden firmly believes that we should let the cable and broadcast companies do what they think is best, and that we should not have net neutrality.
Given how notoriously bad internet service is in our district, I'm somewhat surprised that Congressman Walden would be in favor of letting "market forces" in monopoly environments dictate the quality of internet service his constituents receive.
Then I took the time to research the Congressman's campaign donations at
www.opensecrets.org. In 2012 and 2014 he's received major contributions from Comcast, the National Association of Broadcasters, AT&T, Century Link, 21st Century Fox, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Google, Telephone & Data Systems, among others. (This list doesn't include PAC contributions. If you're curious, check out the top 20 industries contributing to Campaign Committee and Leadership PAC money for Representative Walden.)
While the above was enough for me to decide to vote for somebody else, it wasn't enough for me to say so publicly. What pushed me over that edge was going to Costco to pick up my generic prescription, one I've been buying for decades. In the past, with no medical insurance I was getting a 90-day supply for under $10. I now have medical insurance, with prescription drug coverage. With the "assist" from the insurance company, my 90 day supply now costs over $28. For a drug that has been available in generic form for many decades, and is used by a lot of people. We looked around, and saw that recently a lot of drug prices are going up, apparently because there is so little competition.
I called Congressman Walden's office to discuss my concerns about the generic drug price increase. The staffer I have spoken with the most frequently answered. He didn't remember me from our previous interactions. When I asked about the drug prices, he said that I was the first person to have called the office about it, he hasn't seen his prescription prices go up, and in any event, these price increases are perfectly legal and it's a free market. Fair enough. I moved on. I reminded him of our previous communications and then he remembered me. I asked why I should expect anything different from the Congressman or his staff. I asked how he thought his responses were supposed to give me any reason to vote for the Congressman's re-election, and the response I received was along the lines of "you should look at what's going on and make your decision accordingly." Remember how I said Congressman Walden is ostensibly my representative? It's now abundantly clear to me that while he's representing something or someone in Congress, it's not me or other constituents like me. The Supreme Court says that money is speech, and with big companies paying for elections and with "representatives" who will do whatever they can to shift money from their constituents to these big companies ...
It gets better.
I got an email response from Congressman Walden about the generic drug pricing. This response talks about how it's starting to look like with so many fewer drug companies out there, the monopoly power these folks have is driving up prices. His solution to this is the "21st Century Cures Initiative", which seems to me to be legislation that wants to find cures for 6,500 known diseases that currently have no treatment. I gather one of the main things they are discussing is removing regulatory hurdles from drug companies. Like safety hurdles. What could possibly go wrong? And I don't see how this relates to remediating the increase in generic drug prices. He ends his email to me saying "Thank you again for reaching out. It is an honor to serve you in the U.S. Congress."
I'm reminded of the 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man".
I feel like I'm "being served". As in he's interested in serving the wallets of me and others in his district to a number of big business groups, as opposed to acting in our best interests.
So yes, I will open my eyes, do my best to assess who is running and how they are likely to vote, and cast my ballot accordingly.
It is clear to me that Congressman Greg Walden has not been and is not interested in representing me, nor is he apparently interested in the jobs and accompanying benefits I continue to try to bring to our community.
I don't think I'm that special. I figure there are a lot more folks like me in the district. We deserve better.