February 08th, 2026

Wyden-Bynum Town Hall

Sen. Ron Wyden gives opening remarks Feb. 7 during his Linn County Town Hall with Rep. Janelle Bynum at Linn-Benton Community College. Seated from left are: Jeff Davies, LBCC Board Chair; moderator Steph Newton; Albany City Council President; and Bynum, who represents Oregon's 5th Congressional District.

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Video: Town Hall Part 1

Video: Town Hall Part 2

Video: Town Hall Part 3

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First-time attendee:
​‘This is a hugely uplifting event’

  Several hundred people turned out Saturday morning, Feb. 7, for Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Janelle Bynum's Linn County Town Hall at Linn-Benton Community College. 
  It was Wyden's 1,149th town hall since he first entered the Senate in 1997 and the 25th for Bynum, now in year two of her first term. It was her second town hall in LBCC's Russell Tripp Performance Center in less than three weeks, having appeared there with Sen. Jeff Merkley on Jan. 18.
   Wyden and Bynum fielded questions and heard comments from the audience for more than an hour. The final person to take the mike was a woman who spoke to two of the day's top issues: ICE and detention centers.
  “I’m real concerned that we put in place these limitations (on ICE), but I need for there to be consequences for not obeying the law,” she said. “There needs to be some powerful teeth in those laws that are swift, not a long drawn-out process.
   “I’m also concerned about the billions of dollars that are going to the ICE detention facilities. In the privatization of these kinds of facilities, it’s all about what hotels call ‘butts in beds.’ You get paid for how many people you have. If you keep them longer, you will get paid more. There’s got to be some disincentive for hanging onto bodies in detention facilities. I don’t know how to do that.”
  Bynum said the courts have been too nice. “People should have been held in contempt and the lawyers should have been locked up,” she said. “I think the courts are starting to see this isn’t a game. The other day when the attorney (in Minnesota) said, 'I’m just tired' (because of the crush of immigration cases), that was a turning point. She basically admitted that the country has not set up a fair and judicious process for the people that they have kidnapped. It hasn’t happened.
  “It’s one thing to say that this is wrong. It’s another thing to say that your state is fertile ground for this type of behavior to happen. So we can’t let it take root in 

Bynum and Wyden responded to questions and comments from the audience for more than an hour.

Video: At the banner drop on the Santiam Highway overpass Feb. 7, Linn County Democrat Susan Leonard reflected on some of what she heard earlier in the day at the Wyden-Bynum Town Hall.

Oregon, and we shouldn’t let it take root in Alabama or ​​​
Louisiana or Texas or Ohio.”
  Bynum said there are resistance tools to stop the opening of new detention centers and making ICE accountable. “That is how we use those neighbor networks, that’s how we use the Chamber of Commerce, that’s how we use zoning. These are the grassroots ways we have to fight hack.” she said. “I would encourage you to share your thoughts with the judicial branch because they are the ones right that can put and end to a lot of this.”
  Wyden, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said following the money is also also key. 
  “The reality is, the way that we have best fought corruption is to follow the money. I’m staying with this because the victims (in the Epstein case) are winning in court and they’re going to win because of the remedy you’re talking about — prosecution, the courts and the like. And we’ve got to do the same thing with D.O.G.E.
   ‘The point is, you’ve got to have remedies. You talk about the problem, but you’ve got to have the deterrent. With respect to Epstein and 
D.O.G.E. and some of these areas where there is big money, this is where there is opportunity (for uncovering corruption). That’s what the follow-up is all about and prosecuting people.”
  The woman who had the final turn at the mic started by saying this was the first town hall she had ever attended, and she praised Wyden and Bynum for being there.
  “I’m a little overwhelmed by how comforted I feel, in this time of kind of collective trauma of Trump, of seeing you here and being a part of this," she said. "I think we have the best congressional delegation of all of the 50 states. It’s just outstanding. I always feel fully represented, and I always feel our congressional delegation is listening. This is a hugely uplifting event.”
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 Links to videos with the town hall's entire question-and-answer session are above.