Keep public lands in public hands

By now, you might have heard about the Republican budget bill being considered in Congress.

You might have heard about how it will gut Medicaid funding, resulting in 16 million Americans getting kicked off their health insurance.

You might have heard that it contains a backdoor abortion ban.

And you might have heard that it guts all these essential services our families rely on in order to give another round of tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.

But what you might not have heard about is a last-minute provision Senate Republicans snuck into the bill: a massive sell-off of our public lands.

Yep, you read that right. On top of all the cruelty Senate Republicans are prepared to inflict on the American people, they're also trying to auction off our most treasured outdoor spaces in the process.

This includes some of our most beloved public lands in the Cascades, as well as popular hunting and recreation areas across Oregon. If Republicans succeed in their plans, this will be a massive gut punch to Oregonians and people across the West.

All to finance Republicans' tax cuts for billionaires and corporations.

I was already a 'no' on this bill that is the most destructive piece of legislation Congress has considered in decades, and now I'm a hell no.

Our public lands are core to our identity as Oregonians and westerners. But Republicans think they can quietly auction them off for the benefit of billionaires without us noticing, so corporations can turn these spaces into new data centers and mining operations.

Now more than ever, we need to double down on our momentum to elect progressive leaders to flip the Senate blue and ensure legislation like this has no chance of passing, and instead get to work bringing down costs for working families. I hope you'll join me.

I'm going to keep up my efforts to fight back against this legislation with everything I've got, you can be sure of that.

More soon,

Ron