AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MARION COUNTY COMMISSION ON SANCTUARY STATUS, AND ABOUT KISSING THE HINDQUARTERS OF THE MOST CORRUPT ATTORNY GENERAL IN OUR HISTORY.

My name is Larry Ramsay and I have deep connections in the mid-Willamette Valley. Both my parents went to high school in Molalla. I have kin buried in graveyards from Eugene to Portland, and towns in between. I know when there was no whiskey in Whiskey Hill, and how Liberal is not liberal. I picked hops in St Paul and bucked hay a bicycle ride in any direction from Woodburn. I stand before you having spent all but my first 6 years in Marion County. I left for a while after 20 to travel some, I came back. Every person in this room can find an ancestor who migrated here from somewhere not here. They weren't called illegals in those days, but they were accused of many of the same crimes as these people of color that Republicans can't abide. Some may have been guilty, some might have been hanged unfairly. Many just wanted a better place to live free from the oppression their extended families grew up with.

I live in a blue state and that pleases me. Idaho may be a beautiful state, but would you want to drive to Oregon or Washington to make a better minimum wage? I am very proud of my state. From Tom McCall, Mark Hatfield, and Bob Packwood, who were tolerable Republicans, to Wayne Morse before them who couldn't tolerate remaining a Republican. To Maureen Newberger who was a woman legislator when few existed. We are no longer a "sundown state", a racist state. That does not mean racism doesn't exist, the good commissioners of Marion County are exhibit 1. Sanctuary status has been around for 30-odd years. We even voted to retain it when some thought it was not needed. Attorney General Bondi is no less racist. She serves a president who is without question racist. And he is supported by a party that is too timid to oppose the guy taking our Constitution and Bill of Rights from us. 

 Oregon is entitled to state sovereignty. Until recently that was not in dispute. Suppose for a moment that these people, whom the puppy-killer lady seeks, were as she presents them. It may be unique in history going back at least to Greece, but it could be true. Then why are ICE agents picking up hapless people at their court-appointed immigration hearings? Or at Walmarts where they connect to jobs. Or holding up a fire crew for two-hours to find just two undocumented citizens fighting a wildfire. Why are they denied their Constitutional rights of Due Process? What possible reason is there to deport a 12 year old with cancer, or arrest the mother and leave the kids behind. You did not appoint these people, but you elected the guy who did. And you hid your face when they were approved on a partyline vote. People like the afformentioned puppy-killer lady in charge of Homeland Security, the alcoholic head of our armed forces who has never lead more than a platoon. The anti-vax, brain-worm guy, the google-eyed FBI director who wants to make that agency a museum. The presidential advisor known as Peewee German. The head of intelligence with the dicey foreign policy resume', and whose cult-leader in the Hawaii commune makes his people eat his toenails. There are more. Too many more. These are the people who Marion County commissioners are bowing to, against the wishes of the people of this state. You will never live this down.