Janelle Bynum on running for Oregon 5th District, top issues, what’s going right

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — KOIN 6 News contacted candidates who are running for Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District in 2024, asking them to respond to these four questions:

• Why are you running for office?

• What is your prior government/civic experience?

• In your opinion, what are the top three issues facing the Third District and the state of Oregon?

• In your opinion, what is going right in the Third District and Oregon? How do you plan to build on it?

Janelle Bynum is running as a Democrat. Here are her responses:

Why are you running for office?

As the daughter of two public school teachers, I saw from an early age how critical and
formative education could be for our children – and how organizing to promote progressive
values, even at the grassroots level, could make a huge difference. When I was 15 years old,
my parents looked around our community and saw it changing for the worse. They saw our
streets becoming increasingly unsafe. They saw drugs and violence interrupting the
opportunities being created in our local public school classrooms, and they knew that they
wanted the best, safest possible life for me. We didn’t have much, yet my parents scraped
together what they could to send me to a school where I could harness the power of education
safely.

I am a mother of four children, and I believe education is the key to a strong Oregon. I ran for
state legislature because I wanted to level the playing field for every Oregon resident, and I am
running for Congress to do the same for those in Oregon’s 5th district and for Americans in
every corner of our country.

What is your prior government/civic experience?

For the last seven years, I have served the state of Oregon as a state representative. Since I was
elected in 2016, I’ve been working hard for Oregonians, and I am the only candidate in this race with a legislative record of stepping up on the issues that have mattered most to Oregonians these past few years, including:
● Ensuring Oregonians have the same rights they did under Roe v. Wade
● Enacting police reform laws
● Passing a Child Tax Credit
● Cracking down on gun violence
● Increasing treatment for opioid and fentanyl overdoses
● Investing in early childhood literacy
● Increasing access to health care
● Requiring overtime pay for farmworkers
● Enacting family leave
● Passing equal pay
● Protecting the victims of bias crimes
● Expanding renewable energy

In your opinion, what are the top three issues facing the Fifth District and the state of Oregon?

The top three issues I will focus on as a Member of Congress are voting rights, abortion rights
and health care reform, specifically lowering prescription drug costs.

In Congress, I will lead the fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which is meant to
bolster and expand on the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

As an elected official, I have and will always fight for abortion and reproductive rights. In the
state legislature, I led and passed the bill to ensure Oregonians’ rights were protected after the
fall of Roe. In Congress, I will ensure that Oregon’s commitment to protecting reproductive
health care, including abortion access, is reflected for every pregnant person in this country by
codifying Roe v. Wade.

I will advocate for health care reform to ensure that no person is one medical emergency away
from bankruptcy. I’ll protect Medicare, expand Medicaid and fight to lower prescription drug
prices, just as I expanded access to health care and mental health services at the state level. I
will push to expand upon the initial list of prescription drugs outlined in the Inflation Reduction
Act to be subject to Medicare drug pricing negotiation.

Aside from these three key issues, we need a similar focus on Oregon’s infrastructure. Building
housing and shoring up our medical provider system are keys to safe, modern, and livable
communities. We need long overdue investments updating our roads, broadband, a resilient
power grid, medical facilities and providers.

In your opinion, what is going right in the Fifth District and Oregon? How do you plan to build on it?

For too long, progress for Oregonians and the people of the Fifth District has been held up by
political posturing and elected officials prioritizing partisan politics over people. However, I have
talked with many of my peers about the 2024 legislative session, and we agree that the level of
collaboration and sense of urgency to change the status quo is more present now than ever
before. There were no walkouts and hard stances, just a sense that Democrats and
Republicans alike faced similar issues in our communities. While we continue to struggle with
housing and mental health/addiction infrastructure, there is bipartisan agreement that we need
to fix the problems our state currently faces.

This past legislative session was fast and furious, but we were able to make some headway on
issues that have plagued us for some time, including making amendments to Measure 110 so it
can better fit the needs of our communities. This session also led the way for a major piece of
legislation on campaign finance reform, as well as continued progress on creating more
affordable housing and addiction solutions.

Continuing these bipartisan and productive communications with all leaders, at all levels of
government, is a crucial first step for making progress on the issues that matter most to
Oregonians and the Fifth District. As a state legislator, I have always treated my colleagues of
either party with respect and have always put people over politics. As a Congresswoman, I
would continue to focus on finding solutions to the issues that the Fifth District faces and build
off the collaborative momentum and focus of this legislative cycle.

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