PORT ANGELES, Wash.—Rep. Emily Randall (D-WA) drew warm applause and cries of “right on” when she told a crowd here that she and other progressive lawmakers are fighting the Trump-MAGA “Big beautiful” budget bill that will inflict a trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and other human needs programs. The Republican party’s goal, she charged, is to slash human needs spending and lavish a trillion dollars in tax giveaways on their billionaire cronies.
The Progressive Caucus and their allies are fighting this corruption, she said, setting the stage to win the majority in the House and Senate in the 2026 mid-term elections that will be ready to “impeach Donald Trump.”
Considered “safe” in Washington State’s 6th Congressional District (CD), Randall said she has adopted Arizona’s 6th CD, where Democrat Joanna Mendoza is working to unseat Republican Juan Ciscomani, who talks like a moderate “but invariably votes for every Trump-MAGA bill.” The Democratic-Republican margin in this district is “razor thin,” and she is determined to help flip the District blue. Arizona’s primary is August 2.
Randall spoke to more than 100 supporters at an open-air fundraiser at the home of Jim and Robbie Mantooth on Friday, June 20. Randall spoke in front of a bandshell to the crowd sitting in lawn chairs or on the grass, a flower garden with roses and peonies in full bloom. A bluegrass band led by Ron Munro serenaded the crowd with songs like Ashokan Farewell.
Randall, a former member of the Washington State Senate, was elected last November 5. She was welcomed by Julie Johnson, a Lummi tribal member who lives in Neah Bay, chair of the Native American Caucus of the Washington State Democratic Party, and by Kate Dexter, mayor of Port Angeles.
Randall denounced Donald Trump’s “Big, ugly” budget bill that will inflict $715 billion in cuts to Medicaid. It passed the House and is now pending in the Senate. It will terminate medical benefits for 14.7 million low-income people, including millions of children, and will put at grave risk, she warned, rural hospitals like the Olympic Medical Center (OMC), the only full-service public hospital serving 111,000 people on the north Olympic peninsula. In chronic debt because of low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, OMC is currently in secret negotiations with private hospital chains, like Providence, on a possible merger to avert bankruptcy.
In the crowd were many elected officials and candidates including Laurie Force, a retired nurse practitioner, and Dr. Gerry Stephanz, director of the Olympic Peninsula Community Clinic, both candidates for the OMC Board of Commissioners.
Randall was asked about her visit to the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention center in Tacoma, together with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), leader of the House Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR). Randall explained that this was the second visit to the ICE prison, the first arranged in advance, giving ICE time to clean up the conditions at the facility.
“This time we went unannounced,” Randall said. “We were kept waiting for an hour. When we were admitted, we were only allowed to speak to two inmates.” One of them, she said, was a Filipino man, arrested when he flew home from the Philippines on a long-settled “DUI” (Driving-Under-the-Influence) charge. “The man had a green card, as he has had for the past 18 years of his residency in the U.S.. He had gone to court, paid his fines, and got back his driving privilege.” Yet now he was arrested by ICE, facing the danger of deportation based on this bogus DUI.
Randall charged that this witch hunt against immigrants is part of the Trump Administration’s search for “enemies” needed to unite their right-wing “base.”
“I am proud to be a member of the House Hispanic Caucus,” she told the crowd, leading the struggle against this racist repression.
A Clallam County Democratic Party leader, Paul Kolesnikoff, denounced Trump’s drive in his first term in 2017 to liquidate health care monitors stationed in countries around the world, including China. These monitors, Kolesnikoff said, would have spotted the COVID-19 virus when it first appeared and taken action to halt its spread. Instead, Trump denounced COVID-19 as a “Chinese hoax.” It spread out of control across the U.S. “More than one million people died in the United States from COVID,” Kolesnikov said.
Randall also blasted Trump and his administration for shutting down USAID, their war on vaccinations as measles and whooping cough spread, and a new, deadly variant of COVID has just arrived in the United States.
Ellen Menshew, Chair of the Clallam County Democratic Party, thanked Jim and Robbie Mantooth for hosting the reception. Robbie Mantooth then appealed to the crowd to send in comments to the Washington State Department of Ecology, urging full clean-up of the Port Angeles harbor contaminated by heavy metals and other toxins from the mills of RYAM and other corporate polluters. Many in the crowd, including Rep. Randall, joined Jim and Robbie in a hike down to Ennis Creek that runs through their property. Randall was wearing sports shoes and waded into the creek as cell phone cameras snapped photos.
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