NHS students host McGovern

NORTHAMPTON — U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, held a town hall meeting with students at Northampton High School on Friday, a meeting organized by the very young people McGovern chose to take questions from.

Ben Moss-Horwitz, of the NHS Democrats, spent much of last year reaching out to McGovern’s office to get him to visit the school. This school year, the focus of the NHS Democrats centers around organizing a town hall with a high-level elected official. About three weeks ago, McGovern’s office responded, and set Friday’s date.

After this date was set, Moss-Horwitz discovered that the Environment Club had also been trying to bring in McGovern, so the two groups decided to collaborate on the town hall. The Mayor’s Youth Commission, Feminist Club, and Gay-Straight Alliance then joined as additional co-sponsors, to ensure that a large number of students attended the town hall.

Sure enough, before the event began, the NHS auditorium steadily swelled with bodies, as students filled it nearly to capacity.

Moss-Horwitz, in his opening remarks, talked about the distance students and millennials can feel from their lawmakers.

“We’re hoping to narrow this huge distance to like … 10 feet,” he said.

McGovern, who had addressed students at Belchertown High School earlier in the day, dispensed with giving a lengthy introductory speech, instead going almost immediately to questions.

“This is a learning experience for me as well,” he said.

The event’s co-sponsors asked the first five questions. Then, McGovern took questions from the students in the audience. A number of his remarks prompted applause from the students assembled.

“They must have failed science when they were in school,” said McGovern, referring to federal lawmakers who disagree with established scientific consensus on climate change.

This was in response to a question from the Environment Club on what he felt was the most pressing climate change-related issue facing the country, and what can be done to address it. He went on to say how farmers have described the effects of climate change to him.

“Climate change is not just this abstract issue,” he said. “It has real consequences right here at home.”

As for what can be done, McGovern said that people need to demand their elected officials do more.

Another applause line came in response to the Mayor’s Youth Commission question, which asked if McGovern supported lowering the voting age in municipal elections to 16.

“I would,” was the congressman’s reply. “Yes, absolutely.”

He also said that he had had more intelligent and thoughtful conversations with those assembled today than with many of his colleagues in Congress.

The issue of “Dreamers” and immigration raised significant passion from McGovern, as did President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S./Mexico border.

“It’s a stupid idea,” McGovern said of the wall.

He also said that Democrats in Congress had been willing to give funding to the wall in exchange for protecting “Dreamers,” young people brought to this country by their parents illegally when they were children. However, McGovern said that the president then pushed for concessions on legal immigration, and the deal fell through.

McGovern also promised a “circle of protection” around Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients who had registered with the government under President Barack Obama, as well as other people he said the president was seeking to deport. He called this an unprecedented community action to protect these folks from deportation,

“The only wall I want to build is around the White House,” said McGovern, expressing hope that such a structure would trap xenophobia there.

Later on, McGovern called out Trump’s characterization of Haiti, El Salvador and countries in Africa as “shithole countries,” although the congressman refrained from using the expletive; and Trump’s desire for more immigration from places like Norway.

“If that isn’t a racist statement, I don’t know what is,” said McGovern, adding that he’d found the president’s words to be offensive and disgusting.

When asked what issue didn’t get enough attention from either side of the political spectrum, McGovern didn’t hesitate with his next word — hunger.

McGovern noted that hunger has a financial and social cost on multiple levels of society, and that ending hunger would be a more worthy reason for going into debt than giving tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.

“I tell people hunger is a political condition,” he said. “We have the resources, we have the food, we don’t have the political will.”

McGovern also said that he was strongly pro-abortion rights.

“Those rights are under attack right now in Washington,” he said.

In response to a question on how to take a stand when everyone agrees with you, McGovern noted that many progressive victories both nationally and statewide, had originated in the area.

“Don’t ever think that it’s just preaching to the choir,” McGovern said.

He also encouraged folks to reach out to friends and relatives in other states to pressure their representatives, and noted that one can do phone banking for a candidate in another state.

At the end of the event, McGovern encouraged students to reach out to him, and noted that he had a Northampton office. He said that he was willing to meet one-on-one, or in groups, and to inform him if there are any actions they are doing that they would think his presence would be useful for. Additionally, he told them to contact him if he said something they disagreed with.

McGovern then stayed later to talk with students and hear additional questions from them outside of the forum.

“It went really well,” said Elaina Katz, president of the Environment Club, when asked about the town hall.

She said that she was happy to see students who were not involved in the planning of the event engaging with it.

“It was cool to see so many people come up and get to ask something that they care about,” said Cherilyn Strader, co-chair of the NHS Democrats.

When asked by media after the town hall about his opinion on the release that day of a previously secret House Intelligence Committee memo that Republicans have said shows an anti-Republican bias on behalf of the FBI investigation into alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election, McGovern said that the effort to release the memo had made a mockery of the intelligence committee.

“It’s just sad,” he said.

He also said that the Trump administration’s actions have made him fear for the rule of law in this country .

“It should concern everybody,” McGovern said.