Where is Marie?

Renee Nicole Good was murdered by ICE on January 7. A week later, Marie Gluesenkamp had said nothing. When Charlie Kirk was shot, she had a post mourning him up in 134 minutes on every social media channel she uses. We wanted to know why.

We contacted her and made our concerns known. They did not want a protest. Makes sense. But at noon on Thursday, the issued deadline, we had seen no statement. So we gathered and we demonstrated.

We found out during event that she had issued a statement 20 minutes before we began. We didn't know, because it was on her website. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Truth Social. So like everyone else, we didn't see it. This was likely the point, or it would have been publicized.

Many of our friends are Democrats. Some of those - a small few, but important - didn't like this. Their minds on electoral politics, they were concerned that this protest would hurt her chances at reelection. To some, elected a Democrat is the only goal, with policy a forgotten triviality. They say a Democrat must be elected, or conservative policies will reign.

When we ask what Democratic policies she has advanced, they are silent. Worse, we are told that matters of ICE do not affect our community.

The latino people of this county are living with a frightening reality every day. A few weeks ago, a guy in Vancouver got run over by an ICE car while he was lying on the ground. Now ICE is killing in other cities. Why not here? What will be done about it? The immigrants we stand with at our demonstrations would like to know. But for many Democrats here, that particular 11-12% of our county doesn't matter. They don't see these people cause they don't go to that part of town. They don't go into Latino businesses. They don't have Latino friends. The people who are afraid of what the masked military police are doing don't count to some - even Democrats.

We voted for Marie. We don't specifically want her to lose her election. But she is our representative. And there was a time when elected officials were held accountable regardless of their party. We won't play that game. If Mrs. Gluesenkamp wants to be re-elected, she should not be afraid to speak to her constituents and to deal with major issues.

She took the small step of issuing a statement on her site. We do appreciate that. And we appreciate that this happened in response to a threat of protest, as it means she may actually be interested, on some level, in listening. Beyond this remains to be seen.