Janelle Bynum Thanks Herself

She will be Oregon’s first black member of Congress

State Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley) has a new owner: The Democratic National Congressional Committee.

Bynum finally declared victory over Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer to represent the 5th Congressional District, which stretches from the Portland suburbs to central Oregon.

Bynum wanted to make history, and she did — the first black person to represent Oregon in Congress.

To do so, she put herself on the auction block, begging for bids.

“I’m sorry to crowd your inbox, friend, but this is important. 

My finance team tells me that even though we experienced a surge in donations after the latest polling showed this race is officially tied, grassroots donations have slowed over the last few days, and my campaign is still short of our upcoming mid-month fundraising goal.”

That’s how it was for the past several months with almost daily email solicitations

As it turned out, Bynum raised at least $5.8 million, and her campaign boasted it was a record-breaking sum for an Oregon congressional race.

The national Democratic party bet millions of dollars on her. As The New York Times noted, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) personally spoke with Bynum and urged her to run — even though she was considering leaving politics having grown tired of tight statehouse races in a swing district.

Wait until she sees what awaits her in Washington, D.C.

As an Oregon legislator, Bynum is used to being in the majority party. While a few House races are still too close to call, it’s likely the House will remain controlled by Republicans. The Senate has a Republican majority, and you-know-who will be  president.

If Bynum thought then-Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek was duplicitous, she will find out how much tougher it is to get her way when she cannot rely on that nobody-here-looks-like-me plea for pity.

In 2021, after winning her third term as a state legislator, Bynum tried to mount a floor challenge to unseat Kotek for the House speaker’s post. At that time, Kotek was the longest-tenured speaker in state history.

After receiving significant media attention, Bynum announced she was setting aside her run for House speaker in exchange for what amounted to political reparations. Specifically, changes would make it easier for lawmakers “of color” to pursue leadership posts. A space would be reserved within the ranks of House Democratic leadership for a lawmaker “of color,” and money would be spent on staff for legislators “of color.”

This story by OPB in 2021 had to spell out what BIPOC meant: “In a statement obtained by OPB, Kotek and (House Majority Leader Barbara) Smith Warner acknowledged the state’s racist history and the Legislature’s overwhelming whiteness, and called Bynum ‘a leading voice in the Legislature for confronting and dismantling the structural legacies that have kept BIPOC Oregonians out of positions of power and influence.’ BIPOC stands for “Black, Indigenous and people of color.”

In 2024, who doesn’t know what BIPOC stands for?

With the election of Donald Trump, Bynum might pause to consider a new reality. Who voted for him? People of all colors and ethnicities. BIPOC.

The Skanner, a black-owned Portland weekly newspaper, declared in a headline “Election Proves Black Americans Have No Allies.”

The story quoted various national black leaders, such as journalist Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation:  “Watching Latinos chase model minority status has never sat well with Black people, but this is a wound the Black community won’t soon forget. … One thing I do worry about, is that the ‘solidarity’ between ‘people of color’ has been significantly damaged. Black people have learned that all we have is each other.”

In the nation’s Capitol, Bynum will be surrounded by many people who share her skin color. Some of them will be just as important as she is.

When she suffers a minor indignity — such as the time a constituent didn’t recognize her going door to door in the neighborhood soliciting votes and called the police to report someone suspicious — Bynum won’t be able to quickly introduce and pass legislation making it a crime to summon police without just cause.

Bynum’s role in the state legislature took on a higher profile in 2020 during Portland’s 100-plus nights of rioting following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. She served as co-chair of a special Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform. Out of it eventually came a package of police reforms, but the process revealed a calculated coyness in her approach to getting what she wanted.

One exchange came during a discussion of what to do when Portland rioters ignored police commands, wouldn’t stop throwing things, wouldn’t stop vandalizing, wouldn’t stop starting fires. Protesters objected to tear gas. They would call in during the public comment portion of the committee hearings and rail against the police.

Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) said he wanted to pose a question to law enforcement about the issue of other alternatives to tear gas. Speaking from experience, he recalled that back in the 60’s police used water cannons.

“I’m just wondering, thinking outside the box,” he said. “Have water cannons been considered? I’m trying to think of something that isn’t chemical… .”

He thought ACLU had done some studies on it.

Bynum, chairing the meeting, came back with a helpless little girl tone in her voice: “Are we talking about bringing back hoses and dogs?”

Prozanski, who has held office for two decades, is one of Oregon’s most liberal legislators. He was pushing for criminal justice reform long before anyone heard of George Floyd. This meeting was in the early Covid days of Zoom, and Prozanki’s long, silent stare came through the screen. He looked insulted.

Finally he said, “I’m not sure who you’re putting that question to. If you’re putting it to me, I don’t find any humor in that one bit.”

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Bynum replied.

“Then why are you bringing it up?” asked Prozanski.

He was trying to find an alternative to tear gas. She was reliving the Civil Rights era as if she had been on the frontlines in Selma, Alabama.

“I’m very concerned, Madam co-chair, by your insinuation that I was saying something that I didn’t say. … I am very, very frustrated about the comparison you put on the table.”

“Is a water cannon the same as a hose…?” said Bynum. “Forgive me for being born in the 70’s.”

She went on about how it left her with a bad picture.

“When I hear water cannons I hear ‘water’ I see hoses. I see dogs. … I apologize if that is not an experience that everyone on this committee has had. … You are not proposing bringing back hoses or bring back water to spray on people?”

It is also not an experience that Bynum has had. She had a comfortable middle-class upbringing outside Washington D.C. Her parents were teachers. She was studious and wanted to avoid the violence and distractions of public school. Her parents sent her to the private Madeira boarding school in McLean, Va.

Prozanski reiterated that his question was for law enforcement about what else could be used. He said he would not give her a response about bringing dogs back and beating people.

Listening in was Sen. Lew Frederick (D-Portland), who is black, and had been down to the demonstrations. He said he appreciated Prozanski’s question. The city needs to know the alternatives.

“We are dealing with folks trying to create some havoc … tear gas did not work… it created more problems,” he said.

When she was closing the meeting, Bynum tried to tiptoe around and avoid an apology.

“We offer each other grace. I offer Sen. Prozanski grace,” she said.

In the future, Bynum added, she would always assume good intent.

“Thank you, Sen. Prozanski … and I’d like to thank myself,” she said quoting rapper Snoop Dogg.

Bynum was alluding to Snoop Dogg’s song called, “I Wanna Thank Me,” which is one long gloat, heavy on nigga. When he got a star on Hollywood Boulevard, in the ceremony he thanked himself for his success. Among the lyrics:

“Yeah, long time coming, had to earn my G

Gold diggin’ hoes had to learn my fee

I beat a couple cases, I’m H-O-T

I’m Snoop Dogg to the world, gotta thank ol’ me …”

Later, the legislature would vote to limit the use of tear gas. It would also pass 22 bills related to police reform, generally adding to law enforcement’s do’s and don’ts — making it easier to hold police accountable, but in some cases criminalizing police work.

Among the laws passed, one restricted when police can arrest someone for interfering with an officer. (Then-House Speaker Kotek’s legislative director Kristina Narayan was among the protesters arrested at a demonstration where Molotov cocktails were thrown; the charges against her were dropped.)

By the time Bynum ran for Congress, she had shifted her committee assignments from justice-related issues to the business sector. Among her wins was the $210 million Oregon CHIPS Act, a semiconductor funding bill to help the state’s future in the tech industry and presumably lead to high-paying jobs for thousands of Oregonians. Bynum celebrated thusly:

https://twitter.com/ORHouseDems/status/1641221012305113088?s=20

Bynum’s Congressional campaign boilerplate leaned heavily on making a difference in children’s lives and future generations. That’s a noble cause.

As she moves on to Congress, she might want to revisit some of her past accomplishments to see how things are turning out.

The same day Congresswoman-elect Bynum was celebrating her victory, Multnomah County Circuit Court judge was weighing whether to allow Noureddine Dib to be allowed to post bail as he awaits trial on charges of second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault in a shooting that occurred at the Islamic School of Portland.

Dib had a concealed carry permit. His attorney and supporters argued that he had no criminal history. His victim, Michael Zakarneh, whose children attend the school, fears that Dib will try to kill him again because of a grudge. Zakarneh was shot in the abdomen and broke his ankle while fleeing. Video footage captured the shooting.

At one point, the gunman entered the school. Why was bail even being considered in a case like this? Haven’t Democrats like Bynum made gun violence a central campaign issue?

Yes, but Senate Bill 48 passed in 2021, and it made Oregon's pretrial release system more favorable to those accused of a crime. (According to The Oregonian, the alleged shooter had more supporters in court than the victim.)

As of Monday, Dib was still in jail.

Bynum might also revisit her encounter with Prozanski. Both of them have often voted along the same progressive lines when it comes to what the left calls “criminal justice reform.”

It has led to sweeping changes in Oregon, most significantly ending the voter-approved Measure 11 that called for minimum-mandatory sentences for certain violent crimes. Even teenagers who commit aggravated murder can now avoid adult court and public adjudication. Their names can be kept confidential, and they can be free by age 25 — possibly with no record.

Many adult felons are now encouraged to pursue expungement of their criminal records — for crimes committed this century.

Yet there is no expungement for historic wrongs.

“It’s not lost on me that I am one generation removed from segregation,” Bynum said at her press conference declaring victory.

Perhaps she hasn’t noticed that segregation isn’t what it used to be.

In Portland, black activists — with an assist of $400 million from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, $25 million from the state legislature and $455 million in federal funds — will go towards a project to bring back Portland’s historic black neighborhood, Albina. In the 21st Century, some blacks want to make segregation exclusive to them.

“It’s not lost on me that we’re making history, and I am proud to be the first, but not the last, black member of Congress in Oregon,” Bynum also said at her press conference.

My colleague Richard Cheverton once worked for a black congressman who was also historic. Democratic Congressman Bill Gray represented Pennsylvania’s 2nd congressional district from 1979 to 1991. He was the first black to chair the House Budget Committee and also the first to serve as the Majority Whip (1989–1991).

As Cheverton notes, Bynum’s “first one ever” won’t get her far in Congress; other blacks beat her to that punch long, long ago.

“With a slim GOP majority, she will be under the whip bigly … no excursions from the line whatsoever. She’ll be at the bottom of the seniority pile. She’ll have to figure how to fit in and who she’ll ally with. She’s an unknown quantity, and she’ll have to be known.”

At one point, the black congressman Cheverton had worked for was tapped as a possible speaker. It didn’t happen. Congressman Gray left office on his own.

“I bumped into him in an airport somewhere, right after he had resigned — just walked away. I asked him why, and he said, ‘You can’t get anything done.’ … Which Janelle will soon learn.”

The Democratic National Congressional Committee spent millions to get her elected. Bynum will owe them something.