Oregon rep. Bonamici among elected unexplainedly locked out of the US Education Department • Oregon Capital Chronicle

Armed officers blocked Oregon US Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and other Democratic members of Congress from entering the US education building on Friday morning when they sought a meeting with the agency’s acting director of reports that President Donald Trump was preparing or dismantling the agency.

The incident, one of several examples of this week of congressmen who are excluded from federal buildings, come as Bonamici and colleagues who oversee the education department pushing for information. While most school findings in Oregon come from property taxes and the State School Fund, the federal department provides targeted financing for schools with students in poverty and students with disabilities, administering federal student loans and needs -based grants and protecting students from discrimination. About 14% of Oregon’s annual education budget comes from the federal government, equivalent to more than $ 1 billion each year.

Bonamici, a Democrat representing Oregons 1. Congress District, and 95 Other Democratic Congress Members wrote To Denise Carter, acting director of the US Ministry of Education on Thursday, requested a meeting in the light of reports that Trump was preparing a executive order to dismantle the agency. Removal of the US education department that Trump has pursued would require a congressional action.

“Over the years, Democrats and Republicans have had political differences, but that is far more than a political difference. These are the ones who disassemble the government without the consent of the people, ”Bonamici said. “This is not normal. Nothing usually feels right now. “

She and about 20 other Democrats went to the department on Friday and applied for this meeting. Instead, they found the building locked and doors blocked by a regular administrator named Jim Hairfield, who works at the Agency’s Security and Facility Office, according to the Website for Education Department. A video that was filmed and shared on the social media site Bluesky by Florida Congress Member Maxwell Frost, also a Democrat, Hairfield outside the building and several officers from the federal Department of Homeland Safety behind the doors, labeled “All access input.”

Elon is allowed in the Department of Education. Not your elected representatives or students and parents. I’ll come back.

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– Maxwell Frost (@Maxwellfrost.bsky.social? 7 February 2025 at. 7:40

Representatives from the Federal Education Department did not respond to E -Mail questions from Capital Chronicle about who instructed Hairfield or DHS agents to block the mail, or whether it was legal to send them to prevent elected officials from entering it into it Public building. Hairfield’s government-issued work email listed on the department’s website is no longer operational.

Earlier this week, Democratic Legislators, including Oregon, became Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, excluded from entering the US Ministry of Finance and the US Agency of International Development, or USAID, such as Trump and his unofficial adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, have tried to shut down.

Bonamici said she “still treated” the scene outside the education department several hours later.

“I honestly didn’t expect to be locked out when I went there this morning,” she said. “He (Hairfield) said things like, ‘You don’t have a meeting,’ and ‘you have no business here’, which was really offensive. ‘

Bonamici has been in Congress for more than a decade and has a supervisory authority for the education department as a member of the Education and Workers’ Committee and the Sub-Committee for Early Childhood, Elementary School and Secondary Education in the US Representative House.

The decades old mission from the US Ministry of Education is to “strengthen the federal obligation to ensure access to equal educational opportunities for each individual.”

More than 83% of Americans – and 85% of Oregonians – have sent their children to public schools on average in the last decade, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.