Senate:
Merkley (D) No, Wyden (D), Yes (BOTH represent Eugene)
House:
Republicans: Bentz: Yes, Chavez-DeRemer: Yes
Democrats: Blumenauer: Yes, Bonamici: No, Hoyle: No, Salinas : Yes (HOYLE represents Eugene)
Not sure which rep is yours? Find out in one click https://myreps.datamade.us/
President:
Biden (D) - Voted Yes by signing the bill/not vetoing
My personal take (please put your own thoughts in the comments):
I don’t use TikTok, I think it’s trash. The TikTok ban was initially Trump’s idea, while he was president, but he couldn’t get congress to pass it. But when Biden and dems gained power, they passed it, with a provision set so that the ban doesn’t actually come into effect until the start of Trump’s turn, where he can cancel it and look like a hero to fans of TikTok and free speech more generally. The democrats handed Trump an absolute win on this for no good reason.
The TikTok ban is one of the biggest attacks on free speech I have seen in my lifetime. The government should not be able to dictate how you get your news, period. It’s your right to read, view, and speak what you want, even advocating for the overthrow of the government, that’s why we have the first amendment. You should be able to buy a book or watch a movie, regardless of what country that speech was produced in. Our right to free speech protects all our other rights, this is an incredibly dangerous precedent. And it won’t help them get the youth vote they so desperately need to win elections.
Banning TikTok isn’t fighting China, it’s becoming China. It’s using the same “foreign interference” and “protect the children” line used by despots globally from Xi to Putin as they ban newspapers, websites, and anybody critical of their regime. “But China does it” isn’t the great defense people seem to think it is, we don’t want to do the same things China does. China is an autocracy.
We can lose our right to abortion or privacy and use free speech to get it back. If we lose our right to free speech, there’s no other right that works the same except possibly the second amendment. The road to tyranny is paved by the loss of individual liberties.
The last thing I want is for the incoming administration to have a nice, legal pathway to clamp down on speech which is critical of them, and platforms which allow that speech. And dems just rolled out the carpet for them on this. Thank you to Val Hoyle for defending our right to free speech and voting against the majority of her party, that is principle! She has generally been very good on speech-related bills which I am thankful for even if I don’t agree with her on everything.
Source for votes:
Senate: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll/_call/_votes/vote1182/vote/_118/_2/_00154.htm#state