2020 will be busy year for Congress, Rep. Ben Cline predicts during Staunton town hall

STAUNTON — As sixth district Rep. Ben Cline reflected Tuesday morning on his first year in Congress, he summed up his experience in one sentence:

"If there's one thing you can't say about last year's Congress, it's that it was quiet."

Cline, R-Botetourt, listed a number of issues that made his freshman year unique: He was sworn in last January amid an ongoing government shutdown and finished the legislative session with an impeachment vote. In between, four bills that he worked on became law.

"We shouldn't expect 2020 to be anything but just as busy and just as eventful," Cline said.

Cline spoke to about 30 people Tuesday morning during a Staunton town hall at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2216 on Frontier Drive. Cline said he held 19 town halls across the district last year, and this was his third of 2020. That's a departure from his predecessor, Bob Goodlatte, who did not hold a single in-person town hall for years.

Constituents shared a diversity of concerns and questions, ranging from the environment and economy to guns and current events.

Asked about the ongoing impeachment process, Cline said several times that he didn't believe the evidence presented rose to the level necessary to proceed with the impeachment process for President Donald Trump.

"If I'm presented with high crimes and misdemeanors, then I am bound by (my oath)," he said. "But I have not been presented with such evidence at this point. As a member of the judiciary committee that's critical."

Cline also discussed the ongoing tension between the U.S. and Iran. He called last week's killing of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani "unfortunate," but said the the action was taken, according to Trump, in response to intelligence about planned attacks against U.S. citizens. 

"This president has decided that the those types of actions will not go unanswered, and I do not believe they should go unanswered," Cline said. "I believe that we have a responsibility to respond accordingly when our citizens are threatened overseas."

"I'm pleased our president is standing up to Iran because I think that we have allowed them to get away with too much for too long," Cline said.

Cline also referenced the world stage when discussing climate change, a topic that constituents brought up several times. He agreed that humans contribute to climate change but disputed with the crowd how much was due to manmade reasons.

Someone shouted from the back: "Shouldn't we at least take the first steps?"

Cline agreed, but said he worried about taking any "extreme" measures, citing the proposed Green New Deal. He said such a proposal would be too disruptive of people's lives.

Later on, organic livestock farmer Jessie Linton shared her concerns about the environment and the decision to leave the Paris climate agreement , which aims to prevent global temperatures increasing by more than 2 degrees Celsius.

"My issue is when we left the Paris climate accords, it was a signal to the international community that we were going to put our interests above global interests," she said.

"As we should," Cline said. "I will always put America's interests ahead of the global interest. I wasn't elected by the globe; I was elected by the citizens of the sixth district."

That comment received murmurs from much of the crowd, and Cline said that it wasn't the right agreement for the U.S.

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He also fielded questions about proposed General Assembly bills, especially regarding gun control and the Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions that board of supervisors and city councils have passed in response.

"Some may say, 'Well, that's not the appropriate venue,'" Cline said. "But you know what, that's who they've got. ... It does no harm for a board of supervisors to speak up and say, 'Hey, this is a concern of our county, our community.'"

Cline also said he supported reforming social security and questioned what that might look like for his daughters' generation. He's generally against tax increases, he said.

"And I'll continue to advocate for responsible spending and reforming government programs, including critical ones for for future generations," Cline said. "But I don't take anything off the table."

Please share questions, comments and story ideas. Email me at cmitzel@newsleader.com or follow me on Twitter @c_mitzel.

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