Help, my constituents are after me
Congressional Republicans in the United States are finding that constituents, like facts, are stubborn things.
On Thursday night, Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who heads the House Oversight Committee, cut a town hall short by an hour when some of the 1000 attendees jeered him for failing to investigate President Donald Trump.
That same evening in Tennessee, Republican Diane Black tried to answer only questions submitted in advance. This failed, as she was blasted by constituents over Republicans’ plan to kill Obamacare without a replacement.
‘‘There are people now who have cancer that have that coverage, that have to have that coverage to make sure they don’t die,’’ said Mike Carlson of Antioch, Tennessee. ‘‘How can I trust you to do anything that’s in our interest at all?’’
Republican Dave Brat of Virginia, a Tea Party tough guy, said recently that he’s ‘‘getting hammered’’ by women who want to keep Obamacare. They are getting ‘‘in my grill’’, he said.
‘‘We need activists,’’ he pleaded with fellow conservatives. ‘‘Get writers you know. Friends that you have, in every county you have.’’ On Facebook, Brat rejected holding town halls until ‘‘our first 100 days’ agenda is implemented’’. His tormentors responded with plans for a symbolic ‘‘grilling’’ of ‘‘Brat-worst’’ in front of his office.
Republicans are squirming from coast to coast. The biggest draw is the Affordable Care Act, whose supporters are following the Tea Party playbook and storming legislator meetings much as antiobamacare protesters did in 2009. It’s a harrowing turn of the screw for legislators who rode that fervour into office.
Republican Peter Roskam abruptly scrapped a meeting on Obamacare in Illinois last week because he said a reporter was there. Sandra Alexander, the constituent who requested the meeting, had a different take: ‘‘He just ran off,’’ she said.
On Tuesday, Constituents opposing Trump’s Muslim ban swarmed Republican Tom Mcclintock’s town hall meeting in Roseville, California. After defending the ban, Mcclintock, surrounded by a half-dozen police officers in riot gear, hurried to a waiting SUV as protesters shouted ‘‘shame’’.
On January 14, Republican Mike Coffman’s meeting at a library in Aurora, Colorado, was swarmed with angry people. With 100 people still waiting, Coffman was caught on video sneaking out the back door.
Senator Dean Heller, of Nevada, are you even a little embarrassed that a constituent brought her baby to your office, to protest your failure to answer the phone? ‘‘He definitely needs to be mindful of what the people here and throughout the state are saying,’’ said the young woman, identified on TV as ‘‘Kendall Weisemiller: Can’t reach Heller’’.
Republicans are pushing back – from a safe distance. After he fled the library, Coffman said on Facebook that he would stand firm against ‘‘activists angry about the election results and angry about the impending repeal of Obamacare’’. Republican Jimmy Duncan, of Tennessee, declared: ‘‘I am not going to hold town hall meetings in this atmosphere, because they would very quickly turn into shouting opportunities for extremists, kooks and radicals.’’ He made this bold statement in a letter mailed to constituents.
Senator Marco Rubio, Twitter warrior, called the protesters ‘‘leftwing radicals’’. The Dave Brat town hall posse had a caps-lock response to that. ‘‘I am not a radical. I am a suburban chess club mum who just wants to spend her free time cross-stitching. Fix this,’’ wrote one of them, who goes by the handle Jan in the Pan.
Meanwhile, Trump, starved for the roar of the crowd, plans a redstate road trip to intimidate lawmakers into doing his will. It’s the rest of America these Republicans should answer to. Yet nearly every day, they bow to an over-reaching president and run from a chess club mum.
The New York Times