GOP learning hard lesson on benefits of rowdy town halls
Some are avoiding these meetings with irate constituents
DENVER — Republicans who benefited from rowdy town halls six years ago and harnessed a wave of discontent with Democrats to win seats in Congress are learning a hard lesson this week as they return home: The left is happy to return the favor.
Across the United States, Democrats and their allies are spending this short congressional recess protesting elected Republican politicians who are avoiding the events that often turn into shouting matches.
Just like the tea party sympathizers who vented against Democrats and President Barack Obama, the new left and leftleaning protesters are taking out their ire on Republicans and their links to President Donald Trump.
In Denver this week, the activists targeted Republican Sen. Cory Gardner — denouncing him as inaccessible and beaming a picture of him fashioned into a “Missing” poster to a wall of the Denver Art Museum while protesting Trump’s plans to boost energy production on public lands.
Gardner “is supposed to represent us, but where is he?” said Emma Spett, a 22-year-old environmental activist from Denver who says she’s “terrified” of environmental policy changes backed by Trump.
Gardner defeated a Democrat in 2010, and used impromptu town hall meetings heavily attended by tea party members in his campaign to rail against Obama’s Affordable Care Act and incumbent congressional representatives he labeled as out of touch with voters.
Now an incumbent who doesn’t face re-election until 2020, Gardner has no town halls scheduled and was met Wednesday at an agricultural forum in Denver by protesters yelling “We want a town hall!”
He dodged questions from reporters about why he did not plan any, saying that he supports “people who are expressing differing points of views” and that his staff meets with protesters.
Experts say that avoiding town halls is a tactic used by incumbents to dodge being berated in widely publicized local events. Last week, Associated Press reported that Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has not scheduled any inperson town hall meetings and instead held a phone-in town hall.
“If you’re there at a town hall meeting and there’s hundreds of people there yelling at you, it’s going to be a media event,” said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver.
“They’re calculating that the bad press they’re going to get from not having a town hall is not going to be as bad as that.”
In Montana, Republican Sen. Steve Daines got waylaid with boos and jeers from hundreds of protesters just for rescheduling an appearance before state lawmakers Helena from Tuesday to Wednesday.
“What a coward!” said Katherine Haque-Hausrath, a protest organizer who demanded he meet with constituents. “If he doesn’t listen to us now, he can listen to us in 2020 in the election.”