REGION’S DEMOCRATIC REPS HELD MOST TOWN HALLS

Houlahan, Scanlon led the way with nearly half of events that met criteria

Only Democrats held traditional town hall meetings with the public in 2019, according to an analysis by a crowd-sourced journalism initiative based in West Chester.

No Republican members of Pennsylvania’s 18-member House delegation held any town halls, according to the report.

Further, nearly 70 percent of those town halls were conducted by female Democrats in Pennsylvania’s House delegation.

However, the results in the report are dependent upon a very specific definition of “town hall,” which was first published online Dec. 17 by CoverThis.news.

Town halls counted in this study were in-person events open to the public.

The report’s definition does not include electronic or telephone town halls; nor does it include “invitation-only” events, or those held in locations not open to the general public, such as at senior housing facilities.

Using this criteria, firstterm U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th Dist., held one quarter of all 40 of the town hall meetings hosted by members of Congress from Pennsylvania.

In August, she even had to reschedule one of her events in Reading due to a security risk.

Close on Houlahan’s heels was another first-termer, U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-5th Dist., who held nine.

With four town halls, U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist., was tied with three other representations for fourth-place. Another representative from the region holding four town halls was U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-7th Dist.

U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-2nd Dist., held one.

Both U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, D-3rd Dist., and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-1st Dist., held none.

According to the report, researched by Austin Gomberg

and Chris Dima, “some offices didn’t respond to our inquiries. We received answers from eight of the nine Democratic representatives, but by comparison we only received responses from three of the nine Republican offices.”

In an email response to MediaNews Group, Gomberg wrote, “We plan on, and have been, publicly updating the report/charts live as we get new information — and we’ve been making the reasoning behind those updates public as well.”

After being contacted by Digital First Media, Dean’s offices provided a list of 10 events which Dean held with the public, only four of which met the definition of “Town Hall” set by the Cover.this report.

MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE PHOTO U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist., at right, was joined by Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in Pottstown for a discussion of the federal deficit in August.

MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE PHOTO Democratic U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-6th Dist., speaks at a rescheduled town hall at the GoggleWorks in Reading.