TOWN HALLS? CIVIL RIGHTS CONCERNS? YOU TALKING TO ME?

Town hall dismissals

Perhaps no local political representative was more dismissive of his constituents last week in the rounds of town halls that took place during congressional “recess week” than our 3rd District Rep. Chuck Fleischmann.

Like our other so-called representatives, he refused invitations to the town hall at the Chattanooga Public Library or street corners in Chattanooga last week.

As he left a photo opportunity he created for himself at Barger Academy (one of three schools he visited to emphasize the importance of computer science education), he ignored another invitation by sign-waving folks hollering “come to our town hall!”

And, smiling behind his rolled up car window as the vehicle pulled away, he waved.

Fleischmann also found time to attend the Kiwanis Club in Ooltewah, according to his Twitter feed.

But to be fair, none of the congressional representatives in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia, all Republicans, found time to be bothered with questions and concerns from their constituents who are opposed to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, to anti-immigration actions, to lack of action on important gun safety and to roll-backs of environmental laws or LGBT protections. Several told the Times Free Press last week that they were busy with other meetings. Sen. Bob Corker was out of the country.

But the well-behaved constituents demonstrated a collective sense of humor about being dismissed and ignored.

They held the town halls without their elected officials, substituting instead the officials’ cardboard likenesses.

In the 4th District, Scott Desjarlais’s constituents held a “teletown hall,” in which callers asked questions about the Desjarlais comments the week before about intentions to pass better health care coverage legislation than Obamacare.

After each question, the moderator asked if DesJarlais was on the line.

Taped cricket chirps were the only the answers.

A wave here, a cricket there. And zero answers. Please, folks, remember this come Election Day in 2018.

The DeVos surprise

For all of the criticism that Betsy DeVos endured from Democrats and liberals, she did last week — under unpleasant conditions — ask for and apparently receive a concession to include in the new Trump directive rescinding the Obama protections for transgender bathroom issues.

DeVos initially fought the Trump order to rescind the Obama “guidance,” but when she knew she’d lost she requested and received the OK to retain some language stating schools must protect transgender students from bullying, according to news reports.

Three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions told The New York Times last week that DeVos, in a standoff with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, said she was uncomfortable with rescinding the Obama guidance because of the potential harm the move could cause transgender students.

Sessions, who has long opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed her to relent because his action required her OK as well as his.

After getting nowhere, he took his objections to Trump, who sided with Sessions.

The Republicans said Trump told DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office he wanted her to drop her opposition.

Faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, she agreed to go along, according to The New York Times.

Who knew she had it in her?

Of course, she didn’t have enough in her to stop it. And she did, the next day, call the transgender bathroom guidelines “a very huge example of the Obama administration’s overreach, a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach.”

Then what, we ask, was the new Trump order, that now — unless courts rule otherwise — is likely to result in a states’ race to introduce a new wave of bathroom birth certificate legislation?

At least she’s on the record saying this: “We have a responsibility to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment. This is not a federal mandate, but a moral obligation no individual, school, district or state can abdicate.”

Stay tuned.