Portman should arrange town hall

I’m one of a dozen concerned voters who obtained a meeting with Sen. Rob Portman on Friday by staking out an unpublicized appearance at Columbus State Community College. Portman was gracious, sitting with us for 30 minutes to address our questions on issues from Russian interference with the election to presidential conflicts of interest.

But our key question was this: When will he hold a public town hall, or a series of them, so more of his constituents can share their immediate concerns? Portman insisted it wasn’t needed. His staff reports to him on our phone calls, he said. He holds “tele-townhalls,” which are conference calls, he explained, that are set up by robocalling randomly selected constituents.

He referred to his private meeting last week with factory employees at their workplace as a town hall. But what Portman doesn’t seem to understand is that what we want, and feel we deserve, is a public, open forum. Nobody outside his staff knows how many calls the senator received against the appointments of Betsy DeVos or Scott Pruitt; we only know Portman voted for them.

If the senator heard convincing arguments from Ohioans as to why these appointees are qualified to oversee the education of our children or protect us from pollution, I would have liked to hear them.

I get it: meeting those who passionately disagree with you is scary. I hope our civil conversation on Saturday showed Portman that the opposition, even those who will skulk by elevators and stand up to security guards to get face time with their senator, is not always threatening.

Portman must talk to his constituents.

Suzanne Goldsmith-Hirsch Bexley