My Senator, Mr. Tillis, a Republican and T supporter, has not responded to my many voicemails and Facebook messages. His office has my name and street address. They know I’m a constituent that’s vocal and against what Mr. Tillis is doing on many topics. I have no way of knowing if my actual Senator understands what I’m saying. I have doubts about whether my messages are getting to him at all.
My Congresswoman, Deborah Ross, a Democrat, has very polite staff who answer my calls and clearly listen, take notes about what my opinions are, and let me know I have been heard.
An in-person town hall is one of the few ways elected officials can really let their constituents know they’ve been heard, they are understood, and their needs, opinions, etc, have been taken into account. The Republican members of the US House of Representatives have been directed to NOT hold town halls. Below is a quote from the NY Times article on this topic from March 4, 2025: Read the whole article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/us/politics/gop-town-hall.html
“Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chairman of House Republicans’ campaign arm, issued a stark message to the G.O.P. rank and file on Tuesday: Stop having in-person town halls with your constituents.”
Here’s why according to him: “Democrat activists who don’t live in the district, very often, will show up for these town hall events and they’ll go in an hour early and they’ll fill all the seats,” Mr. Johnson said. “Now I’m not saying everyone in these town halls that you’ve seen on television were not from the local area, but look, there are people who do this as a profession. They’re professional protesters. So why would we give them a forum to do that right now?”
I’ll tell you why. Because elected officials are required by law to listen to their constituents and represent them. The number of protesters who are not constituents in any given town hall compared to those who are constituents is an UNKNOWN number. Using that argument to hide from constituents is using fear to avoid doing the job of an elected official. In short terms, it means the elected official is caving in to fear like a coward.
This paragraph is from the AP News article linked below on a NC town hall recently: “After a rowdy town hall in Asheville, NC, the Republican Congressman, Chuck Edwards, who listened to his constituents boo and yell at him during the meeting said “I take away from what I heard today that we’re doing exactly what the American people sent us to Washington D.C. to do,” Edwards said, as several protesters pounded on the doors nearby.”
That says to me that Congressman Edwards doesn’t care that so many of his constituents are angry. That says to me that he’s given up on working to serve all his constituents. He’s only going to care about the ones who voted for him and the rest get blown off. That’s DIVIDING our communities, not working together.
This is my interpretation of information published by the Associated Press and NY Times. I use this to inform my calls and voicemails left for my elected officials.
I suggest my readers use the 5 Calls app to help them make calls to their elected officials. Read my blog post here about the 5 Calls app: https://sophia.scottandlara.com/2025/02/14/using-5-calls-app-to-support-democracy/