Townhall Criticism is Ridiculous
You may have seen news coverage that claims that Republican members of Congress are avoiding townhall meetings with constituents.
Recently The Austin American-Statesman published a guest column from Brenda Bell, a ‘retired journalist’ and an active volunteer of Democratic congressional candidate Julie Oliver.
I’m publishing this guest column here because after waiting two weeks for an answer, the Statesman declined to run by rebuttal, even though I was a biweekly columnist there for five years until recently and am a local elected official.
In the Statesman column, Bell purports to be appalled that U.S. Rep. Roger Williams (R-Austin) would not appear at a recent townhall meeting organized by Indivisible.
But make no mistake: Indivisible is a liberal organization that sets up town hall meetings, confuses voters by falsely claiming Republican members of Congress have agreed to attend, and then either harasses and catcalls the member when they show up or feigns outrage at their refusal to attend.
It is a shell game.
The goal is to create a lose-lose situation for the Republican member of Congress: Show up and Indivisible will create a YouTube moment of ‘constituents’ screaming at you or don’t show up and they will claim that the member won’t talk to their constituents.
In the Austin area alone, Indivisible has tried to use this playbook with U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Austin) and Bill Flores (R-Bryan).
Indivisible claims to be a grassroots group of concerned citizens.
Two minutes on their social media accounts will end all doubt: They are an extreme left wing group.
Their tactics are outrageous. They use staged ‘die-ins’, over-the-top attacks on social media and public harassment.
They are not interested in a respectful exchange of ideas and debate.
As a political action committee that has been actively endorsing Democratic candidates, why would a Republican member of Congress feel obligated to attend an Indivisible town hall?
It would be like a local Tea Party organization demanding that U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) attend a town hall meeting. Would anyone cover a press release that criticized Doggett for refusing to attend?
I have known Roger Williams for many years and he represents me in Congress.
I know for a fact how hard he works, actively traveling his large district.
Recently I met with him in his Austin office with a nonpartisan group to discuss upcoming legislation related to foreign aid.
Every American should be able to express their views to their member of Congress. There are myriad ways to do that: Emails, calls, letters, in person meetings and social media.
No Republican member of Congress has a responsibility to attend a manufactured town hall meeting hosted by a left wing political action committee. It’s ridiculous.
Matt Mackowiak is the Travis County GOP chairman.
