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发帖数: 897 | 1 It will cost $15 to ask Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a question in person during
the August congressional recess.
The House Budget Committee chairman isn’t holding any face-to-face open-to-
the-public town hall meetings during the recess, but like several of his
colleagues he will speak only for residents willing to open their wallets.
Ryan, who took substantial criticism from his southeast Wisconsin
constituents in April after he introduced the Republicans’ budget proposal,
isn’t the only member of congress whose August recess town hall-style
meetings are strictly pay-per-view.
Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) is scheduled to appear Aug. 23 at a luncheon
gathering of the Arizona Republican Lawyers Association. For $35, attendees
can question Quayle and enjoy a catered lunch at the Phoenix office of the
Snell & Wilmer law firm.
And Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) took heat in Duluth this weekend for
holding private events in his district’s population and media center —
including a $10-per-head meeting to be hosted next week by the local chapter
of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which on its
invitation notes that the organization “supported Chip in his stunning
upset over longtime Congressman Jim Oberstar in the 2010 election.”
It’s no secret why members of Congress would shy away from holding open
town hall meetings — it’s no fun getting yelled at by angry constituents
or having an uncomfortable question become an unfortunate YouTube moment.
By outsourcing the events to third parties that charge an entry fee to raise
money, members of Congress can eliminate most of the riffraff while still
— in some cases — allowing reporters and TV cameras for a positive local
news story.
The host of Quayle’s event, Lawyers Association President Jonathan Brinson,
said his group previously had paid luncheons featuring Sens. John McCain
and Jon Kyl and most of Arizona’s GOP congressional delegation.
But those events didn’t come in the absence of an open-to-the-public town
hall like one McCain held last week, at which he faced angry tea party
constituents.
“After Republicans voted to gut Medicare and other vital programs while
protecting tax breaks for millionaires and corporations, it’s not
surprising that they would not want to face their constituents in an open
forum,” said MoveOn.org Executive Director Justin Ruben. “There seems to
be no limit to how much our government is for sale.”
Quayle spokesman Richard Cullen said the first-term Republican held a jobs
fair and roundtable last week and did an event focusing on “senior issues”
for residents of a private retirement community. But Quayle — who is in
Israel this week — is not planning an open town hall.
“We made a decision about two months ago that we knew we’d be busy at work
in Washington on the debt ceiling,” Cullen said. “We called it a jobs
week. We wanted as soon as we got back into the district for his focus to be
on jobs.”
And indeed, the Arizona Republic wrote a rather glowing story Saturday about
Quayle’s jobs fair, a far cry from its May report about his town hall
meeting, in which the paper wrote that he “faced tough questions from
voters” about Medicare.
Ryan, who had police remove a man who yelled at him about proposed Medicare
cuts during an April town hall meeting in Racine, will host telephone town
hall meetings but no free events in person during the recess, spokesman
Kevin Seifert said.
Seifert said Ryan is also “holding business tours and office hours
throughout the recess.” He said the decision not to hold public town hall
events had nothing to do with criticism the House Budget chairman took from
constituents in April.
Seifert added that Ryan has nothing to do with the Whitnall Park Rotary Club
’s decision to charge $15 for admissiona fee that will pay for the catered
lunch of meat and potatoes the group will provide, club president Kent
Bieganski told POLITICO.
“It’s not something our office can control,” Seifert said.
Pastor Larry Meyers, the club’s webmaster, said about 50 people have
registered online and paid the $15 for the Ryan event. He said the club’s
catering hall can serve as many as 250 people and will not admit people who
do not pre-register and pay the $15 fee.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Graeme Zielinski said Ryan is scared
to defend his record before his fellow citizens.
“Paul Ryan has had a hard time going before open crowds, and for good
reason,” Zielinski said. “I’m sure Ryan doesn’t want to go before the
public to explain while his extreme ideology caused Standard & Poor’s to
downgrade U.S. long-term treasury bonds. Beside, Ryan likes smaller settings
— the kind where you can cozy up to a hedge fund manager and get a good $
350 bottle of wine.”
Cravaack ran into a protest last week when he met with local business
leaders in lieu of hosting a town hall meeting.
Chad McKenna, a local labor leader with the North East Area Labor Council,
dinged Cravaack in the Duluth News Tribune for not holding a town hall
meeting in the state’s fourth-largest city.
“Cravaack’s in Duluth meeting with business folk, but the average person
on the street doesn’t have access to him,” McKenna said of the first-term
Republican.
Cravaack, who hails from Lindstrom, 126 miles south of Duluth, but announced
last month that he was moving his family to New Hampshire, has held town
hall meetings in Brainerd and Grand Portage, each more than 115 miles from
Duluth, according to WDIO-TV.
He told the paper Duluth’s constituents are welcome to meet with a staffer
at his district office’s office hours. Cravaack, whose spokesman Michael
Bars didn’t return phone messages left by POLITICO on Monday, told the
paper he will return to Duluth when it suits his schedule, but that wouldn’
t be during the August recess. |
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