Saturday, I attended a “Town Meeting” in Acton, Massachusetts with our recently elected Democratic member of Congress, Lori Trahan from the Third District of Massachusetts. About two hundred people came out on a sunny Saturday morning in June to a school auditorium to hear from and ask questions of the Congresswoman. Attendees were asked to submit questions in writing which were then reviewed and asked by State Rep. Tami Gouveia. Later there would be questions from the floor.
After somewhat lengthy opening remarks by Rep. Trahan, the first question that Tami Gouveia posed to Rep. Trahan was on climate change and the Green New Deal. The second question that Tami asked was about impeachment and Rep. Trahan went into a lengthy answer about the need for broader public support and that investigations that were going on and that congress needed to see the redacted portions of the Mueller report. The bottom line being was that she did not support opening an impeachment inquiry.
Sitting in the front row, I spoke up and said that they (the President and his administration) were not responding to the subpoenas. She heard me and replied that things were moving with the legal action on subpoenas and at that point there were a number of other voices in the room calling for her to support impeachment. One long time civic activist in our town also spoke out and said that we need a transportation bill so she did not want so see impeachment but there were clearly many more voices for impeachment. After ten minutes of back and forth with Rep. Trahan continuing to echo Speaker Pelosi but changing her tune a bit to say that there may come a time when impeachment is warranted, the moderator, Rep. Gouveia, sought to turn the meeting to other topics. There was clearly interest in Medicare for all, immigration, as well as climate change but impeachment was on a number of our minds and she heard some of our collective frustration.