I was at Representative Adam Schiff's Alhambra townhall tonight, and I was proud to see a huge turnout of supporters of heath care reform. The event was moved from a library community room to the courtyard behind the library to accommodate the crowd.
Scheduled for 7 PM, a friend got wind that the teabaggers would arrive by 5:30, so we got there a few minutes after 5. There were already at least two hundred people there, and growing every minute.
The wingnuts were out in force - anti-tax people and Larouchians with posters of Obama as Hitler. There were also some confused anti reform seniors - one of whom denied Medicare was a government program, another of whom insisted there were "death panels" in the bill. The latter wouldn't point out where in the bill those were, except to say "section 1223" and refused to show me where it was in the copy of that section that I brought with me.
Our side was out in force, and appeared to me to outnumber the anti reform protestors. There were people from the unions, from AARP, and plenty of people like me who were not with a group but were angry about the last few weeks of disrupted town halls. Lots of people had signs, both preprinted and hand lettered. KTLA put the estimate at 3,000. The Pasadena Star News said "several hundred" but I think that's low - My rough guess was at least 1,000 people, and the "pro" signs looked to way outnumber the "anti" ones.
Schiff handled it well. It had been set up as a panel discussion including several people from the field, with 3 physicians on the panel a consumer health advocate, and the president of CareMore Health Plan. Schiff started out acknowledging the strong opinions in the crowd, and asking for people to respect each other in the discussion. The police had a significant presence, which was all to the good for keeping things peaceful - we thanked them afterward for doing a good job.
There was attempted disruption at the meeting, with a contingent yelling "liar" "bullshit" and "read the bill" - which they obviously hadn't read themselves. They were far outweighed by people telling them to shut up so we could hear the speakers.
Lessons learned:
Get there early so the teabaggers aren't the only ones toward the front.
Come prepared - I had printed out the wingnut claims, and brought printouts of the most contentious part of the bill. I had a netbook with the entire bill on a flash drive, and I challenged a few people spouting obvious propaganda to show me where the claimed sections were. All refused.
The only seats at this meeting all had handicap symbols. A few people were foresighted enough to bring folding chairs. If you can't stand for that period of time, bring a chair.
I hope this helps someone with the next townhall.