New Jersey’s Republican Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen has gone missing. His constituents have been trying to ask him questions and he keeps not showing up to town hall meetings.
Thursday night, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) missed the fourth town hall put on for him this week by a constituent group. In a mostly full synagogue, constituents formed two orderly lines behind microphones and asked dozens of questions.
Instead, Rep. Frelinghuysen has decided to host a conference call where he chooses the participants and, I’m guessing now, he hides under his desk while he talks.
Frelinghuysen held an invitation-only conference call this week for select constituents, billing it as a “telephone town hall.” He also appeared at local high schools, where he spoke with students studying AP government. But he hasn’t met with his constituents in person. He was also absent Wednesday night at a United Food and Commercial Workers’ union hall, the night before that at a mosque, and on Sunday night at a Veterans of Foreign Wars event out in the more rural, Republican part of his almost evenly split, purple district. The town halls were all planned by NJ 11th for Change.
But Jersey’s yellow-backed ‘fraidy-cat isn’t the only one trying this tactic—Idaho’s elected Republicans are equally afraid. Republican Mike Simpson (R-ID) is doing Facebook live interviews and Sen. Jim Risch has decided just saying “You’re doing a good job!” seems to be enough for the President so why not him?
"We receive telephone calls every day from people on both sides of the issue and we listen very carefully to them," Risch said. "Idaho, as you know, is a very conservative state. Indeed the most conservative state in America. We think, the congressional delegation that we have, represents them well. We had an election just last November. We had an election two years ago in November. The Idaho people spoke loudly and clearly (about) what they want. And we're delivering that to them every time they call our name and we vote."
Idaho’s other Senator Mike Crapo says in the past he’s done all kinds of town halls and therefore that’s a reason why he doesn’t need to face the music right now.
KBOI 2News cameras were rolling when Senator Crapo told our media partner, 670 KBOI, why he didn't attend a town hall that dozens invited him to.
"First off, yesterday was Canyon County's Lincoln Day. I've held 200 town hall meetings in the last couple of years in every incorporated town in Idaho and there will be more. There's a lot of folks that are really unhappy with the election and they're making their voice heard, I'm hearing their voice," said Crapo.
You can run but you can’t hide.