Last week, I wrote about 50 activists invading the Erie, PA, office of Mike Kelly, Republican Congressional Representative of PA-03, demanding that he hold an in-person town hall open to the public. Pennsylvania’s Republican gerrymander has split mostly blue Erie County between Kelly’s PA-03 district and Glenn Thompson’s (R) PA-05 district. With the Democratic vote thus divided, the Republicans who hold those seats are free to completely ignore the needs of the actual constituents of Erie County. While it’s not clear that Kelly has the courage or the integrity to actually schedule a town hall, in a collaboration between Keystone progress and SEIU-Healthcare, one has been scheduled anyway: Tuesday, Feb. 21, 6:00 PM, Hirt Auditorium, Blasco Library in bayside Erie.
A similar visit was scheduled to Congressman Glenn Thompson’s local office for today. Myself, I was worried with regard to turnout, because Thompson’s “local” office is a good hour’s drive away from Erie, in Titusville, a small town whose claim to fame is it’s proximity to the first commercial oil well (Drake’s Well). Surely we would not get 50 Erieites coming all the way down there! As it happened, representation from Erie wasn’t as strong as last week’s, but we got activists from other parts of Thompson’s very large district: Clarion, Du Bois, Franklin and such. By the time we were ready to visit Thompson’s office, there were about 40 protesters gathered. I was impressed.
More below the fold…
We entered Thompson’s office, located in an imposing old bank building on one of Titusville’s main thoroughfares, and sort of overwhelmed the place.
Just like last week, we demanded that a town hall be scheduled in a convenient location where constituents could ask questions and make requests of the Congressman. The staffer mentioned that Thompson had just recently had a town-hall-by-phone, and multiple protesters voiced their displeasure and frustration with that format, as Thompson rarely seems to face hard questions, and those that do ask hard questions don’t get a chance to follow-up.
The staffer helpfully pointed out that Thompson had visited Erie just last week; however, that was for a closed meeting with business leaders, not for an open public meeting. As far as I’m aware, Thompson has never held a public town hall in Erie Country—or any other location close by.
The staffer said that Thompson prefers to meet with constituents either singly or in small groups, pointing out that the office was too small to hold all the protesters present. Dan Doubet, our spokesman, pointed out the obvious: that a town hall would have to be held in a larger venue, and we could arrange for that venue if need be. The staffer said he could meet with just a group of us, since surely we were all present to talk about a single issue? I pointed out that there were, in fact, many issues to be discussed. A survey of the signs people carried was evidence of that: No ACA repeal; Investigate Putin, Trump & Pence; Rural PA wants non-flammable water; Step away from the EPA; Rein in Trump, not Science.
Dan pointed out that Thompson’s gerrymandered district spreads from Erie County in far northwestern PA, down to a point less than 40 miles from the Maryland border at its southeast extremity. Constituents spread over such a wide geographic area will not have a lot of needs and interests in common. Thompson’s staffer countered that the designation of congressional districts is done by the state, not the federal government; Dan replied that Thompson could have nonetheless conferred with the state to make his district more reasonably consistent in size, shape, and constituency.
The staffer said that Thompson had already scheduled his time for the Congressional Recess, and that there would be no town hall he could attend in Erie, or elsewhere near northwest Pennsylvania, during that period. That also means that he won’t be attending our self-scheduled town hall in Erie on Feb. 21. She took our phone numbers and promised to get back to us. We made it clear that if we were not satisfied, we were going to come back.
So, there was further frustration with a Congressional Representative who is likely to be unresponsive, but he’s been served notice that we’re watching him, and we’re not going away.
[With any luck, I’ll be updating this post soon with a video of the event.]