On Wednesday, 16 constituents showed up in six-term Illinois Republican Rep. Peter Roskam’s office to discuss Obamacare with the Congressman. But when a staffer learned a reporter was present, the meeting was canceled. Katherine Skiba and Marwa Eltagouri reported:
“I am flabbergasted that Peter Roskam and his staff would turn us away,” Sandra Alexander, who organized the meeting, said. “They didn’t have the courtesy to listen to us. We are a peaceful group.” [...]
A Facebook group called "6th District of Illinois-Holding Peter Roskam Accountable" has sprung up to urge calls to Roskam.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is taking the unusual move of targeting Roskam, an unusual move for a representative serving a persistently Republican district. And the DSCC is not the only opposition. By Friday, 80 or 90 people had signed up to attend the Palatine Township Republican Organization's monthly meeting where Roskam was scheduled to speak and expected protesters. And were there ever. As you can see in the video below, there were hundreds.
That wasn’t the only place resisters appeared to give their Congressperson a message Saturday. The townhall meeting set up in a local theater by Republican Rep. Tom McClintock in Roseville, California, drew a huge crowd inside and out. Angela Hart reports:
Facing a packed auditorium and raucous crowd, Republican Congressman Tom McClintock on Saturday defended his party’s national agenda and voiced strong support for President Donald Trump’s disputed executive actions to scale back Obamacare, ban refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Vote him out,” hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the Tower Theatre in downtown Roseville, the Republican-heavy population center of McClintock’s sprawling congressional district. Inside the theater, more than than 200 people gathered for a town-hall event hosted by McClintock.
Attendees, carrying signs that read “Resist,” “Dump Tom McTrump,” and “Climate change is real,” repeatedly pressed McClintock to denounce Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, acknowledge the science supporting the human causes of climate change, and oppose Trump’s executive order temporarily banning refugee admissions to the U.S.
Meanwhile, in at least four cities of West Virginia, protesters showed up in at least four cities to oppose Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s support for Betty DeVos, Pr*sident Trump’s choice for secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
In Denver, several dozen resisters organized by the American Federation of Teachers and Denver Federation of Teachers appeared outside Republican Sen. Cory Gardner’s office to protest his support for DeVos.
Gardner has riled people with claims that people who are emailing and calling his office urging him not to vote for DeVos are “paid protesters.”
And in Janesville, Wisconsin, hometown of House Speaker Paul Ryan, to challenge for his stance favoring draconian immigration laws and the proposed wall on the Mexican border. WKOW-TV reported that 500 people had peacefully marched to Ryan’s office to protest the Muslim travel ban.
No arrests or acts of violence were reported at any of the protests.
