Last Tuesday, my wife and I had the opportunity to take part in a phone-in “town hall” meeting with our Congressional Representative, Jaime Herrera Beutler.
The call was set to begin at 6 p.m., but Herrera Beutler was not introduced until approximately 6:10. In the meantime, her staff person gave participants detailed instructions on how to submit a question. These instructions were repeated twice every few minutes in what seemed to be an effort to limit the number of questions that could be asked.
Our question we intended to ask (about the all-male Senate panel on health care reform) was pre-screened by the staff person. When asked why questions were pre-screened, the staff person said it was to ensure against duplicate questions. Predictably, our question did not get asked. About seven questions were handled during the 45-minute call, none of them about any controversial subject. Two of them came from constituents who wanted reassurance they would continue to get their Social Security checks.
The whole call was very unsatisfactory and a waste of time. Our representatives should not avoid meeting with constituents face-to-face, no matter how annoying our concerns may be.
