Letter: Herrera Beutler falls short

I disagree with a fundamental point in the April 16 story “Rep. Herrera Beutler’s phone town hall cordial.”

A town hall meeting is meant to hold lawmakers accountable to their electorate. It is a community forum where our representatives must face their constituents directly, a place to discuss and account for their actions. Is Herrera Beutler afraid to do that?

Her “community coffees” are not town hall meetings. They deliberately limit her accountability by restricting the participants to “certain people” whom she chooses. The coffees (tea parties?) show the voters a smiley-face emoticon surrounded by her “cordial,” invited admirers.

A telephone conference call is not a town hall meeting, either. Its purpose is to keep the constituents she is supposed to represent feeling faceless and isolated, both from one another and from her. Voters are meant to feel powerless and detached, waiting alone to be chosen.

Pre-screened questions allow her to control the narrative and to respond with packaged rhetoric. The result may be “cordial,” but it is not accountability.

Calling this political theater a “town hall” gives it a status it does not deserve. It’s fake news. The Columbian’s readers and the 3rd District voters deserve better.