Town hall meetings

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that many members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation will not be holding in person town hall style meetings this summer with most members opting to do it by telephone instead.

In past years it was a right of summer for a Congressman to invite people to some church basement to answer their questions with maybe 20 or 30 people showing up and the local paper might write a story about it or not. Last year that changed when the teabagger crowd turned many of these meeting into a circus. It made for great television and YouTube videos with people shouting down the hosts and those who disagreed with them. I had an email chat with Congressman Patrick Murphy about it while he was in Afghanistan and he joked that he felt safer there.

Locally Congressman Paul Kanjorski has been doing telephone town halls the last few years and will continue to do so.

TL: “I have held many town meetings over the years in many different formats. I have found that telephone town meetings can be especially effective because I can interact with as many as 8,000 Northeastern Pennsylvanians on a single phone call,” Kanjorski said Thursday. “Telephone town meetings provide a unique and convenient forum to hear the concerns of my constituents and answer their questions live over the phone. I have received very positive feedback from participants on these calls.”

Naturally his opponent Lou Barletta jumped all over this news sending out this press release.

Hazleton, PA – Paul Kanjorski is making the deliberate decision to not meet face to face with his constituents this summer, instead spending taxpayer dollars on telephone conference calls.
“Mr. Kanjorski is hiding from the people of the 11th Congressional District because he knows he has made many unpopular decisions, like taking millions in campaign cash from his Wall Street buddies then handing out billions of taxpayer dollars to them in the form of bailouts. He would have to answer for the rising unemployment rate, especially since he called this economy the best ‘in the history of mankind.’ He would have to explain why he ignored the will of his constituents and voted for the government takeover of our healthcare system,” said Lou Barletta, mayor of Hazleton and candidate for Congress.

“The people of this district deserve to know: how did much these conference calls cost them? Where does Kanjorski get his list of callers? And how do Kanjorski and his staff select the questions he chooses to answer on those choreographed calls?

“It’s bad enough that he’s ducking his constituents and not meeting with them in person, but he’s also making the people pay for his telemarketing campaign,” Mayor Barletta added. “I would hope Kanjorski would change his mind and give the people the chance to meet with their congressman face to face. In the meantime, I will continue to meet with the residents of all five counties of this district.”

I asked Kanjo spokesman Ed Mitchell for a comment and he responded with his usuall wit:

Typical Barletta gibberish. Must be a slow summer. Congressman Kanjorski meets face-to-face with constituents every day in the district and Washington . He talks with far more of them in a tele-townhall than the other type. Far more economical. Let's talk issues, not silliness. Where does Barletta stand on the jobs bill?

Congressman Chris Carney will continue to have in person town halls as he has been doing since he was first elected in 2006.

Josh Drobnyk, a spokesman for Carney, said the congressman holds meetings with residents in nearly all of the 14 counties within the 10th Congressional District every year. He’s already done so in Snyder and Lycoming counties this year.

“Congressman Carney holds town hall meetings throughout the district every year because he believes it is important to listen to the hard-working families of northeast and central Pennsylvania. This year is no different,” Drobnyk said. “He has already held a number of issue-oriented meetings with constituents and will continue to do so. He will balance those meetings with his military commitments. Additional town halls will be scheduled when the congressional voting calendar permits later this summer.”

Last year one of his staff members got abused at a cut the red tape session that every member sponsors. Ed is tickled that this YouTube has had over 16,000 hits, he is almost famous.

Anyway, Carney will be holding town hall meetings and will dress appropriately.