Congressman Barry Loudermilk recently walked into an International House of Pancakes in Woodstock for a meeting with constituents.
Loudermilk was the featured speaker for a weekly breakfast meeting series for local conservatives.
But Loudermilk says he has no plans to take part in a traditional town hall meeting with constituents.
“We don’t right now,” he said in the IHOP parking lot. “I’m out in the community continuously doing things like this meeting. The town halls we’re doing have been pretty open. So we just haven’t had any of those old traditional town halls because they have not been productive. It’s usually just a chance for people to come in and take over and scream and holler and so we found it more productive to do more smaller venues such as what I’m doing here.”
Some of Loudermilk’s Georgia Congressional colleagues have first-hand experience with disruptive town hall participants. A tense Roswell town hall for Republican Congressman Rich McCormick of Suwanee helped spur GOP leadership to call on members to tamp down in-person town halls.
Last month, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome went ahead with plans for an Acworth town hall, which turned Jerry Springer-esque when multiple protesters were dragged out, shocked with a Taser and arrested.
Georgia’s Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock faced hecklers at a recent Atlanta town hall, who shouted over him for several minutes in opposition of the senator’s vote to sell weapons for Israel to use in Gaza, and fellow Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff faced civil but tense questioning from fired federal workers who questioned his commitment to fighting for them. Similar scenes have played out across the country.
Still, it would be hard to characterize the IHOP get-together as “pretty open.” It was not advertised and an organizer refused to open the meeting to a reporter.
In an email to invitees, the organizer, who did not respond to a request to comment, described the breakfasts as “a shelter in the midst of the storm, a sanctuary, a place of refuge where political points are often fine-tuned, where opposing views are often shared by those elected and candidates alike. We lift high the banner of ethical behavior and encourage building a good reputation upon merit.”
“When, ‘It’s time to begin,’ freewheeling conversations gives way to ‘updates,’ from Elected and Appointed Officials, Candidates, Lobbyists, Special Groups and Committees, Political Parties, eventually: everyone who wants to share with positive input. So, if you are a positive thinking, politically motivated conservative and looking for a place of encouragement come join us!” the email continues.
Reaction
Earlier this month, Cherokee County Democrats held a mock town hall featuring a cardboard cutout of Waldo, the hard-to-find world traveler from the Where’s Waldo books, with Loudermilk’s face.
Waleska resident Genevieve Hutchings said she’s been trying to get in touch with Loudermilk for months and wants him to host a public town hall.
“That’s divisive for our county and for our country, if that’s his stance, that he’s only going to meet the people that agree with him,” she said. “And how could he possibly govern in a way that’s going to be helpful to all of those constituents if he doesn’t hear from all of them?”
Hutchings was one of a few dozen protesters in downtown Woodstock on a rainy weekend as part of the progressive Indivisible movement, which has hosted larger protests outside Loudermilk’s office.
Further down the road, Woodstock resident John Thomas held a one-man counterprotest, holding up a sign with the Trump-Vance logo atop a pair of garden gnomes.
Thomas said he expects to see members of Congress host town halls as well.
“America was founded on, you know, stump speeches and people standing out there and taking questions and answering questions from all sides. And how else can we, Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike, get a message out and get people to understand our side of the debate, unless we’re out there talking to both sides of the aisle?”
The Recorder reached out to the offices of each of Georgia’s 14 members of Congress about recent or future town halls. Representatives for Greene, and Democrats Nikema Williams of Atlanta and Hank Johnson of Lithonia responded.
Greene’s office cited her recent Acworth town hall and said she hosts multiple such events per year. Williams’ staff sent a list of recent public events, including a traditional town hall in March and other smaller-scale meetings with constituents. Johnson’s office said the Congressman has been hosting regular in-person and streamed events, with the next public town hall scheduled for May 28 in Lawrenceville.
‘These are your bosses’
With most of Georgia’s congressional districts safe for either party, politicians are unlikely to face a real threat from the other side, said University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock. That means there’s no real incentive for most politicians to face the heat from constituents on the opposite political wavelength.
“I think that would be their assessment, that there’s nothing to be gained from it, that the people who would show up and protest are not going to vote for them under any circumstance,” he said. “Therefore, they figure that their credentials are good for the kinds of voters who would show up in a Republican primary – if they were to get primaried, and certainly incumbents often are not, or at least don’t draw serious opponents. So I don’t think they’re going to be worried about the fact that there may be some media story saying, ‘why aren’t they holding town halls?’”
Democratic members of Congress dealt with the same dynamic when President Barack Obama was in the White House, said Kennesaw State University political science professor and former Cobb County GOP Chair Jason Shepherd.
“This has been kind of going on for a few years now, and Democrats saw this with Obamacare back in 2010 with Democrat members of Congress being shouted down,” he said. “Now we see it with Republicans, and it makes it impossible for actual constituents, because let’s face it, a lot of times the people who show up to town halls and disrupt things don’t even live in the district, can’t even vote for the member of Congress.”
Shepherd said it makes sense for politicians to try to avoid shouty town halls or to replace them with streamed events with pre-screened questions, but doing so is anti-democratic.
“This is part of our democracy,” he said. “You’re not only going up in front of voters every two or six years, but these are your bosses. These are the people whose taxes pay your paycheck.”
