Thread: Town Hall Meeting With My Congressman

Today I went to a town hall sponsored by my congressman, Steve McMahon, which was held in a remote part of Bay Ridge at ten in the morning.

I underestimated my Dem. congressman-slightly. He did take live questions from the audience. However, it was stacked with members of CWA and some left wing Protestant church I'd never heard of, they made up the largest portion of the audience. Most of the people who came seemed to have been informed about the event via e-mails from Mybarackobama.com.

Here's a picture of my congressman, taken completley out of context it makes him look absurd, but I don't really care for him so I'm okay with that.


http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1664/mcmahon.jpg

I was surrounded by CWA members:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/8134/cway.jpg

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9701/unionx.jpg

Among others:

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9168/h ... eforum.jpg

Various hecklers, e.g. "END THE WAR," interrupted the event, but for the most part it was relatively civil.

I was able to give ask a question about the Grassley Amendment, which would have prohibited illegal aliens from accessing new health care benefits by requiring recipients to provide valid photo identification upon request, but which the Dem. members of the Sen. Finance Committee voted down 10-13. Of course, he brushed it aside with a dismissive sneer and the declaration that it was part of the opposition's "gotcha politics."


I had a more substantive conversation with someone from a community newspaper afterwards about the impact of illegal immigration on this country.

I am glad you got the question in, even though his answer was derisive. I would email him to pound the point home.

If you want to ask him to clarify his position on illegal aliens' eligibility for health care, amnesty, etc., here's an e-mail form:

https://forms.house.gov/mcmahon/contact.shtml


Hopefully, you'll get a better answer out of him than I did.

Stealth town hall meetings suck. This is the first I heard about it.

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

Stealth town hall meetings suck. This is the first I heard about it.

As I mentioned above, most of the people who attended were alerted to it through the e-mail list at Barack Obama's campaign website. In fact, the first thing I saw when I opened my inbox, upon my return, was an e-mail from one of the admins at his site.




Luckily, I have a blogger friend who's kept abreast of these events.