Republican lawmakers are running away from town halls in August.
In a New York Times piece about the frustrations of one citizen activist in Texas, some prominent Republicans who have not held an August town hall are listed. They include: Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL); Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AK); Rep. John Kline (R-MN); Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX); Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), the chair of the House Rules Committee; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who has “not announced any town halls but did participate in them in 2009.”
The Times profiled Katrina Pierson, a fierce Tea Party activist from the Dallas, Texas area who traveled across the state for Ted Cruz in 2012. She and Tea Party activists in Dallas have made fake milk cartons with the faces of Cornyn and Sessions on them to urge both to meet their constituents at least once.
Pierson, a Sessions constituent, told Breitbart News that constituents in the district plan on doing robo-calls to put pressure on him to hold a town hall. She said that “Texans are tired of the failed leadership delegation in our state” and asserted that the state elected Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “to lead the fight against an abusive and intrusive federal government. “
“Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Pete Sessions have spent decades in office allowing this out of control spending, the dismantling of the constitution, and a runaway bureaucracy,” she told Breitbart News. “They have been complicit in the erosion of our rights and free market opportunities for tax payers in this country. We have paid them millions of dollars in salary to represent special interests, and we demand face-to-face answers.”
Pierson and her follow activists have organized a town hall on Saturday for Cornyn and have invited him to attend.
“As you may know, we the people of Texas pay Senator John Cornyn a salary of $174,000.00 per year. Over the course of a six-year term, that’s over a million dollars,” aflyer advertising the town hall reads. “Given that we pay the man much more than most of us make, it’s understandable that we would expect that Senator Cornyn would be so kind as to make himself available to us on a periodic basis, to discuss the critical issues facing our Republic and how he plans to address them. Apparently, Senator Cornyn disagrees.”
Pierson has offered to host a town hall for Sessions as well, and she indicated her frustrations with elected Representatives in Washington are similar to those of constituents in other districts who feel lawmakers are becoming more removed from everyday Americans they purport to represent.