{"id":19885,"date":"2017-02-20T04:10:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T04:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19885"},"modified":"2017-02-20T04:10:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T04:10:21","slug":"no-town-hall-meetings-no-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19885","title":{"rendered":"No ‘town hall’ meetings; no surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I guess this is one of the\u00a0least-surprising things I’ve heard since Donald J. Trump became president of the United States.<\/p>\n

West Texas’s congressional delegation is coming home for a weeklong recess — but none of them is planning any town hall meetings with constituents.<\/p>\n

Why do you suppose they’re forgoing these events? My guess — and that’s all it is — would be that they\u00a0might not\u00a0ready to withstand the heat that their colleagues have gotten from their constituents when they have had town meetings back home.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, who has represented the 13th Congressional District since 1995, says he’ll be accessible to voters. Good. I trust he’ll keep his word while he’s back home.<\/p>\n

The issue on voters’ minds happens to be the Affordable Care Act. Congressmen and women have been getting a snoot full from constituents about the ACA and what Congress intends to do if it repeals it. They don’t want to lose their health insurance and, near as I can tell, Republicans lack a replacement plan to insert in place of the ACA if they get around to repealing it.<\/p>\n

But our West Texas congressional representatives aren’t going to hear from their constituents in a town hall setting.<\/p>\n

I hope, though, that they open and read their mail and their staffers listen to phone calls from concerned citizens.<\/p>\n

We aren’t brain dead in this part of the country. Indeed, lawmakers representing deep-red, solidly Republican congressional districts are getting their share of gripes.<\/p>\n

I doubt we’re any different here.<\/p>\n\n

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I guess this is one of the\u00a0least-surprising things I’ve heard since Donald J. Trump became president of the United States. West Texas’s congressional delegation is coming home for a weeklong recess — but none of them is planning any town hall meetings with constituents. Why do you suppose they’re forgoing these events? My guess — … Continue reading No ‘town hall’ meetings; no surprise<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[27,131,2849,3376,4869,5225],"class_list":["post-19885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-13th-congressional-district","tag-aca","tag-mac-thornberry","tag-obamacare","tag-town-hall-meetings","tag-west-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19887,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19885\/revisions\/19887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}