Posted on 08/13/2009 5:49:59 PM PDT by BethanieAldrich
After a series of unsuccessful requests to arrange a town hall over the August recess with Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey (CO-4), grassroots organizers opted instead to host their own health care town hall in the congresswoman’s absence – complete with an empty chair and placard for the reticent Markey.
The Northern Colorado Townhall Committee, who say their objective is to “provide a forum” for the voters of Northern Colorado, announced today they would hold a health care town hall on August 25th, and extended an open invitation to Representative Markey to moderate the event.
“With the August recess nearly half way over, we can’t wait any longer,” said the group’s founder, Kelly Trosper. “When other Reps across the nation are adding extra meetings, we still don’t have a schedule from her. This is a forum to discuss urgent topics, to include Health Care reform. We’re having to set one up ourselves, because our Rep isn’t making herself available.”
But this afternoon, following the public outcry and impressive political theater, Markey’s staff announced a town hall blitz, featuring 11 public forums on health care reform.
Greg Merton, a spokesman for the townhall committee, remains skeptical of Markey’s new-found interest in dialogue, and points to a local news report where Markey’s staff obfuscated on the matter last night, saying no details on the Congresswoman’s events would be made public for at least another week.
Confronted with the prospect of engaging in a dialogue with unhappy constituents, Democratic members of Congress have begun employing questionable tactics to limit access to town hall, some staffing the forums with supporters, while others still requiring photo identification to verify residency. Congressional Democrats routinely demagogue the notion of verifying residency to vote, arguing it disenfranchises poor and minority voters, but they seemingly have no problem disenfranchising low- and middle-income families concerned with the future of health care in the United States.
Concerned Markey may chart a similar course of action, Merton says his group intends to keep the August 25th event on-the-books until they “find out the ‘rules of engagement’” for the Congresswoman’s other events.
“We appreciate the small victory for democracy,” Merton says, adding, “but we'll be keeping the date so we can be sure to be heard.”
Markey's staff did not return an immediate request for comment.
Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.
That has to be the next step. It’s no surprise that our elected representatives quit showing up to be scolded and shouted at for their treachery.
If the interest is there for townhall meetings WITHOUT politicians in attendance, there just might be enough interest in a constitutional convention.
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Invite people interested in running against the current politicians who won’t listen or show up to come. I think they’d like the forum, the support, and we just might find good replacements. If they won’t work FOR us, let’s all work against THEM! I really liked the empty chair.
Gotta love it.
More meetings, invite the empty chair.
Perhaps they should tell her the tar and feathers will be withheld until next year at the elections, when she will be run out of office for her lack of guts...
This is AWESOME and one way to fight back against the chickens that are in Congress.
An empty chair is an excellent idea. But also have a panel of right-thinking Americans who have actually read and carefully studied this abominable piece of legislation seated behind the empty chair. Allow questions to be posed one at a time to the empty chair. Wait 20-30 seconds (long enough for the silence to be VERY noticeable. Then one of the pael members can respond, “Obviously the Congresswoman is having a hard time collecting her thoughts, I’ll answer the question . . . It seems the Congresswoman is uncomfortable with the question, so allow me to explain . . . . The Congresswoman appears to fear the answer to that question. I’m not timid. I’ll answer it . . . .” etc.
Heads Up, Hannity is going to have a town hall coming up.
Frank Luntz has some folks wired up to get their views.
Should be interesting viewing.
You got what you deserve my fellow No Co residents. No representation.
Plenty of (can’t say unbiased media) since there are no reporters that are not Bamobutts, but plenty of cameras, camcorders, send to youTube
friends, etc.
Yep, I like it.
This is what to do. Form local town halls and unload on the cowards in absentia. People won’t forget in Nov 2010.
Way to go!
Here’s a head’s up for your CO townhall pinging.
Brilliant
The author has his nose in all the details, so I think there will be other articles posted to Redstate about it.
Markey saw that she was being called out, and in a very public way, so she finally announced town halls — after a point when other members of congress already held 3 or 4...
And I love the last sentence: “Markey’s staff did not return an immediate request for comment.” They’re so caught, and what’s better, they know it!
Good way to highlight both the substance of the meeting and the failure of the Congress at the same time. Good suggestion. I’d have a moderator do the announcement, and then refer to the panel...
GOOD SHOW.
DON’T FORGET TO BILL THE CONGRESS CRITTER FOR THE COST OF THE TOWN HALL !!!
DON’T FORGET THE TAR AND FEATHERS !!!
At the end of the meeting, you can have a symbolic tarring and feathering of the rep.
She might appreciated the tarred and feathered doll as a souvenir.... NAW.
Perhaps ya’ll could auction it off.
I’d like to toot my own horn a bit here on this matter, if ya’ll don’t mind.
I live in Betsy’s district and I’ve been calling Betsy Markey’s DC office every day since recess started, asking for the schedule of her town hall meetings. Every day they lied to me saying “The schedule is being finalized.” I strongly suspected they were trying to dodge having meetings all together (hoping nobody noticed until it was too late), or were trying to arrange pre-selected outsiders to stack the deck.
At any rate, I got sick of her lies, and yesterday morning (8/12/09) I called the senior news editors at every daily newspaper in Betsy’s district and told them what was going on, suggesting that if they would pressure her on this issue, it would likely generate a whole series of interesting news stories one way or the other, as opposed to sitting back and letting nothing happen. They all pretty much got it - I could practically hear the light bulbs lighting up over their heads.
I also called both announced Republican candidates and the Colorado Republican party to tell them what I did.
This is my favorite tactic, namely create an instantaneous broadside that appears to arrive from all different directions at the same time. It panics the crap out of whoever is on the receiving end.
I was going to wait until tomorrow morning (8/14/09) to see if anything popped, i.e., give the newspapers a chance to do their job. However, if nothing had happened I was going to post Betsy’s D.C. phone number here, as well as the phone numbers of all of the newspapers in her district and invite interested citizens here to make some calls too.
Looks like that won’t be necessary now. Amazing how her schedule that was being finalized for so many weeks gelled so quickly. (BTW, Betsy’s been in Israel since recess on a “fact-finding” mission, instead of facing the wrath of her constituents.)
At any rate, I feel like I deserve to take a bow here. Properly leveraged, sometimes one person can in deed make a difference. All you have to do is find the weak point, and apply a tiny bit of pressure, and the whole rotten works will fall of its on accord.
(BTW, “seekthetruth” can verify I sent him a private message yesterday telling him what I was up to and what I had done.)
Show up No. Coloradans and hammer away at her in full throttle mode.
----- Original Message -----
From: (redacted)
To: (redacted)
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 4:57 PM
Subject: [ColoradoRKBA] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEA bit more than 48 hours ago, an offhand comment among myself and close friends about our local U.S. Representative and her unwillingness to schedule town hall meetings lit a fire that quickly bloomed into this:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Press Contact: Greg Merten FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
970-213-9696, cell
gdmerten@hotmail.comCitizens Invite U.S. Representative to Her Own Town Hall Meeting
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, A community town hall meeting will be held Aug 25 at 6:30 p.m. at the Council Tree Library in Fort Collins. The only thing missing from this meeting might be Northern Colorado’s US Representative, Betsy Markey (D-CO).
After numerous unsuccessful requests to receive Markey’s town hall meeting schedule Kelly Trosper, a Fort Collins resident, and several of his frustrated friends, have taken the unusual step of scheduling a town hall meeting on behalf of Markey -- and inviting her to speak.
“With the August recess nearly half way over, we can’t wait any longer. When other Reps across the nation are adding extra meetings, we still don’t have a schedule from her. This is a forum to discuss urgent topics. We’re just having to set one up ourselves, because our Rep isn’t making herself available,” says Trosper, who hopes she will attend.
In case Markey doesn’t attend, the group will have a video of the proceedings delivered to her along with letters that come via email to nocotownhall@gmail.com .
Trosper and his friends are calling their grassroots effort the Northern Colorado Town Hall Committee, and have set up a Web site for other community members awaiting information, www.nocotownhall.com.
Trosper says the Northern Colorado Town Hall Committee’s objective is to provide a forum for community members to discuss what is important to taxpayers in Northern Colorado.
“If she won’t put together a town hall for us, the folks of Northern Colorado who elected her to represent our views to D.C., we’ll put one together for her.”
###
For more information:Kelly Trosper, 970-217-6663, kellytrosper@yahoo.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We sent the press release out to local, state, and national media; print, radio, television, and internet.
The one and only Michelle Malkin was the first to respond.
Here is the posting on her well-read blog.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/13/hey-rep-betsy-markey-youre-invited-to-a-town-hall-meeting-you-refuse-to-hold/#comments
The comments are pouring in!
Rick
Colorado
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