Posted on 08/03/2009 2:49:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
U.S. Representative Tim Bishop has temporarily suspended holding “town hall” style meetings after Suffolk County Police were called by residents to escort him back to his car amid a throng of rowdy protesters who turned out for a meeting in Setauket last month.
The Southampton congressman, who has held more than 100 of the open meetings since being elected in 2002, cancelled another town hall meeting scheduled the week after the Setauket event and has not scheduled any others for the immediate future. Instead, he has opted to attend a variety of other events in the district.
Aides say he will hold the town hall meetings again once they can be sure the meetings will be constructive.
“The only issue that needs to be addressed is to make sure that we’re able to do town hall meetings in a way that is helpful and constructive,” Jon Schneider, Mr. Bishop’s aide, said this week. “The congressman always says the reason he does open town halls is because he wants to hear from people who disagree with him. We just need to have those exchanges in a civil manner.”
When he arrived at the June 22 meeting in Setauket, Mr. Bishop was greeted by nearly 200 boisterous protesters shouting criticisms on a wide array of topics, from global warming to health care reform to financial bailouts of automobile manufacturers. About 75 of the protesters filed into the back of the meeting room, along with another 75 attendees, while the rest of the crowd remained outside chanting and shouting protests and waving placards at passing motorists.
According to Mr. Schneider, who was at the meeting, and news coverage of the meeting appearing in the Times Beacon Record, a North Shore newspaper, the vocal crowd of protesters hijacked the conversation, shouting out their questions and shouting over answers.
Video footage taken at the meeting and shown on the website YouTube shows Mr. Bishop attempting to answer questions from protesters about global warming and being shouted down by criticism, and follow-up questions after only a few words of response.
Mr. Schneider said the harsh treatment was not reserved only for the Democratic congressman. He said that an older woman, nearly in tears, had stood up to speak, asking Mr. Bishop about government plans for health care reform that could help her son, who had recently lost his job and his healthcare plan along with it. Someone standing along the walls at the back of the room shouted: “Why doesn’t he get a job!” Mr. Schneider recalled.
“The congressman can take it,” the longtime aide said. “But when something like that happens, people aren’t going to want to ask questions. We want a forum in which people can share their opinions and share their stories. We all need to be respectful of one another.”
Five Suffolk County Police officers arrived about an hour into the Setauket meeting. Mr. Schneider said he asked one of the officers who had called them, and the officer responded “everybody.” Mr. Schneider said Mr. Bishop never felt threatened by the protesters and that none of them ever made any threatening gestures toward him or touched him physically in any way.
Nonetheless, after the 90-minute meeting was over, the five officers walked with Mr. Bishop back to his car, which he had been forced to park several blocks from the meeting hall due to the large turnout. The swarm followed him and during the walk Mr. Bishop held an on-camera interview about global warming with a woman in a T-shirt and baseball cap who said she was from the Long Island Alternative News Channel. She stated during the interview that there is “scientific proof” that global warming is not happening.
“They seemed to be of the belief that the government doesn’t do anything right,” Mr. Schneider said of the protesters. “When the congressman said he believes in climate change, that brought a vast howl from the crowd. When he said the government is delivering some good services, he cited the VA, and that got a howl.”
Another Bishop legislative aide, Will Jenkins, said the protesters, who seemed to be affiliated with a number of local grassroots groups, have been attending public meetings featuring other Democratic legislators and protesting at the offices of Democratic U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Mr. Jenkins said Mr. Bishop, who was in Washington, D.C., this week, cancelled another town hall meeting scheduled for later that week, though he has attended a number of public meetings since and will resume town hall meetings in the future. Despite being in session all week, the congressman attended five community events this past Saturday, including a senior citizens group meeting at which a small crowd of protesters turned out.
These people did not seem dangerous or threatening in any way, they just wanted to be heard.
Yet they’ll paint every person as a right wing whacko about to go off on a violent spree.
Oh, they will. That’s a given. I’m just saying to be prepared for whatever they throw our way. They are FULL of ‘dirty tricks’. Thing is....we Americans are waking up to them....and they don’t know what they’ve done. It’s a beautiful sight to see ‘We The People’ take a stand.
Please add me to it. The stories and videos have been hilarious and gratifying. Hold their feet to the fire.
It seemed to me like he was outraged that his constituents would have the unmitigated gall to question his agenda and call him out on his BS. Pompous creep. Like the one person said, he is nothing more than one of Pelosi’s tame sheep.
Congressmen should be required to get their healthcare at local VA hospitals and not from some elite washington clinic. That would end socialized medicine.
I imagine politicians riding in convertibles during town parades is becoming less popular.
I wonder if they'll start running for their reelection campaigns in armored cars?
Last time I saw some campaign flyer for some political hack posing with his family and pets, telling me what an honest church goer he was, and oh...Please send money... I about spit flames.
These people making a living off tax dollars, are completely detached from reality...
What the Hell did Bishop expect? An 1800s Victorian scene where he and his constituents politely discuss matters over tea and crumpets? Typical pompous elitist jerk.
after finishing running a long time, respected, educational institution into the ground, he has turned his attention to Congress, where the idiots from my congressional district see fit to trust this @$$hole with things like government regulated health care and cash for clunkers....
He beat out semi conservative congressman and fireworks magnate Felix Grucci, a few terms back when Grucci went negative and all the local MSM news organizations berated their readership with a constant barrage of how nasty and negative the fireworks magnate was....(Grucci told the truth about how Timmah ran Southampton college into the ground)..
people I worked with who were of a conservative bent...voted against him because he was so negative to poor old Timmah.... My neighbors here deserve what they get...they are so friggin stupid...
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