CA recently had its first attempt at forming a committee of citizens that reform and decide our Congressional districts based on community similarities rather than politics. Prior to this, I found out that my small community had my corner of town split off and stuck to the small conservative areas up in the north of the state. I used to have Wally Herger, Tea Partier non-extraordinaire. Ugh. After the bipartisan committee of citizens did their thing I am back in the same district as my neighbors and we are aligned with other communities similar to ours.
I am now represented by Congressman John Garamendi (D). He is spending the next few Saturdays doing up to 3 2-hour town hall meetings per day in towns across his district. It was only 2 miles away from where I live so I figured that if he offered the opportunity I should take him up on it. If I don't participate, I can't complain when things don't go my way, right?
He was prompt and seemed like a personable guy. I don't know anything about his tenure as insurance commissioner so I was coming from a very neutral place. I ended up asking the first question and I talked about the importance of the upcoming midterm elections and asked what plans he and his party have to ensure that the facts get out there so every voter can make up their minds about how to vote. I actually mentioned that the GOP get untruths out there first and the media goes with the sounds bite without checking the facts and by the time the facts come out everyone has moved on. He nodded but really didn't seem to know how to answer other than to bemoan the 24/7 cable news cycle effect.
He did much better on other questions. He knew the details and complexities of everything asked of him- Farm Bill, CA water issues, ACA. In fact, the one time he got called out was when one gentleman mentioned he did not agree with Garamendi's vote to allow a one year extension of the "you can keep your insurance plan" bill. The man's son had a crap insurance plan and didn't want to pay the extra $40 per month it would take to make sure he was actually insured. The guy thought his son was being stupid and didn't deserve to be allowed his stupidity for another year!
I didn't know what kind of crowd to expect, we have a fairly Democratic area but do have the occasional Tea Partier and I was curious if it would be the TP-ers that would turn out to bitch and moan. Nope! It was almost exclusively a liberal to moderate crowd who actually had seriously researched issues they wanted answers to. And it was raining (yay!) so that may have limited the crowd. And Garamendi delivered on his knowledge and answers.
I will say he has a tendency to answer than ramble on to other items but he wasn't BS'ing his way through the ramblings either but stuck to facts.
He missed the boat on one question. One younger guy has a wife with a green card who came here on some kind of a science visa (I don't know much about this so I can't explain what this means). He was concerned that if immigration reform was passed he and his wife would have less job opportunities. He also claimed that there is not a good job market for computer techies (his profession). This was the point everyone looked at the questioner in disbelief. Rather than take the opportunity to promote the concept that the GOP could work with the Dems to turn the economy and income inequality around, Garamendi discussed Boehner's backing out of the immigration reform idea and the mess the GOP is in. All true, but the answer did not satisfy the young man and he fumed for a while, then left. His thinking was strange, but I felt an opportunity was missed.
In fact, this would be the only complaint I might have. Garamendi never took the opportunity to support or promote the President's or Dems policies. Possibly this was because it was a friendly audience so maybe he felt there wasn't any need, but a plug here and there wouldn't hurt. One nice feature was that he had representatives from Covered CA there to answer questions about signing up for the CA's version of the ACA.
All in all, a positive experience. I didn't get to hear women threatening the President with execution, but it's not that kind of town.