Members of Congress are back in their districts for a two-week recess, potentially bracing for more anger from constituents.
But voters in Republican districts might not have much of a chance to question their representatives.
Weeks after Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised Republican members of Congress not to hold in-person town halls, it appears that most of them are heeding his advice.
According to press releases and publicly posted event notices, the majority of town halls and town hall-style events taking place over the congressional recess will be hosted by Democrats.
The few Republicans who have publicly advised that they’ll be holding town halls include Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Byron Donalds of Florida. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who just launched his 45th annual 99-county tour of Iowa, will also be holding a public town hall in his state.
Greene and Donalds, who is running for governor in Florida, each restricted registration for their upcoming town halls to residents of their respective districts.
The move comes after several of their colleagues have faced public ire at town halls in recent months over the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and a House Republican budget blueprint that could lead to Medicaid cuts.
Since the last recess, Republican members of the House and Senate voted on a new blueprint that directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, to identify over $800 billion in spending cuts in areas of their jurisdiction.
Before Hudson’s March directive to avoid in-person town halls, videos of several Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., facing angry constituents at local events went viral.
And after Hudson’s advice went public, Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., dealt with angry constituents inside and outside of his town hall event in western North Carolina last month, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., was jeered and booed at a town hall she hosted for constituents.
A source close to Hudson told NBC News that the NRCC chairman has not mentioned anything about town halls to GOP lawmakers since his advice in March.
Over a dozen Democratic lawmakers are still planning to hold their own events in their districts this month, but they’ve also had frustrated attendees at town halls, particularly after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last month led Democrats to support a President Donald Trump-backed bill to fund the government.
The anger Democrats are facing at in-person events from members of their own party tracks with national polling numbers that say rank-and-file Democrats are seeking a stronger reaction to Trump from their elected leaders. A March NBC News poll found that nearly two-thirds — 65% — of the party’s voters want congressional Democrats to stick to their positions even if that risks sacrificing bipartisan progress with the president.
Still, the party is doubling down on a strategy to host a series of what it has dubbed “People’s Town Halls” in districts represented by Republicans.
Over the upcoming two-week recess, Democrats plan to hold town halls in Arizona’s 6th District, which is represented by GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani; Pennsylvania’s 8th District, which is represented by Rep. Rob Bresnahan; Colorado’s 8th District, which is represented by GOP Rep. Gabe Evans; North Carolina’s 9th District, which is represented by Hudson; and Missouri’s 2nd District, which is represented by GOP Rep. Ann Wagner.
In a statement announcing the upcoming town halls, which follow an original slate of town hall events Democrats hosted in GOP-held districts last month, Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Republicans’ constituents are “sick and tired of being ignored by House Republicans who refuse to do their jobs.”
She added that “vulnerable Republicans continue to run scared because they’re voting to raise costs, gut Medicaid, and threaten working families livelihoods.”
In a separate series of town halls that began a few weeks ago — dubbed the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., drew crowds of tens of thousands of people as they denounced Trump, congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats, whom Ocasio-Cortez urged to “fight harder.”
They held a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which Sanders’ communications director Anna Bahr said drew 36,000 people and was the senator’s largest ever.
Sanders said the administration “is moving us rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society — and Mr. Trump, we ain’t going there.”
Their tour will continue over this recess with planned stops in California, Utah, Idaho and Montana.
A spokesperson for the NRCC, House Republicans’ campaign arm, told NBC News in a statement, “In a desperate attempt to distract voters from the chaos in their own party, Democrats are resorting to political theater that panders to the far-left radicals instead of addressing the concerns of everyday voters who have already rejected their out-of-touch agenda.”
