There’s a tell in NC Rep advising Republican colleagues to avoid in-person town halls | Opinion

Republicans in Congress will not stand up to President Trump no matter how extreme his actions, so it’s no surprise that they also will not stand before their constituents at town halls.

Still, it’s hard to process how a House Republican leader not only condones this political cowardice, but recommends it.

North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican representing the 9th District, serves as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He’s in charge of helping Republicans hold and gain seats in the U.S. House.

Hudson’s advice to his Republican colleagues is to avoid in-person appearances before voters because recent town halls held by Republican representatives allegedly have been “hijacked” by the Democratic Party.

When asked by a reporter how he knew Democrats were allegedly being brought in to disrupt the town halls, Hudson responded, “just you-all’s news coverage.”

Which means he doesn’t know. What he does know is that many Republican House members who have gone home to meet with constituents have been met by a wave of anger over blunt cuts to the federal workforce, the elimination of USAID programs that will affect farmers, looming cuts in Medicaid and food stamps, an abrupt turn away from support for Ukraine and the adoption of tariffs that will fuel inflation.

Hudson is all for town halls, unless they come with loud disagreement.

“Creating formats where (members of Congress) can answer questions, where they can interact with their constituents, I think it’s really an important, fundamental part of our job,” Hudson told reporters in Washington. “Unfortunately, the Democrat Party has hijacked these in-person town halls. They are using people whose sole purpose is to disrupt these meetings. So you can’t have a meaningful dialogue with your constituents.”

Hudson suggests that his Republican House colleagues take refuge instead in video conference calls or Facebook events.

There’s a tell in Hudson’s fear of in-person events. He and most Republicans have become accustomed to majority support in their gerrymandered districts. They assume that people who disagree with them are being brought in from outside their districts “so you can’t have a meaningful dialogue with your constituents.”

Fortunately, not all of North Carolina’s Republican House members are so intimidated by opposition. Rep Chuck Edwards (R-11th) held a town hall on March 13 at Asheville–Buncombe Technical Community College.

“I’ve had many constituents ask me lately if I could hold another live town hall,” Edwards said in a statement. “The answer is most emphatically, yes. Being accessible, listening, and answering questions for the people of (western North Carolina) are among my favorite activities, even if we might not always agree.”

Hudson’s concern about town halls is not without reason. The events can attract outside activists and social media videos from the event, clipped of context, can be politically damaging. But those hazards hardly justify denying constituents an in-person meeting where they can speak and question their representative in public.

That is especially true at a time when people feel threatened by the Trump administration’s efforts to decimate departments and reverse policies at a speed and to an extent that they did not vote for.

Democratic representatives are eager to make the case that this is a time for more face-to-face discussions with voters, not less. Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrats 2024 vice presidential nominee, is going out of state to hold town halls in Republican House districts where Republican representatives are not holding in-person group meetings with their constituents.

“There was just a primal scream of folks recognizing what’s going on with the Trump administration, their authoritarian tendencies, and what they viewed was a lack of a proper response from their representatives,” Walz told CNN.

Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross (NC-2nd) said, “Now more than ever, members of Congress need to show up in their communities and answer questions from their constituents who are scared about accessing their health care, making ends meet, caring for their families, and more.”

Norman Rockwell’s famous paintings of Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms depicted the freedom of speech as a man standing to speak at a town hall. Across North Carolina, people are standing, or want to stand, to speak about what is happening to their government and their nation. They deserve representatives who will stand before them and listen.