House Speaker Paul Ryan said today he’s avoided scheduling a public town hall because he’d rather talk to constituents in a civil manner than have a “shouting fest.”
Ryan, R-Janesville, told reporters today in Madison that aside from the “obvious security concerns” with holding a public town hall, that setting would also lead to lots of people coming in from outside the district and disrupting the event for others.
Ryan said he’s instead found “new and creative ways to interact with my constituents in a civil way,” such as telephone town halls, holding office hours and listening to employees at local companies.
“I don’t want to have a situation where we just have a screaming fest, a shouting fest where people are being bussed in from out of the district to get on TV because they’re yelling at somebody,” Ryan said. “That does nobody any good, and what I want to do is have a civil, good, quiet conversation with constituents.”
But state Dem Party spokesman Brandon Weathersby said it “sounds like he just doesn’t want to meet his own constituents face-to-face.”
“The bottom line is that the people of the First Congressional District want to speak with their representative in person to learn why he supports kicking his own constituents of their health care insurance plans,” he said. “If inquiries from his own constituents are a disruption to Ryan then it’s clear that the First Congressional District needs new representation in Washington.”
