Would you Let the KKK into your Town Hall Meeting?

by Karl Kurtz

Lee Hamilton has another excellent Commentary on Congress, "Whatever their Tone, We Need Town Hall Meetings."  It begins:

Years ago, when I was still in Congress, I pulled up one day to address a public meeting in a remote and very rural part of Indiana. The sheriff, a friend of mine, met me outside the small volunteer fire house where I was to speak. "The Ku Klux Klan is here in full regalia," he told me. "If you'd like, I'll keep them out of your meeting."

For just a second, I'll confess, I weighed his offer. But I was not in the business of trying to keep constituents out of public gatherings — even if they were in the KKK. No, I told my friend, the Klansmen could come in, as long as they removed their hoods. There's no place for anonymity in a public meeting, I said.

And so about twenty-five of them — hoodless — marched down the aisle made by the rickety folding chairs set up in the tiny firehouse and took their places in the front. Was this or was this not a Christian nation, they demanded. And what did I think about Jewish influence in Hollywood and on the media? I responded calmly, but their persistent overtones of anti-Semitism wore out the audience's patience. Eventually they left, and the meeting continued.

And concludes:

Over my years in Congress, I conducted hundreds, if not thousands, of town-hall meetings. Almost every time I came away with the feeling that this was precisely what I was meant to be doing — engaging with my constituents in a small part of the dialogue of democracy. Just as often, these meetings reinforced my confidence in the fairness, decency and judgment of the American people.

I've been in Algeria for the last week with a team of legislators and staff, leading a couple of workshops for Algerian legislators.  One of our topics was citizen engagement and  constituent communication. We emphasized the importance of town hall meetings and talked about how to set them up.  We have a great team here, consisting of North Dakota Rep. Rae Ann Kelsch, New Jersey Assemblymember Upendra Chivikula, Minnesota Senate legislative counsel Peter Wattson, Florida policy research director Gary Vanlandingham, and NCSL's Christy Delafield.  They did a great job of carrying Lee Hamilton's point, but after reading his commentary, I wished that he had been here with us to tell this story.

See our previous postings in The Thicket about town hall meetings starting with "Town Hall Meetings: Building Trust Online."

Comments

[Craig]

Totally off-topic comment:

The Arizona legislature is supposed to start a special session tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3 p.m. Arizona time.

They've got a $2 billion deficit for the current fiscal year to deal with, but most of the talk is that they will be doing just enough to keep the state government going, for now, and not really addressing the overall deficit.

[jrkakapastateradio]

Here-Here!!!!

Totally Off Topic.

Sounds like Pennsyltucky to me.

Are you certain the two jurisdictions (Harrisburg & Phoenix)are not linked by snowbirds?
Or at least their Executive Offices?