Beat Harry Reid In Nevada In 2010

By Raymond Pratt
BeatReid.com
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be holding a town hall meeting over health care reform on Thursday, at 1 PM. This town hall meeting, however, will not be held at the town hall, but rather on the telephone. Dubbed a “tele-town hall,” Reid’s constituency in Nevada, along with Americans from other states, have voiced harsh criticism over the senator’s unwillingness to meet them in person.

To register for the conference, go to reid.senate.gov or call the senator’s offices at (702) 388-5020 or (775) 686-5770.

Politicians who support the telephone format insist that it allows them to reach more of their constituency than the traditional meeting. Critics, however, claim the events are designed to protect lawmakers from facing unpleasant and challenging questions. The participants can be screened and only those who are in general agreement, or at least are fielding “soft-ball” questions get through.

Senator Reid is not the only one to hold a telephone town hall meeting. In North Dakota, conservative local radio host Rob Port participated in a similar event. He phoned in to Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s tele-town hall meeting early to get in line to ask a question. The operator, he said, asked whether he supported or opposed President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Port said he was undecided to ensure that he got to ask a question. He never got that opportunity because he was put on hold for what seemed to him to be an interminable period. Those getting a chance to voice their “concerns” included a local Service Employees International Union representative and a pro-Obama group’s representative.

Another Democratic Representative, Chet Edwards, held similar teleconference events in Texas. Waco area tea party organizer Toby Marie Walker and members of her group signed up for an Aug. 20 event, but some say they never even received the call at the scheduled time. Others in the group were able to get on the call but weren’t chosen to ask a question.
“They know me because I call them every day,” Walker said. “He knows who we are, so I guess we didn’t expect to ask any questions.”
Asked for comment about the complaints, a spokesman for Edwards offered this statement.

“Our telephone town hall meeting on health care dialed nearly 200,000 homes in all 12 District 17 counties, and nearly 20,000 constituents participated. Our public town halls in Bryan, Waco and Cleburne were well attended by over 3,000 people. The congressman also participated in health care forums with constituents via webcast and radio call-in programs,” said Josh Taylor. “While some would play politics with the issue of health care, Congressman Edwards believes the issue is too important to our families and country to be influenced by partisan politics.”

Several congressional offices say that they select questions based on topic, rather than in the order they’re received, to allow lawmakers to address a wide variety of topics and eliminate repeat questions.  By pre-screening questions through congressional staffers and using robocalls to reach a random sampling of voters, they note, notorious troublemakers can be kept off the line and a fair balance of opinions heard.

Nevada’s other senator, John Ensign (R), held a tele-town hall meeting in an early September. He apparently chose questions from a list of pre-screened callers on his computer, marked with names, locations and question topics.
The senator’s office used a technology company called iConstituent. Their method was to randomly robocall about 50,000 people in the Las Vegas area, taken from a list of registered voters from the secretary of state’s office.

The ensuing conversations wound up being between Ensign and his supporters. At one point he seemed to become frustrated with the overall lack of challenging questions. Hoping to take on some opposition, he said “I keep asking if there’s another question on here for the government plan. If you’re for the government plan, please hit *3 and we’ll try to put you at the top [of the list].”

Ken Ward, the CEO of Fireside21, a provider of tele-town-hall technology to the House, responded this way:

“Screening eliminates confusion. In a situation when there are callers who go beyond what they should in matters of language and decorum, there’s the ability to mute that person. I don’t think anyone is trying to censor - just maintain the level of appropriateness for the conversation.”
But callers report being talked over, cut off in mid-sentence, or simply not given an opportunity to speak at all if their views differ from those of the host’s.

One lawmaker, however, seems to appreciate the frustration of those who disagree with him and yearn to have a voice in the conversation. Republican representative Jim Jordan of Ohio required only two pieces of information to be provided during his screening process. Potential participants were asked for their names and locations. Jordan then proceeded to take questions, not having any idea what they would be. Even a fair number of those disagreeing with his choice not to support president Obama’s health care reform plan were able to get through.

“We think that people should have opportunity to yell at the congressman if they don’t like what he’s doing,” said Jordan’s chief of staff, Ray Yonkura.
The conversation even got into arguing over specific languaging of certain parts of the bill.

The 2010 mid-term elections are looming ever closer and Senator Reid’s poll numbers are looking fairly dismal. Even John Ensign, who just went public about having an affair, is ahead of him. And It’s safe to say that by not taking the opportunity to field question from disagreeing callers, he won’t be tipping the scales in further in his favor. This is especially true when defending a health care plan that 50 percent of Nevadans oppose.