Republican Congressman Dave Reichert Is Hiding from His Constituents
The constituents of Washington's District 8 have a lot to say to their U.S. Representative, Dave Reichert (R-Auburn), but when he returns from Washington for recess the week of February 20th, he isn't giving them a public forum in which to say it. No town hall. No mini-town hall (we'll get to that in a second). No speech from a balcony or from a fir tree or from Mt. Si's hallowed haystack.
Instead, and only after serious pressure, he's agreed to host a Facebook live event on February 23rd at 1:00 p.m. The digital conference will be moderated by KCTS anchor Enrique Cerna, who will select questions for Reichert from a pool submitted by participants.
Those participants won't be standing shoulder to shoulder in a public space, but rather sitting on one side of a digital wall that separates them from their own representative and from each other. They'll be atomized, isolated, staring at the daemon light of their computer screens instead of reveling in the fervor of civic action, exchanging stories, networking, and growing closer together as a community.
Michelle Straka, 48, is a resident of North Bend, WA. That makes her one of Reichert's constituents in the 8th District, which covers the eastern parts of King and Pierce Counties, as well as Chelan and Kittitas counties. She's a prop master forced into early retirement by a medical condition. She's also a member of the Snoqualmie Valley Indivisibles, a Facebook group with 266 members that formed last month as part of a nation-wide effort to promote congressional advocacy. Along with a few other members of the group, she's been working to set up an actual, in-person town hall with Reichert.
On January 20th, she called Reichert's office to express her concerns about the Republican plan to gut the Affordable Care Act. "I'm terrified because I clearly have a pre-existing condition," she said. "My husband will be a slave to his job if he has to worry about where his health insurance would come from if he ever had to leave."
Straka isn't the only person in District 8 who might be worried about the future of the ACA. Nearly 40 percent of Reichert's constituents in Chelan County rely on the state exchange—which, since there's been some confusion on this point in the past, I want to stress, is the ACA—for their health insurance. A quarter of the population, give or take, in each of the district's other counties—Kittitas and the eastern parts of King and Pierce—rely on the program as well.
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/02/09/24853249/republican-congressman-dave-reichert-is-hiding-from-his-constituents
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