Every week, a group of us has been visiting Jim Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s office to ask for an open, accessible town hall so that he could hear from his constituents and announced publicly in advance so as many people as possible could attend. We heard that he held a “telephone town hall” in which some people received phone calls inviting them to participate in a town hall already in session. In the middle of a work day with no prior notice or announcement on social media or on his website.
On June 16th, in response to Rep. Hagedorn's "telephone town hall", we decided to hold a special office visit event in honor of Father’s Day and the founding fathers’s vision of representative democracy - one in which our representative is meant to listen to his constituents and work to represent their interests in Washington. It is for this reason that there are in-District work days and that representatives are up for election every two years.
31 people came out for our (Founding) Father's Day visit to Jim Hagedorn's office! We gathered in Jackson Park and enjoyed a speech by "Patrick Henry", sang songs, pledged allegiance to the flag, wore costumes in honor of the idea of democracy that the founding fathers created, and then we went into the office in small groups and shared our frustrations with last week's conference call masquerading as a town hall and shared our thoughts about Hagedorn's votes and divisive remarks.