Congressmen planning town-hall meetings

By: Olympia Meola | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: August 11, 2009

Thanks to an early and extensive tour of his sprawling district during the congressional recess, freshman Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, is the first area member of Congress to brave the fiery health-care debate at a series of town-hall meetings.

Now several of his fellow congressmen in the region are suiting up.

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, and Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., plan to schedule meetings later this month but have not yet released the specifics.

Across the country, town-hall meetings about the Democratic push for a health-care overhaul have been the scenes of heated and sometimes angry demonstrations.

While Democratic lawmakers appear to be taking the brunt of protests, some Republican lawmakers also are hosting forums where constituents can discuss the issue.

Rep. Robert J. Wittman, R-1st, will hold meetings in Newport News on Aug. 31 and in Fredericksburg on Sept. 1. He also plans to conduct a telephone town hall.

Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the House minority whip, is scheduled to host a job fair next Monday at Clover Hill High School in Midlothian, but he is not planning any town-hall meetings during the recess.

Cantor traditionally does not hold town-hall meetings during the August break, but he conducts regular telephone town halls and plans some for the fall, a spokeswoman said.

In addition to his as-yet-unscheduled meetings, Warner is taking questions on health care through Twitter and his Web site, where he will answer the most frequently submitted questions via video. He also has conducted telephone town halls with constituents, the last of which drew about 4,300 people, Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said.

Warner's office fields droves of e-mails and phone calls on the topic.

"Health care specifically, we've been responding to about 1,000 a week," Hall said.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is on a two-week trip to Asia, and his office says it will decide how to proceed when he returns.

Scott, who was in Richmond yesterday for an event at the Vernon J. Harris Medical Center, said that while he has not yet held any general public meetings on health care, he has met with doctors and other groups to field concerns. He is scheduled to meet with a group of senior citizens in Hampton Roads today.

Scott said he's hearing from uninsured people who want to have affordable coverage, people with pre-existing conditions who find it "virtually impossible" to find health care, and those who say co-pays and deductibles make accessing health care problematic.

He called President Barack Obama's proposal a "good outline," but Congress still is discussing several plans.

The cost of health-care reform is just one of the concerns Perriello is hearing on his tour.

Through the end of August, he has 15 more "Tom in Your Town" meetings sprinkled throughout the district, which stretches from Charlottesville south to the North Carolina line. The closest are in Charlottesville tonight and in Albemarle County on Aug. 27. They run from 6 to 8 p.m.

The meetings, designed to be open-topic forums for constituents, have taken on a health-care theme.

"There's definitely been passionate folks at all the events we've done so far," Perriello spokeswoman Jessica Barba said.

Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, has not scheduled a town-hall meeting yet, but he has had an extensive conversation with constituents about health care through blogging and a survey on his Web site. He held two teleconference calls with constituents last month, press secretary Jessica Mancari said.

He can be seen reading the 1,000-page-plus health-care bill in a picture on his Web site.

Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.