On 24 April, ICC was one of the sponsors of a Congressional Forum where Congresswomen Chrissy Houlahan, Madeleine Dean, Mary Gay Scanlon, Congressman Brendan Boyle, and a staff member for Congressman Dwight Evans answered questions related to healthcare, the environment and the Mueller report. We will be posting video clips for those of you who couldn’t attend.
But there was more than just the part that was filmed, and reported on by WHYY, the Inquirer, Sun News, and the NY Times.
My job was to get the Representatives and their staffs to the Green Room so they could prepare for the night’s event. So often people forget that elected officials are regular human beings. When Congress isn’t in session, they return to their districts and follow a superhuman schedule of events and meetings. Thus, we provided a green room where they had the opportunity to sit quietly, get something to eat and drink if they wanted, and decompress between events.
In guiding the Members to the Green Room, I was struck by how attached certain voters were to their elected representative. Two people in particular seemed to feel that their particular Member of Congress could, in this busy and noisy venue, make the world stop and solve their individual problem then and there. Most people, however, were incredibly pleasant, and only wanted to say hi and shake hands. The Members, each and every one, were incredibly gracious. They also took a minute to answer reporters’ questions, and were grateful when I explained that we had a schedule to follow, and ushered them away. All appreciated the opportunity to sit quietly for a few minutes, check their notes and email, and greet one another. Our SEPA delegation quite obviously knows one another well on a number of levels.
Early before the event, I had the opportunity to chat with a staffer from the office of one of the Members. Surprising to me, he knew who I was when we introduced ourselves. He asked me about the problems in our upcoming Chesco primary. It was odd to me how informed he was about the situation, being from another county, since they are flying under the radar of most voters in Chester County, and there are limited ways of disseminating that information. But this man knew all the details. His question: Could the problems be fixed in time? I told him I was going to do my best, and was working with others to rectify the situation.
My favorite brief conversation was finding commonality with Congresswoman Dean related to our shared appreciation of junk jewelry with history.
The first question in the forum was a concatenation of several related submissions, one of which was directed to a specific Congresswoman (although all Members responded to all questions) in the form of “you said X during your campaign, and now your position seems to have changed to Y”. All of the first term Members have admirably made the transition. That is, the old canard that one campaigns in poetry but governs in prose. All have learned that, once elected, one has a responsibility to the totality of the electorate, and must learn the nuances of issues in detail, which often differ from the top line. For example, on the issue of healthcare, one can be committed to affordable and accessible healthcare, but in evaluating “Medicare for All”, there are competing proposals, and issues of transparency and transition that must be considered in the drill-down details of each of the proposals.
Kudos to Vicki Miller of Indivisible PHL who served as moderator. She had asked, in her opening remarks, that the audience should be gracious, no matter how passionate they may be on any specific issue. At one point, several of one group in the audience booed a response, and Vicki stood, moved to the front of the stage, got a look in her eye that only a mother can carry off, pointed her finger at the group, and indicated that there would be no booing. Nary a peep after that.
If you’d like more information, you can view it at the following links: