By Gaetana Drake
I arrived at the location of the meeting at 4:00 pm, willing to stand in line for an hour in order to get a good seat. There were about a dozen people there when I arrived. Some of them were wearing “Be The Change” t-shirts, some were wearing “Make America Great Again” hats. I was wearing my “Nevertheless She Persisted” t-shirt.
I stood in line next to an elderly couple who were Trump supporters. We had a pleasant conversation and it turned out that he was a military veteran. I thanked him for his service and we shook hands, while he smiled and said, “Obviously we will disagree on many things tonight, but we respect each others’ right to our opinions.”
The auditorium was packed and many people were standing in the back after all the chairs were filled. A prayer was offered and the flag presented and the crowd stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.
County Supervisor Vito Chieasa then introduced Congressman Denham, State Assemblyman Heath Flora and Turlock Mayor Gary Soiseth. Mr. Chiesa was moderator and asked questions from papers that were filled out prior to the meeting. The questions could be asked of all four speakers (including Mr. Chiesa) or one or two particular speaker. The majority of the questions were directed to Congressman Denham. We were also assured that if our question didn’t get asked, we would get an email response or follow up phone call.
From the first question it was obvious that the vast majority of the crowd was not going to like Mr. Denham’s answers. After several questions we became aware that Mr. Denham is very skilled at answering a question without really answering the question.
He was asked about the republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and he did say there are some things about the Affordable Care Act that he thinks republicans should keep in their proposal, like coverage for pre-existing conditions, allowing young adults to stay on their parent’s insurance until age 26, but he is not supportive of mandatory birth control coverage.
When questioned about immigration reform, he repeatedly said that our immigration system is broken and we need comprehensive immigration reform. It took the audience several minutes to force him to be specific about “comprehensive” reform, telling him that he was just throwing out buzz words, when he finally stated he supports allowing young adults brought here as children to stay, supports a worker program to protect farm workers, but also supports building a wall.
He was asked if he thought President Trump should reveal his tax returns. Again, he deflected by saying that just like he wouldn’t ask the previous president to reveal his birth certificate, he wouldn’t ask the current president to reveal his taxes and there was no law requiring that. The audience loudly protested that answer, shouting out comments about past practice, conflicts of interest, etc.
Throughout the night there were many very specific questions about health care, immigration, social security and other important issues facing the country. Mr. Denham continuously gave very non-specific answers, prompting the crowd to repeatedly yell, “answer the question, answer the question”, or “yes or no, yes or no.” The longer it took for him to answer a question, the likelier it was that it would not really be an answer.
Many of the people in the audience were wearing “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” t-shirts, and when a woman stood up and asked Mr. Denham if he supported de-funding Planned Parenthood, he once again deflected. Members of the audience shouted that Planned Parenthood prevents abortions by providing birth control, that Planned Parenthood provides many health care needs such as immunizations, health screenings, nutritional counseling, and that Planned Parenthood does not use federal tax dollars for abortions. While the audience was in full support of Planned Parenthood, Mr. Denham refused to answer the question, and finally said that it was a “personal opinion and he must vote on his personal opinions”, meaning that he is anti-choice and supports defunding Planned Parenthood which would take away health care from thousands of low-income women and families in his district.
It was obvious to everyone in attendance that Mr. Denham is going to support whatever bill the GOP presents and he is going to support whatever President Trump wants to do, whether it’s starting a war, taking away health care, giving tax breaks to the wealthy, or cutting social security benefits.
Congressman Denham had delayed having a town hall meeting for several months and only scheduled this due to extreme public pressure. I can report that I personally called both his Modesto office and his Washington D.C. Office several times every week, asking when he would meet with his constituents. It was public pressure that brought about this meeting. And it was originally scheduled to last only one hour, but again, public pressure mounted and the meeting was allowed to continue for two hours and forty minutes. However, it was his refusal to answer the question about defunding Planned Parenthood that brought the meeting to an end. While the crowd was still wanting a specific answer, he thanked us for attending and the meeting was over.
Yes, it was loud. Yes, it was rowdy and at times the audience had to be told to quiet down and let him answer. But there was a reason for this. First, he delayed meeting with us for several months so our frustration kept building. Secondly, he deflected question after question and many times never really gave a true answer. And in spite of what many people think, we do have a right to be loud, a right to protest. And we will continue to do both.
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