Congressman to be challenged in town hall Tuesday, will host own tele town hall Wednesday

Published 4:56 pm Friday, February 24, 2017

A group of north Georgia residents say they were concerned that U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, did not schedule any town hall forums in his district during the latest congressional recess, so they have scheduled one for Tuesday at Dalton’s Mack Gaston Community Center at 7 p.m.

“We felt like he was avoiding a town hall meeting,” said Debby Peppers of Indivisible Patriots of the 14th Congressional District.

“We wanted to talk about some of these issues we think people are concerned about. We are going to try to record it or stream it and forward it to him,” she said. “We’ll be talking about health care, Social Security and other issues. We’ll be asking the questions that he might be afraid to answer. We will try to inform people about his positions and about the pending issues he will have a vote on.”

Peppers describes the group as nonpartisan.

“Though obviously it’s going to be mostly Democrats because Republicans support a lot of what is going on,” she said.

Garrett Hawkins, a spokesman for Graves, said Congress will be back in session on Tuesday and Graves will be in Washington.

“In fact, President Donald Trump will deliver his first speech to Congress that night, and Rep. Graves will be in attendance,” he said.

Hawkins said Graves did not have any town hall forums during the recent congressional break but he did return to Georgia and talk to voters.

“He had some one-on-one meetings. He was at the Paulding Business Association one day. He was at the Chattooga County Chamber of Commerce one day,” he said. “We didn’t have any traditional town halls because we are doing a tele town hall this Wednesday. It’s a more effective way for us to reach more people. For a traditional town hall, you’d be lucky to get 100 people to show up. Whereas a tele town hall, we typically have thousands of people who participate.”

But Peppers says with telephone town halls Graves’ staff will be able to screen calls and keep him from having to answer tough questions.

The public is invited to the Indivisible Patriots town hall. Those interested in taking part in Graves’ telephone town hall, which will be at 6:25 p.m. on Wednesday, should call his Dalton office at (706) 226-5320 or his Washington office at (202) 225-5211 no later than noon Wednesday and request their telephone number be added to the call.