Indivisibles, ProgressNow, ACLU fill Pearce townhall

[El Mimbreno]

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM-02) Held a townhall meeting in Las Cruces on Saturday, March 18. Although Pearce's press release claimed he invited Indivisible leaders, it was actually pressure from Indivisible and other groups that persuaded him to hold the meeting. Local Indivisible leader Tony Martinez opened the meeting and introduced Pearce. Nearly 600 people attended, and trump/Pearce supporters were outnumbered by about 10-1. One individual who claimed that protestors were paid by Planned Parenthood and other groups was drowned out by the crowd.

I will give Pearce credit for a couple of things; he did respond to constituent demands for a meeting, he did stay the full scheduled 2 hours plus, despite the intensity of the questions and the loud audience. However, he gave many vague answers, changed the subject several times, and in one case claimed the ACA has collapsed and told constituent that he’d just have to live until he could get on Medicare. Pretty snotty. He said he "leaned no" on trumpcare. He said the wall would be a waste of money and would not improve security, that he "almost always" voted against it, then hedged by saying that if it were included in another important bill...

Although he was evasive and controlled the mike, he definitely heard from his constituents, and clarified a few things.
He feels he was elected on the basis of his own views and agenda and is not obligated to pay attention to input from staff or constituents.
Clarified somewhat his stand on the disposal of public lands: put public lands into private hands so they can be taxed to finance schools. (I'm sure desert and scrub forest is going to generate lots of tax revenue.)
Believes term limits give more power to the ‘unelected’ bureaucracy and staffers. Also results in loss of “corporate knowledge”. (Huh?)
Regarding trump's tax info: “he is elected president”, so not important and would cause tremendous disruption. “Trump will do what he wants.”
Impeachment would be a distraction.

So that's a summary. He also promised more town hall meetings in the future, and one questioner invited him to Silver City.
A member of Black Range Indivisible compiled a table of the questions and answers. If you're interested, message me through this site and I'll forward it.

[world wide wally]

1. They have convinced themselves that the people showing up are "enemy agents" whose only

concern is disrupting their meetings.
We need to prove them wrong at election time.