Resistance Report: Activists holding town halls with cardboard cutout, empty suits — Gabby Giffords tells GOP to ‘have some courage’

FLAT MARCO. “His face was posted on popsicle sticks, printed on a life-sized cutout and hidden in Where’s Waldo? styled puzzles. His name was printed on T-shirts and written on posters. But Sen. Marco Rubio was thousands of miles away from Wednesday night’s ‘constituent town hall’ meeting held in his honor,” reports the Tampa Bay Times. “So instead, an empty, metal folding chair bore the brunt of grievances shared by more than 500 of his constituents gathered at the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 599 building on Cypress Street.”

Holding town halls with Flat Marco, a cardboard cutout, is just the latest in a series of creative measures progressive activists have taken to shame reluctant members of Congress into holding town halls and draw media attention to their concerns.

In Miami, members of the local “Indivisible” group held a town hall Thursday with an empty suit designed to represent Rubio. Reports the Miami Herald: “The mayors of South Miami and Pinecrest hoisted a dark suit on a hanger into the air between them, and the crowd of nearly 300 people jeered and laughed. Someone threw a wad of cash on the table, nearly hitting the paper name tag identifying the invisible man as Senator Marco Rubio. Philip Stoddard, of South Miami, stuffed the bills in a suit pocket and held a water bottle near the lapels. A man from the overflow crowd outside shouted from the open doors: ‘It’s an empty chair. We deserve better than an empty chair.'”

Rubio’s office had said the senator wasn’t holding town halls because he was traveling in Europe, but he quietly returned on Wednesday night and was confronted by an activist Thursday morning who tracked him to a private event at Jackson Memorial Hospital. “Senator, I thought you were in Europe?” the protester asked, according to video provided to the Miami New Times. “I saw all these ‘Missing Child’ posters all over town. … I’m glad you’re OK, but are you going to host a town hall? There’s a constituent town hall today.” Rubio kept walking. Protesters also confronted Rubio at Florida International University Thursday.

AN EMPTY SUIT? Rubio wasn’t the only senator to get the empty suit treatment. “Sen. Pat Toomey wasn’t at an event Tuesday night set up by protest groups and billed as a town hall, so they stood an empty suit at the front of an Allentown church as a target,” reports the Morning Call, a newspaper based in Allentown, Pa. “For two months, people have picketed Toomey’s offices across the state, demanding he speak to his constituents and explain how he would stand up to some of President Donald Trump’s actions. Toomey, who publicly endorsed Trump after voting for him about 6:30 p.m. Election Day, campaigned as an independent check on whomever won the White House.” Toomey’s staff told the paper that they’ve been meeting with the protesters to hear their concerns.

HOMEWARD BOUND. Seven members of Congress who have chosen not to hold town hall meetings are seeing activists holding vigils and “search parties” outside their homes in California, the Los Angeles Times reports. They did not always get the addresses right.

SHY DEMOCRATS. It’s not just the GOP: Even some Democratic members of Congress are avoiding holding town halls. “From Montana to West Virginia, the nation’s most vulnerable Senate Democrats are avoiding town hall meetings as their Republican counterparts get pummeled by an energized electorate frustrated with President Donald Trump’s early agenda,” reports the Associated Press. “Some Democrats prefer to connect with constituents over the telephone or social media. Others are meeting voters in controlled environments with limited opportunities to ask questions. But few of the 10 Democratic senators facing re-election next year in states carried by Trump have scheduled in-person town hall meetings during this week’s congressional recess.”

‘HAVE SOME COURAGE.’ Former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head during a constituent meeting in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011, urged members of Congress to have the courage to meet with the people they represent after Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert cited fears of violence as a reason to avoid town halls. “At this time there are groups from the more violent strains of the leftist ideology, some even being paid, who are preying on public town halls to wreak havoc and threaten public safety,” Gohmert said Thursday.

Giffords issued a blistering statement in reply via Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun violence prevention group she co-founded:

“I was shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning my offices were open to the public. Ron Barber — at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times, then elected to Congress in my stead — held town halls. It’s what the people deserve in a representative.

“In the past year, campaigning for gun safety, I have held over 50 public events.

“Many of the members of Congress who are refusing to hold town halls and listen to their constituents concerns are the very same politicians that have opposed commonsense gun violence prevention policies and have allowed the Washington gun lobby to threaten the safety of law enforcement and everyday citizens in our schools, businesses, places of worship, airports, and movie theaters.

“To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage. Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”

One person who’s not afraid of town halls? Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan. Sure, the libertarian-leaning lawmaker got yelled at plenty during his town hall on Thursday. But he took questions, and he’s out there telling Republicans to buck up and deal with the people they represent.

He’s even having some fun with it.

ABOUT THAT WALL. Texas Republicans are not as into building Donald Trump’s border wall as the president is, the Wall Street Journal reports: “President Donald Trump’s vision of a sea-to-sea wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is running into an unexpected obstacle: opposition from Republicans in Texas, where most of the unfenced land is located. Many Texas Republicans say a better approach mixes additional fencing and more personnel, as well as better technology to monitor the state’s southern boundary, which is marked by the winding Rio Grande River and in vast stretches by formidable natural barriers. ‘Our border is very different in different places,’ said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, on a trip to the border this week. He pointed to fencing in San Diego as effective in separating urban areas. ‘But as you know, many places in Texas are virtually inaccessible.'”

Meanwhile in California, faith leaders are creating a new underground railroad of sorts to hide undocumented immigrants from immigration authorities. CNN reports on the start of “a network formed by Los Angeles religious leaders across faiths in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. The intent is to shelter hundreds, possibly thousands of undocumented people in safe houses across Southern California. The goal is to offer another sanctuary beyond religious buildings or schools, ones that require federal authorities to obtain warrants before entering the homes.” Private homes are protected by the Fourth Amendment and generally require authorities to obtain warrants for entry.

If you want to understand more about what the U.S.-Mexico border is actually like physically, this beautiful photo essay published in the Atlantic, featuring images from two Agence France-Presse photographers, gives a sense of some of the variable terrain.

And this Atlantic video from last year continues to raise questions about what sort of life we are creating for Americans who live near the border, as there is already a no-man’s-land of sorts between the existing border fence and the Rio Grande — along with a residual population of U.S. citizens who live in it.

TRANS ADVOCATES REACT TO TRUMP ROLLBACK. For the past two days, trans rights advocates have been turning out to protest the Trump administration’s decision to roll back the Obama-era protection for trans students to use the bathroom of their choice at school. On Thursday night, they rallied outside the historic Stonewall Inn in New York, where the gay rights revolution began in with a six-day street uprising in 1969.

The Trans Lifeline nonprofit was deluged with donations after a tweet from singer Katy Perry urged people to back the group.

And Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican, spoke out against Donald Trump: