by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Missouri's 8th District congressman, Jason Smith, made a surprise visit to West Plains yesterday and brought with him Ajit Pai, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Pai was apparently here to speak on issues related to rural internet service and to answer questions from the general public. As a consumer of rural internet services, it was a meeting which I would have liked to have attended, but as I received my copy of yesterday's The West Plains Daily Quill, the issue that announced the visit, five hours after the event occurred, I missed the meeting.
I called the newspaper after reading the article that announced the meeting and learned that Congressman's Smith office had not given the local press word about the event until after the previous day's paper had already gone to press. The person I spoke with noted that last minute announcements of public meetings seemed to be a "pattern" with Congressman Smith, a fact with which I was already familiar.
Apparently upwards of two hundred people did learn of the meeting in time to attend, including some school officials and representatives of local government who were likely individually informed of the "public" event by the congressman's office - but average citizens who rely on the print edition of the local newspaper for their news - well, not so much.
Ajit Pai, a Trump appointee and a native of the small town of Parsons, Kansas, was on a three-day, four-state tour to hear public comments about rural internet services and to push his (and Congressman Smith's) belief that "free markets have delivered more value to American consumers than highly regulated ones." Or, in other words, to justify the dismantling of "net neutrality" measures and to open an unregulated internet to domination by big corporations. The hogwash of Ajit Pai and Jason Smith will cost consumers dearly.
But that is just my opinion - one that was not heard thanks to the tightly controlled nature of the event.
This year the House of Representatives will only meet one-hundred-and-forty-two days, a most agreeable work situation that should leave Congressman Smith with ample time to come home and hold public meetings with constituents, yet when he is back here in rural Missouri he appears to studiously avoid arranged public meetings, and when he does show up he exhibits a "pattern" of sudden appearances with little advance notice.
What is Congressman Smith afraid of? Is he concerned that if he stumbles into an unstructured situation somebody might ask him a question that would make him uncomfortable - a question such as how can he, in good conscience and as a Sunday School teacher, keep voting to take affordable health care away from thousands of his constituents?
Americans have questions, and citizens of the "show me" state by their very nature want to be shown why certain solutions are better than others. If Congressman Smith values the concerns of the voting public as highly as those of his corporate donors, then he needs to make an effort to hold some town halls and give voters access to their representative.
We've had enough of your surprises, Congressman Smith. If you really want to know what your constituents are thinking, schedule a meeting - one with plenty of advance notice.
I'll be there. You can count on it!
Citizen Journalist
Missouri's 8th District congressman, Jason Smith, made a surprise visit to West Plains yesterday and brought with him Ajit Pai, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Pai was apparently here to speak on issues related to rural internet service and to answer questions from the general public. As a consumer of rural internet services, it was a meeting which I would have liked to have attended, but as I received my copy of yesterday's The West Plains Daily Quill, the issue that announced the visit, five hours after the event occurred, I missed the meeting.
I called the newspaper after reading the article that announced the meeting and learned that Congressman's Smith office had not given the local press word about the event until after the previous day's paper had already gone to press. The person I spoke with noted that last minute announcements of public meetings seemed to be a "pattern" with Congressman Smith, a fact with which I was already familiar.
Apparently upwards of two hundred people did learn of the meeting in time to attend, including some school officials and representatives of local government who were likely individually informed of the "public" event by the congressman's office - but average citizens who rely on the print edition of the local newspaper for their news - well, not so much.
Ajit Pai, a Trump appointee and a native of the small town of Parsons, Kansas, was on a three-day, four-state tour to hear public comments about rural internet services and to push his (and Congressman Smith's) belief that "free markets have delivered more value to American consumers than highly regulated ones." Or, in other words, to justify the dismantling of "net neutrality" measures and to open an unregulated internet to domination by big corporations. The hogwash of Ajit Pai and Jason Smith will cost consumers dearly.
But that is just my opinion - one that was not heard thanks to the tightly controlled nature of the event.
This year the House of Representatives will only meet one-hundred-and-forty-two days, a most agreeable work situation that should leave Congressman Smith with ample time to come home and hold public meetings with constituents, yet when he is back here in rural Missouri he appears to studiously avoid arranged public meetings, and when he does show up he exhibits a "pattern" of sudden appearances with little advance notice.
What is Congressman Smith afraid of? Is he concerned that if he stumbles into an unstructured situation somebody might ask him a question that would make him uncomfortable - a question such as how can he, in good conscience and as a Sunday School teacher, keep voting to take affordable health care away from thousands of his constituents?
Americans have questions, and citizens of the "show me" state by their very nature want to be shown why certain solutions are better than others. If Congressman Smith values the concerns of the voting public as highly as those of his corporate donors, then he needs to make an effort to hold some town halls and give voters access to their representative.
We've had enough of your surprises, Congressman Smith. If you really want to know what your constituents are thinking, schedule a meeting - one with plenty of advance notice.
I'll be there. You can count on it!
2 comments:
Ah, yes, the elusive Congressman Smith...always ready to show up at carefully orchestrated events bringing along some kind of dog-and-pony show but never ready to face an auditorium full of people who might be given an opportunity to ask whatever they want. His supporters are never going to stop supporting him, no matter what he says, so I don't know what he's afraid of, but his constituents deserve better.
His deplorable supporters deserve a deplorable Representative in Congress. That's sad news for the rest of the good folk living in his district.
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