Four days after 700 constituent letters were delivered to his office, Fitzpatrick went on Face the Nation and called in-person town halls a 'three-ring circus' funded by dark money groups he would not name. His constituents held one anyway, with an empty chair for him.
Leaked audio from a private fundraiser caught her telling donors her own poll had her up one point and that voters don't know her. Since 2023 her town halls have been by phone only — questions screened in advance, with reporters and constituents left in a queue.
Nine months into the job, Brad Knott had held three town halls — all of them by telephone. On the third, a constituent from the small town of Angier asked how he could support the Medicaid cuts. He said lawmakers 'stand ready' to make changes if needed.
Twenty-one people signed a sheet at Trent Kelly's Columbus office in 2017 asking for a town hall-style meeting. Eight years later, a weekly protest was standing on the sidewalk outside, and one of the people in it was asking for the same thing.
Constituents have been asking Mike Turner for a public town hall since 2017. He has called them a 'fraudulent group' and 'radical groups.' Now his opponent has asked him to debate, and he changed the subject again.
He won't hold an in-person town hall because they get 'overrun by organized protests.' Then he told a hometown paper that protesters are paid — citing nicer-looking signs and unnamed 'United States intelligence.'
"Let's pause for a moment, so I can read you a statement of Rep. Lee's views." When they asked what Lee herself thought, they were told to sign up for her newsletter. As of August 2026, her mobile office hours page still lists no dates at all.
In June 2026, about 70 people in Evansville held a town hall for a congressman who didn't come and never answered the invitation. It was the latest round of a pattern that started his first spring in office.
His February 2025 Orange County Register column ran under the headline "DOGE is doing what must be done to protect taxpayers." When protesters showed up at his Palm Desert office, he said: "I'm used to it. It's just another day in paradise." He has still not held an in-person town hall.