Rep. Lynch's Needham Town Hall: The Surprising and the Not

[see UPDATES at end of post for REDISTRICTING and BARNEY FRANK]
Recently, Congressman Stephen Lynch came to Needham as part of a series of "town hall"-style fora around the 9th District.

This Needham Patch article offers a good write-up of the scene and the topics covered.  I just want to point out here the surprising and not surprising elements of what I heard on that day.

First, Mr. Lynch deserves kudos for being much improved from his spring town halls, which felt much more uni-directional than being an open exchange of ideas. In spring, attendees submitted questions on index cards, which were sorted thru by a moderator, and then the Congressman answered. The opportunity for follow up and questions was not there, or did not happen for whatever reasons.  For dog's sake, someone said, "Keep government out of my Medicare" and Mr. Lynch replied, "I totally agree with you sir" without any opportunity for pushback!!


In contrast, this fall's town hall, more sparsely attended, did away with the index cards (but I was happy to see many people had brought their questions pre-prepared on cards).  The congressman called on hands, and attendees, for whatever reason, felt comfortable responding and following up on what he said.  His delivery/presence, in general, was also a lot more comfortable and personable.  Credit where due; I was much less frustrated with the dynamics of this meeting than the last one.

Second, and maybe this should have been first, kudos to the congressman for showing up twice in one year.  He's clearly laying groundwork for re-election in case there's a contested primary due to redistricting (which has been obviated by John Olver's retirement, announced after Lynch's town hall series).  Regardless the motivation, it puts him personally in the district, and we should take every opportunity to turn out and voice our priorities.*

On Occupy Wall Street
Rep. Lynch eventually came around to vocally supporting some of the central tenets of Occupy Wall street (see the Patch write up, linked above).  But he at first was dismissive of the movement.  With significant pushback from Artie Crocker, Rep. Lynch seemed to take the measure of the audience, and his rhetoric changed substantially.  Kudos for that.  But does he really believe it or does he just know his audience (Needham) well?  My friend Margaret had attended the town hall in Walpole the day before, and the Congressman she saw was much more of a conservative.  (See comments on the "Town Hall" blog post).

On Money in Politics
What really surprised me was that Lynch stated quite plainly that he thought Citizens United was a disastrous decision and he would support a Constitutional Amendment reversing it.

I could hardly believe my ears, and turned to Margaret to make sure I heard right.  That is a wonderful thing.  Citizens United IS disastrous and it SHOULD be reversed, by whatever political processes we have available to us. 

But then the other shoe dropped.  I asked him where's the political will on Capitol Hill to enact changes that would reverse Citizens United.  His answer was, "The efforts need to come from the people" (or some paraphrase of that)---ie, that there's no space for him to take political leadership on reversing Citizens United.  Really?  Really?  A US Congressman can't lead the way, AND IN SO DOING solicit the support of The People?

Let me go on record as saying I would be the first to rally behind any such effort on his part, and politically speaking, I think it would go a long way to repairing his reputation with more liberal Democrats.    I hope that he will surprise me again by taking leadership and start talking publicly about how to fight back against Citizens United.

_______
*UPDATE: The new, proposed Congressional maps have been released, and as widely expected (at least by me), Needham has been taken OUT of Lynch's district, and we are now in the MA-4th Congressional District, along with our neighbors Wellesley and Newton, which is currently represented by Barney Frank.   Though it was anticipated that there might be a challenge between Lynch and Keating, turns out that's not going to happen. 11/9/2011

UPDATE 11/28/2011:

Barney Frank, who would have been Needham's next Congressman (presuming re-election in 2012) after re-districting, has announced he is not seeking re-election.  I am seriously bummed not to have a chance to have Barney as my representative.  Now we have an open seat and a compelling primary season (one presumes) with candidates to-be-determined.  Newton Mayor and former US Senate candidate Setti Warren, for one, has said he is NOT running.  Bristol County DA Sam Sutter says he IS running (can't find a link; heard it on twitter).  Mac D'Alessandro was redistricted into MA-07, so no luck drafting him. Movement-builder and former US Senate candidate Alan Khazei lives in the MA-04 district.... I would love to see him represent Needham in Congress.... 

Unlike in 2008, when Needham and much of MA was knocking NH doors, it looks like in 2012 we will have a lot of Massachusetts political work to tend to--with defeating Scott Brown, a primary for MA-04 to replace Barney, and a challenging general to keep the MA-04 Barney-seat blue.  

Looks like Needham will have to carpool to Rehobeth in addition to Nashua....