Report: Town Hall Meeting with John Doolittle

Congressman Doolittle and staffers held a town hall meeting with Nevada County citizens from 4-5pm this afternoon in the Northern Mines building at the Fairgrounds in Grass Valley. Today's intermittent snow, rain, and hail likely kept the turnout down; maybe 200 people* showed up, about half of them supporters.

The meeting began with a 10+ minute PowerPoint presentation from Mr. Doolittle, followed by Q&A with the audience.

The Q&A process went like this -
At the door we were each given a brochure* with a blue card inside, upon which to write our name, optional contact info, and one question. County Supervisor John Spencer randomly shuffled the cards. Then he'd call out a name, the person would stand, Mr. Spencer would read the question, Mr. Doolittle would respond, the asker would get an optional followup question, Mr. Doolittle would answer. Any questions not reached due to time constraints would be given to the staff, and Mr. Doolittle would answer them later.

The questions addressed included* illegal immigration, taxes, the minimum wage, cellulosic ethanol as fuel, party loyalty, Iraq, Guantanamo, the Marianas, "Nevada County, hire a lobbyist" and (from your correspondent) the DeLay Rule.

The DeLay Rule was the House Republican Conference's 2004 voice vote to "change a rule requiring members in leadership positions to step down if indicted by state grand juries", and as suspected, Rep. John Doolittle did vote Yea; a "Yea" vote meant "don't make Tom DeLay step down."
(Since it was a voice vote, there'd been no record of the yea/nay breakdown, and so no accountability, unless we the constituents asked our Reps and got answers (this became a crowdsource project); until today, my attempts to get answers had been unsuccessful.)

Mr Doolittle elaborated on his 'I voted Yes' answer, saying: a) the Democrats have no rule requiring their indicted leaders to step down, and b) the DeLay Rule ended up getting repealed anyway.

Other snippets from my notes (which are very scanty and only address questions I was interested in):

• He was the lead author of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act ("invests $300 million over 10 years into forest treatment, erosion control, and watershed restoration"*);
  
• "Guantanamo is for terrorists"; "no, I don't see it as a black mark on our nation's character"; "they're Prisoners of War, so..."(?);
  
• on voting to increase his salary while opposing a raise in the minimum wage: he didn't vote to increase his salary, it was an automatic cost-of-living increase; and he doesn't support the idea of a minimum wage.
  
• on the $10 billion misappropriation in Iraq:
  "government doesn't operate like a business", there's a lot more waste; "nobody ever provided answers" to how it was spent, which is very disappointing; hopefully we'll learn where it went.(?)
  
• On sex slavery, forced abortion and sweatshops in the Marianas:
  "those things are utterly deplorable" but "I did see these places, they were not sweatshops by any stretch of the imagination" and (??)he hasn't seen any testimony otherwise. And no, the Marianas should not be held to U.S. labor standards.
  
• On rationale for the "hire a lobbyist" recommendation: because empirically, it works. For groups that spend money on lobbyists, the returns are multiple.
  
• On rationale for being in Iraq: "we've got people trying to kill us", so "we'll take the battle somewhere else."
  

--------------
Impressions:

Mr. Doolittle did well in coming up here to meet with us, and in having the courage to face hard questions.

What I found interesting was the difference in dynamic between the "town hall meeting" questioners and, well, me. In a sense the others were more generous, albeit perhaps with unwelcome gifts - they wanted to deliver their stances and rationales on issues. Me, I just wanted an answer (and am happy to have received it); but it would be nice to have an "express lane" for quick yes-or-no questions.

--------------
Recording was prohibited, but we were told that a video of the event would be made available. Prediction: it will start off with Congressman Doolittle standing at the podium.