{"id":33775,"date":"2017-07-05T04:41:32","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T04:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=33775"},"modified":"2017-07-05T04:41:32","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T04:41:32","slug":"senate-republicans-lay-low-on-the-fourth-or-face-single-minded-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/senate-republicans-lay-low-on-the-fourth-or-face-single-minded-pressure.html","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans Lay Low on the Fourth, or Face Single-Minded Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans Lay Low on the Fourth, or Face Single-Minded Pressure<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In normal times, the Fourth of July parade is a fat pitch down the middle for the grinning politician. For instance, here was Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat facing re-election next year in a state that President Trump won by 42 points, waving unheckled among the firefighters, beauty queens and county commissioners who streamed up Maple Avenue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Political disputes have never impinged on the festivities here, said Karen Lobban, 70, who has been involved with Alderson\u2019s parade in one way or another for all of its 56 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, she added, \u201cThings are different now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Manchin\u2019s Republican colleague in West Virginia, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, was not here on Tuesday as she had been two years earlier. She released a YouTube message but had no public events for the day. The Republican senator next door in Ohio, Rob Portman, had none either. Nor did the two Republican senators in Iowa. The parades in Colorado proceeded without Senator Cory Gardner.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a tough summer for Senate Republicans, who are trying to combine a long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act with a replacement that has, in legislation drafted so far, been as popular as sunburn. Protesters have held sit-ins at Senate offices, phone lines have been jammed and editorial writers have blasted their states\u2019 congressional delegations. Planes have even flown admonitory, if occasionally poorly conceived, banners over state capitals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republican senators have had to decide whether public appearances would be fruitful or the crowds hostile. Many lawmakers seem to have given up on town hall-style meetings and parades. Others are still braving them, knowing they may get an earful on the health care bills.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNever before, in the 15 times that I\u2019ve marched in this parade, have I had people so focused on a single issue,\u201d Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who rejected the latest version of the bill, said in an interview shortly after walking the parade route in Eastport, Me. \u201cI think it\u2019s because health care is so personal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Ms. Collins and the few other Republican senators who ventured out \u2014 most of them opponents of the current bill, and most in rather remote locales \u2014 were largely rewarded with encouragement to keep fighting.<\/span><\/p>\n

This may be promising for other senators who are not planning to stay in all week. Ms. Capito and Mr. Portman, for example, have public events set for the coming days. The delay in voting on the Senate bill, which Ms. Capito strongly rebuffed, has taken some of the heat off, though activists in West Virginia said signs had been readied for Tuesday\u2019s parades just in case.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other Republicans will soon be out and about, and some already have been. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was met with chants of \u201cVote no!\u201d in a Baton Rouge church on Friday as he discussed the state\u2019s recovery from the 2016 floods. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas will hold three town hall-style meetings this week in the western part of the state, and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa has scheduled nine as part of his annual tour of the state\u2019s 99 counties. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania is holding a televised meeting on Wednesday, albeit with an invitation-only audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the receptions they receive may vary, judging by those in the streets on Tuesday, the primary subject will not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care! Health care! Health care!\u201d Hilary Georgia, a part-time resident of Eastport, cried as Ms. Collins passed the spectators in camp chairs unfolded before neat wooden houses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eastport, which is recognized as the easternmost city in the United States, draws a large and festive crowd on Independence Day, even though it is remote. So is Wrangell, Alaska, where Senator Lisa Murkowski, another key Republican in the health care debate, took part in a parade on Tuesday as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no escaping politics, however. The reception for Ms. Collins was one of gratitude and fulsome thanks for her disapproval of the Senate bill, mixed with some anxiety over whether she would stick to her position.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still concerned because I know it keeps getting revised,\u201d said Kristin McKinlay, 44, an independent voter who is worried that a new bill could leave her without health insurance and stopped Ms. Collins to introduce herself because she had called the senator\u2019s office so many times. \u201cI hope we have her commitment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At a late-morning parade in Ely, a small city in northern Nevada surrounded for miles by only sagebrush and juniper trees, Senator Dean Heller, who has come out against the bill, rode down Aultman Street on a horse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGet in line behind Trump!\u201d one man shouted, while an older man offered, \u201cThanks for protecting Medicare!\u201d Generally, however, things remained subdued in Ely \u2014 perhaps in part because, as several people along the parade route said, residents were just surprised to see Mr. Heller there.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was still more activity than anything done by Mr. Gardner of Colorado, who has not held a town hall-style meeting this year. Coloradans have noticed. In February, hundreds gathered for a mock town hall-style meeting in Denver, where they addressed questions to a cardboard cutout of the senator. Last week, wheelchair-bound constituents occupied his office for 60 hours in protest of cuts proposed in the health bill, before being dragged out by the police.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Gardner\u2019s Fourth of July was devoid of public events, though on July 3, he could be seen on his front lawn in his hometown, Yuma, playing with squirt guns and smoke bombs with his children.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was as combative as his holiday was likely to get. Even though one in four residents of Yuma County receives Medicaid assistance, and many would probably lose their health care coverage under the Senate bill, those who disagree around Yuma tend to keep quiet.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to say something so bad, let him know what I thought,\u201d said a woman on a nearby porch, who gave her name only as Edna and identified herself as a 76-year-old lifelong Republican. She said several people in her family would lose coverage if the Affordable Care Act\u2019s expansion of Medicaid were rolled back, but when she ran into Mr. Gardner with his grandmother at the Yuma Days dance at the local high school a week ago, she let it drop.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to school with his aunt,\u201d Edna said. \u201cI see his mom and dad daily. We are all friendly. Am I going to boo at him in front of his grandmother in her wheelchair?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There is also the question of whether talking to one\u2019s senators, much less yelling at them, will make much of a difference anyway, a pessimistic thought on a day celebrating the ideals of self-government.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve got their priorities mixed up,\u201d said Connie Christiansen, standing on the lawn of her family\u2019s house in Shell Rock, Iowa, having watched as Boy Scouts, tractors, ATVs and musicians \u2014 but no United States senators \u2014 passed by.<\/span><\/p>\n

If she saw Mr. Grassley, she said, she would tell him to retire. She had simply forgotten about Iowa\u2019s other senator, Joni Ernst.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms. Christiansen called her 25-year-old cousin, Maggie Cain, over with a question: What do you think about talking to senators?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it wouldn\u2019t really make a difference,\u201d Ms. Cain replied.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSee?\u201d Ms. Christiansen said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make a difference how young you are. You feel the same. Helpless.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/04\/us\/politics\/senate-republicans-lay-low-on-the-fourth-or-face-single-minded-pressure.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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