Really Nice Move by My Congressman

Have you ever had to attend a PTA or neighborhood meeting at 10 AM on a Monday or Tuesday? Probably not. Are you on any church committees? Do they meet during the day on weekdays? No. Do your kids have baseball or soccer practice at 1 PM on Thursdays? No. Why? Because you have to work.

I recently received an invitation from my Congressman, John Lewis, to attend an open forum on health care (he supports government takeover of it). The date: July 27th (a Monday) at 9 AM. This begs the question: How is anyone with a job going to be able to attend this meeting? Monday morning at 9 AM, for most responsible individuals, means the first meeting of the day or arrival at your desk. For the top income earners it likely means that they've already been at work for an hour or two, as I recently demonstrated. Before I dive into the details of this politically convenient move, a little background on Georgia's 5th Congressional District is needed.

To the right is a map of Georgia's 5th Congressional District. For those of you who do not live in Georgia or the Atlanta area, the 5th district encompasses all of downtown Atlanta, almost all of the southwest portion of it and a section of the northern part of the city. The people who live downtown are more likely to vote Democrat. The people who live in the southwest portion are also highly likely to vote Democrat. The people who live in the area of the district that juts north are more likely to vote Republican. The northern area is also one of the wealthiest areas in Atlanta. I can tell you that this district is just about as perfect of an example of gerrymandering as one can find. All of this pretty much boils down to the large Democrat population canceling out the votes of the wealthier conservative population that pays most of the taxes. That's a very simplified explanation, but it's largely true.

Now, why does it matter that Rep. Lewis is holding his meeting from 9-11 AM on Monday, July 27th? Simple. John Lewis represents a very large portion of Georgians who are on welfare, Medicaid and other government programs. In other words, many of these people don't work much. If you don't work much then a 9 AM town hall meeting on a Monday doesn't really interfere with anything other than sleep. However, for those of us that do work, provide for ourselves and earn our own health care, 9 AM on a Monday means we are out doing these very same activities. I cannot imagine that John Lewis is trying to do anything other than weed out the productive members of his constituency (the ones more likely to be against government health care) and pack the room with people begging for the government to take over our health care system. This meeting should be held at 6 or 7 PM or on a weekend. Period.