HEBER SPRINGS -- At his second town-hall meeting in 10 days, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton said Saturday that he would schedule another question-and-answer session -- a format some of his colleagues have avoided -- in Democrat-leaning Pulaski County.
Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle, has held town halls in Springdale and Heber Springs. Pressed by a woman who questioned whether he was "afraid of a hostile crowd," Cotton said he would "soon" hold a forum in Pulaski County, which, anchored by Little Rock, is the state's largest county.
Congressional Republicans, including Cotton, recently have faced sharp questions about health care, President Donald Trump's administration and other matters from constituents packing town-hall meetings across the nation. Some in Congress instead have answered constituent questions during call-in sessions, and others have avoided forums altogether.
An estimated 450 people, mostly pro-Cotton, attended an 8 a.m. town hall Saturday in a gymnasium at the Heber Springs Community Center. U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Jonesboro Republican, joined Cotton behind lecterns on an elevated stage. As hands were raised, the pair selected the speakers.
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Cotton added 15 minutes to the meeting, which was scheduled to last an hour. He similarly prolonged the Feb. 22 meeting in Springdale that attracted at least 2,000 attendees. There, Cotton faced several pointed questions, as he did at times on Friday during a presentation in Jonesboro before the Northeast Arkansas Political Animals Club.
Few of the 18 people selected to ask questions in Heber Springs were critical of Cotton or Crawford.
The crowd booed the first two speakers who were critical, particularly a man who read a five-minute, typed statement requesting that Cotton take specific positions on an array of issues. One of those was to resist lifting U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia.
"Sit down and shut up," a man shouted from the crowd.
Cotton encouraged the crowd to let the speaker finish.
The second speaker, a Maumelle woman, asked Cotton to schedule a town hall in Pulaski County.
"I know the majority of people in Arkansas voted Republican, but I thought you were here to represent all of us," the woman said. "I don't know how you can represent us if you don't hear what we have to say. ... We're feeling like we're not being heard."
She also was booed, briefly and not as strongly.
"We'll try to get a town hall there, like this, on the schedule," Cotton said. Pressed further, he said, "We'll be in Pulaski County soon."
In last year's general election, 56 percent of Pulaski County voters chose Democrat Hillary Clinton for president. By contrast, Trump collected 78 percent of the vote in Cleburne County, where Heber Springs sits. Overall, 61 percent of the state's presidential votes went to Trump.
Speakers at the Heber Springs gathering asked about homeless veterans, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, Trump and his Cabinet nominees, Social Security, and tax changes. But health care was the main topic for much of the forum.
Trump campaigned on repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives will hold public hearings on health care legislation beginning March 13, Crawford said.
A man who introduced himself as a registered nurse and a cancer survivor criticized one specific component of the possible Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. He said high-risk insurance pools, which Republicans have discussed as a part of a health care overhaul, are too costly to join.
"I don't want to embarrass anybody or overly personalize this, but for your story, there is at least one person in this room I know who is on the other side, who lost a loved one and couldn't get the help that they needed as a result of [health care laws]," Crawford said.
Others criticized the Affordable Care Act for pricing them out of the market and then imposing fines for lapsed coverage.
Cotton sidestepped a question about a series of posts published early Saturday from Trump's Twitter account that alleged President Barack Obama's administration wiretapped Trump Tower in the run-up to Election Day.
Trump's posts, which did not cite specific evidence, came during scrutiny of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian officials.
Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating possible Russian interference with the U.S. election, said he had not yet read news reports of the posts.
Metro on 03/05/2017