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WASHINGTON An increasing number of Republicans in Congressare questioning whether Attorney General Jeff Sessionsis fit to oversee an investigation into Russias role in the election.

House Oversight ChairmanJason Chaffetz(R-Utah) led the calls for the former senator to recuse himself on Thursday amid reports that hefailed to disclose conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

Late Wednesday night,The Washington Post reported that Sessions spoke twice last year with the Russian official and didnt tell lawmakers during his January confirmation hearing. Sessions had met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to Justice Department officials.U.S. investigators have also looked into Sessions communications as part of a larger investigation into possible links between Trumps campaign and the Russian government, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Democratic leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill called on Sessions to resign entirely. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it would be better for the country.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sessions lied under oath.

On Thursday, the calls for Sessions to recuse himself began to trickle in as Republicans doubted he could impartially oversee the Justice Departments probe into Russias interference in the 2016 election.

Chaffetz came out with one of the most direct statementson Thursday.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) joined in. I think it would be best for him and for the country to recuse himself from the DOJ Russia probe, he said, but added that Sessions was a former colleague and friend.

Conservative Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ral Labrador (R-Idaho) also called for Sessions to step aside.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said it would just be easierif Sessions stepped aside.I think for the trust of the American people, you recuse yourself in these situations, yes, McCarthy said on Morning Joe. Helater walked back his comments.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said earlier Thursday that its valid to ask why Sessions didnt disclose the conversations.

It is potentially the case that there is going to be Justice Department recommendations or referrals based on anything regarding the campaign [and] that depending on what more we learn about these meetings, it could very well be that the attorney general, in the interest of fairness and in his best interest, should potentially ask someone else to step in and play that role, Rubio said on NPRs Morning Edition. Im not interested in being part of a witch hunt, but I also will not be part of a cover-up.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein(D-Calif.), a ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Sessions to either recuse himself or resign as attorney general.

However, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said he trusts Jeff Sessions, adding the attorney general would know when to recuse himself. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate Republican Whip, said it was too prematureto say whether Sessions should step aside, while Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of Intelligence Committee, said, The best I can tell there was no real revelation.

After the report initially broke, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he wasnt going to make a decision based on news articles, but conceded that a special prosecutor may be necessary.

If there is something there, and it goes up the chain of investigation, it is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump, Graham said during a CNN town hall.

This article has been updated with more details, including comment from Amash, Labrador, Burr, Cornyn and Feinstein.

Read the original:
Growing Number Of Republicans Call On Jeff Sessions To Step Aside - Huffington Post

This article first appeared on the Just Security site.

Congressional Republicans responses to Russian attacks on the American political system have ranged from inadequate to damaging.

Republican leadership seeks to bury this investigation in the secrecy and narrow jurisdiction of the intelligence committees. But the leaders of these committees are too close to the facts and politics to run a credible investigation.

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And the committees are too narrow in focus to address all of the issues presented.

Moreover, the executive branch is compromised. We need a credible, independentand comprehensive investigation in the model of the 9/11 Commission.

I have managed congressional investigations of both the Bush and Obama administrations on matters of national security. I also spent years in the White House under two different presidents responding to them. That experience makes it clear to me that Republican congressional leaders are laying the groundwork for a whitewash.

There are three main approaches one could take to conduct an investigation of these allegations pursuant to the legislative power granted to Congress in Article I of the Constitution: regular order, a select committeeor a bipartisan commission.

The Lenin Mausoleum, center, in Red Square on December 14, 2000, in Moscow. Andy Wright writes that the Russia allegations about interference in the 2016 election and contacts with Trump campaign officials are important as a matter of intense public interest. They go to citizen confidence in our democratic elections. Burying this investigation in the intelligence committees would preclude Americans from getting the whole picture. Yet Republican congressional leaders are laying the groundwork for a whitewash. Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers/Getty

Regular order would allow current congressional structures to handle the Russia investigation. This would likely result in stifling control of information by the intelligence committees, and is especially vulnerable to partisanship. To the extent other committees get in on the act, it would likely generate information silos rather than a comprehensive picture. For reasons of politics and control, regular order is the strong preference of Republican leaders.

Related: Robert Reich: What did Trump know of the Russian plot?

A select committee would create a temporary panel comprised of an array of committee leaders chosen by the Senate and House leadership. It has the benefit of broad jurisdiction and subject matter expertise but still remains within partisan structures. This is an approach championed by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

A bipartisan commission would bring together a collection of towering public servants and policy experts to manage the investigation. These would be people who are no longer in electoral politics. Congress would delegate its investigative power, including subpoena power, to the commission.

This type of commission has been used to investigate civil rights issues in the 1950s, President John F. Kennedys assassination, the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq in 2005, among other issues of national concern. This is the model introduced by RepresentativeElijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). It is also the one I have been calling for since last August.

So far, Republican leaders are not only resisting creating a bipartisan commission but they are also refusing to allow a select committee to investigate.

In December, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rejected a call by McCain to establish a special select committee. While McConnell called allegations of Russian interference disturbing, he argued the intelligence committee is more than capable of conducting a complete review of this matter. Asked about a bipartisan commission, McConnell indicated that the Senate would handle the Russia investigation in regular order. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed similar calls.

Not all investigations are created equal. Here are five reasons why the Republican preference for regular order falls far short of the mark:

The Russia investigation simply covers too many substantive areas to fit it solely in the intelligence committee bucket. To be sure, it will intimately involve assessments by the U.S. intelligence community about the extent of Russian cyberattacks, motives and goals of such attacks, identities of Russian intelligence personnel and third-parties who may have assisted Russia and counterintelligence and Russian infiltration of the U.S. government and political system.

But the Russia allegations touch on numerous issues that are the subject of other committees jurisdictions. The armed services committees have a stake in the military dimensions to Russian disinformation campaigns and strategic goals, as do the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Senate and House judiciary committees conduct primary oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and have primary legislative jurisdiction over the criminal laws at issue. The House oversight committee and Senate homeland security committee have interagency oversight jurisdiction over cybervulnerabilities to U.S. government systems, as well as handling of classified and unclassified government records.

Both homeland security committees will have a stake too. The investigation potentially implicates a host of policy areas: sanctions, retaliation, cybersecurity, election integrity, military capability, personnel procedures, geopolitics, and intelligence performance.

The ultimate authority for a congressional investigation is grounded in the legislative power granted in Article I of the Constitution. To the extent the results of the investigation call for legislative policy responses, more committees subject matter expertise needs to be brought to bear. Other committee chairs have indicated an intent to investigate, including SenatorBob Corker (R-Tenn.) (Senate Foreign Relations Committee) and SenatorLindsey Graham (R-S.C.) (Senate judiciary crime and terrorism subcommittee) and several mixed messages from RepresentativeJason Chaffetz (R-Utah) (House oversight committee).

Even if they all moved forward in earnest, there would be a hodgepodge of cross-cutting information. Democrats might actually benefit from a feeding frenzy of information leaks and procedural fights. But that would not be good for the country. Only a select committee, or bipartisan commission model, could coordinate information across all the subjects to develop a definitive account.

Republican leaders on the Hill initially proposed that any investigation of Russian interference or infiltration be tasked exclusively to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). As more damaging revelations dribbled out into public view and after Michael Flynns removal as national security adviser, McConnell relented to pressure from other senators to a degree.

There are significant secrets that need to be protected in connection with this investigation. We need to protect the sources and methods of American intelligence collection. We also need to protect foreign governments from retribution for intelligence sharing. The recent mysterious deaths of a number of Russian diplomats bring such concerns into focus.

As a matter of regular order, the intelligence committees have exclusive jurisdiction for matters requiring disclosure of sources and methods even where there is otherwise overlapping subject matter jurisdiction. They also rarely hold open session hearings or issue public findings.

These committees are good at protecting American secrets even as they conduct intelligence oversight. However, the 9/11 Commission dealt with similar issues. It wrangled access to several Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs), considered a crown jewel in executive privilege and secrecy and handled it just fine.

This structural secrecy also serves McConnells and Ryans political interests. They want to arm their members with something they can sell to angry constituents as an investigation. If they can confine the primary investigation to the intelligence committees, they generate a valuable talking point.

A member of Congress can brush aside months of questions by saying an investigation is ongoing. I witnessed that approach to ending discussion of Russia firsthand from my congressman, RepresentativeBuddy Carter (R-Ga.), last week at his contentious town hall in Savannah. Add to that the secrecy of these particular committees, and there is little oxygen to fuel new press stories or rile angry constituents.

These Russia allegations are just too important as a matter of intense public interest. They go to citizen confidence in our democratic elections. Burying this investigation in the intelligence committees would preclude Americans from getting the whole picture.

Executive branch leadership is compromised as it relates to the Russia investigation. As such, an investigation grounded in the independent legislative power of Article I power is essential.

Core allegations and questions go to the nerve center of the White House. Michael Flynn resigned as national security adviser, disgraced as a matter of credibility and under a cloud of suspicion as to his ties to Russia. Flynn reportedly lied to Vice President Mike Pence and others in the West Wing. Then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates briefed White House Counsel Don McGahn on credible evidence of Flynns security risk two weeks ago, which he shared with President Donald Trump.

At a minimum, Trump has misrepresented the state of his knowledge about Flynn to the American people.

The Department of Justice is similarly hobbled. FBI Director James Comey is radioactive due to his conduct during the 2016 presidential race, which prompted The Wall Street Journal to call for his resignation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is factually and procedurally incapable of credibility on this topic. He was at the center of Trumps campaign, having spoken about WikiLeaks and allegations of Russian hacking during it.

Exploring the basis of Sessionss knowledge would be on any investigators to-do list. Further, during his confirmation hearings, Sessions refused to commit to recusing himself from investigations touching on Trump. Calls for a special prosecutor grow louderand now include some Republicans.

To be sure, executive branch intelligence, law enforcement and accountability agencies should continue to do their work on the Russian allegations as appropriate. But there is a premium on gathering facts outside of the executive branch.

The White House enlisted the intelligence committee chairs to help rebut the revelations about Trump associates ties to Russian intelligence. Burr and Nunes are the very people Hill GOP leaders tasked with primary responsibility for the Russia investigation.

On February 15, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer actually dialed the phone and remained on the line while Chairman Burr and Director of Central Intelligence Mike Pompeo (creating another executive branch problem) discredited stories about Russian contacts with Trump campaign associates.

Reportedly, Burr and Pompeo told reporters that all I can tell you is the [Times] story is not accurate. They refused to give any specified reasons the stories were false beyond a top-line declaration of inaccuracy. When an intelligence committee tells a reporter all I can tell you, it suggests the reason is the information is grounded in classified intelligence that cannot be shared.

That is the day after Burr stood shoulder to shoulder with his Vice Chairman, SenatorMark Warner (D-Va.), to announce that the Senate intelligence committee would broaden its investigation. Burr said:

We are aggressively going to continue the oversight responsibilities of the committee as it relates to not only the Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but again any contacts by any campaign individuals that might have happened with Russian government officials.

Its very difficult to square that statement with agreeing to do press surrogate work on behalf of the White House the next day. Burr now faces predictable backlash.

House intelligence committee chair, RepresentativeDevin Nunes (R-Calif.), also helped the White House with pushback, although he reportedly called reporters on his own with numbers provided by Spicer. He also has compared Russia allegations to McCarthyism and raised concerns about a witch hunt against innocent Americans.

On Monday, Nunes denied having any evidence of phone calls or contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence. He went on to say the real focus should be on the major crimes of those leaking information to the press.

When I was on the Hill, my chairman would not talk publicly about the substance of HPSCI investigations. He would not even talk about nonpublic HPSCI matters with his House oversight national security subcommittee staff with security clearances.

Here, Nunes has not conducted an investigation and is spinning a lack of effort as a lack of evidence. There is no legal prohibition on contact between the White House and the House and Senate intelligence committees. The White House can certainly make its case to the committee members about why a news narrative about Russia is incorrect.

Ive been trying to remember if I ever coordinated with the White House on messaging about the subject matter of one of our investigations. I cant. I received several plaintive calls from Obama administration officials. I recall one polite but particularly pointed call from Jeh Johnson when he was general counsel to the Department of Defense objecting to a subpoena threat we had issued.

But here the Trump White House provided staff support for the committee chair like it was fundraising call-time on a matter that is the declared subject of a committee investigation. In a blow to bipartisanship, neither Burr nor Nunes informed their Democratic counterparts before they took up the White House cause.

These actions darken already bleak prospects of bipartisan cooperation. White House media coordination here undermines the legitimacy of the intelligence committee probes.

One of the core allegations roiling our government is Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. Neither party is capable of handling this in a non-partisan manner because of the close nexus to election legitimacy and outcome. Members of Congress with an eye on winning reelection and a party majority really cannot be expected to provide the kind of independence we need for this fact-finding mission.

In my previous posts, I argued that allegations of Russian influence operations implicate two overlapping paradigms: domestic electoral politics and international geopolitics. As I said in December:

The overlap stems from the partisan utility of the alleged Russian operations themselves. If Russia sought to help Donald Trump, he and his supporters have some political incentives to deny it in order to avoid a taint to his legitimacy. In turn, his critics have incentives to undermine the legitimacy of his election by Russian association.

Looming political campaigns increase the need for independence from Congress and the Executive Branch. As divisive as our politics have been, we still have scores of distinguished Americans with the credibility to lead an investigation of this sensitivity and magnitude. We have former public officials, intelligence professionals, diplomats, veterans, congressional investigators, prosecutorsand academics who could answer the call.

We need a definitive investigation with bipartisan credibility like the 9/11 Commission. So far, with few exceptions, Hill Republicans are only offering the appearance of an investigation, rather than the hard-hitting, fact-driven, and independent investigation America deserves.

Andy Wright is a professor at Savannah Law School and former associate counsel to the president in the White House Counsels office.

Excerpt from:
Why are Republicans Dodging a True Russia Inquiry? - Newsweek

To the editor: If California Republicans are energized by President Trumps election, so are the thousands of Californians including many Republicans who are showing their opposition by lobbying, demonstrating, writing and calling legislators. (California's Republican Party is buoyed by Trump, but struggles for relevance at home, Feb. 27)

If Republicans have any chance of winning in this state, it seems clear that they must distance themselves from the demagoguery of the Trump administration (something they seem unwilling to do) and come up with sensible, sustainable policies to address issues Californians care about: the environment, human rights, equality of opportunity, excellence in education and affordable universal healthcare.

Being in a blue state offers the California GOP a unique opportunity to help tilt the Republican Party back toward the thoughtful conservatism and democratic principles for which it has been known in the past.

Betty Guthrie, Irvine

..

To the editor: Progressives, independents and Democrats are energized in support of the environment, education, women and more.

The Republicans cannot be energized if they continue to put party first enriched, maybe, but not energized.

Frank J. Lepiane, San Diego

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How California Republicans can do their party and the country a big favor - Los Angeles Times

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Republican legislative leaders in Indiana are warning that repealing the Affordable Care Act could unravel a program for poor residents that Vice President Mike Pence implemented as governor, a conservative blueprint for expanding Medicaid under the federal law.

Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma and GOP Senate leader David Long both said this week that tens of thousands of poor people could lose their insurance if Republicans in Washington enact some of the ideas they're discussing for repealing President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

"It's reality hitting home," Long, a Republican from Fort Wayne, said Wednesday. "... The issue of the working poor is real. It's not going to be easy."

Pence has been a persistent critic of the law since representing the state in Congress. But one of his legacy achievements after becoming governor in 2013 was expanding Medicaid in Indiana, which overwhelmingly relies on money made available under the Affordable Care Act.

The program, called HIP 2.0, has covered roughly 400,000 people and was designed by Seema Verma, a key health policy adviser to Pence who is President Donald Trump's pick to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It also counts on the federal government for at least 90 percent of its funding.

Indiana recently launched an ad campaign to promote the benefits of the plan. A billboard near the state capitol that previously carried an ad criticizing Pence was papered over with an ad for HIP 2.0.

In order to enact his own conservative vision for health care in Indiana, Pence sought - and was granted - a federal waiver.

He wanted to make sure poor people demonstrated personal responsibility and had "skin in the game" by paying small monthly fees for coverage. It's an approach that had been touted as a model other Republican-controlled states could adopt. A similar approach was undertaken in Kentucky under GOP Gov. Matt Bevin.

A spokesman for the vice president did not respond to a request for comment.

On Wednesday, Pence told ABC's "Good Morning America" that "we don't want anyone to fall through the cracks," especially not "the most disadvantaged citizens among us."

But changes under consideration by congressional Republicans would significantly reduce federal funding for Medicaid and subsidize private insurance, creating funding gaps for states and threatening a loss of coverage for many participants, according to a report by the consulting firms Avalere Health and McKinsey & Company.

Indiana and the 30 other states that expanded Medicaid would face the deepest cuts.

"It's not shocking to me that the federal government might not fully fund something they said they were going to," said Bosma, an Indianapolis Republican. "We'll have to reevaluate the program, the number of clients it serves."

Some Republican governors have voiced concern that a repeal of the ACA would have a disastrous effect on poor people, some of which are Trump supporters.

Pence's hand-picked replacement, new Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, has yet to weigh in on his preference. Stephanie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Holcomb believes it's important for people to keep their insurance, but she declined to offer specifics.

Original post:
Republicans in Pence's Indiana warn of health repeal fallout - WCPO

As someone who was intimately involved in supporting Tea Party activists in 2009, I feel like Ive entered Bizarro World.

A re-energized wave of liberal activists is crashing down across the nation. Democrats are celebrating disruptive protesters at congressional town hall forums, lauding them as living exemplars of the best traditions of American participatory democracyflesh-and-blood versions of Norman Rockwells Freedom of Speech painting. Everywhere, people are marching, protesting, tweeting, [and] speaking out, cheered Hillary Clinton in a new video released by the Democratic National Committee. Let resistance plus persistence equal progress.

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For many Republicans, their new roles in this episode are equally upside down. Members of Congress are skipping out on public events, afraid of catching the wrath of angry voters. Several GOP elected officials have alleged that the protesters are not actual constituents, but outside agitators paid by wealthy liberalspeople to be ignored, not engaged with. President Donald Trump himself questioned the legitimacy of so-called angry crowds, tweeting that they are planned out by liberal activists. Marco Rubio, who first won election to the U.S. Senate in the Tea Party wave of 2010, has defended his own decision to avoid such town halls, arguing that attendees will heckle and scream at me in front of cameras.

What a difference eight years makes.

Back in 2009, it was impossible to find a single Democratic apparatchik willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of citizen participation in congressional town halls. Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas dismissed frustrated voters as a mob part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described Tea Party protesters not as grass-roots Americans, but as artificial Astroturf. After a glut of protests at town hall events in August 2009, she even went so far as to co-author a USA Today op-ed in which she smeared the demonstrators tactics as un-American. Organizing for America, Barack Obamas campaign machine-turned-advocacy group, outrageously labeled Tea Party members right-wing domestic terrorists who are subverting the American democratic process.

Improbable as it seems, the hysterical reactions from the left about robust citizen participation in the democratic process in 2009 almost make Trumps tweets circa 2017 seem downright reasonable. As Jerry Seinfeld once described it: Up is down, and down is up.

In 2009, I served as the head of FreedomWorks, where I helped to support and organize Tea Party activists. I know something about town-hall protesters. And I have some tough news for both parties. The Tea Party was real, not astroturf, we were not a mob, and we were certainly not domestic terrorists.

Likewise, the Womens March in January and the current flood of town-hall protests are equally real, and should not be dismissed or diminished. Citizens exercising their poweras long as they dont hurt people or infringe on others rightsis always a positive thing. Indeed, its one of the primary tools Americans have to hold the government accountable.

If it looks like chaos, I call it beautiful chaos. We are in the middle of a political paradigm shift that is giving access to knowledge and power back to end users. Citizens have more say today, and social media and other technologies make it easier to educate others about the issues and organize.

Welcome to the new normal in American politics.

***

Todays progressive town-hall protesters follow in a tradition of disrupting the old top-down status quoone that stretches back across the political spectrum, ranging from Howard Dean to Ron Paul to the Tea Party, and yes, even Donald Trump.

That said, there are some important differences between Tea Party and todays activists, and I think these distinctions will ultimately undermine the ability of todays protests to evolve into a social movement with real electoral consequences.

First, this movement feels strictly partisan, and many of the groups supporting the protesters have strictly partisan goals. Indivisible, the group bootstrapping a training manual on town hall disruption based on Tea Party tactics, is helmed by Democratic operatives. Several of the authors are, in fact, former staffers of Doggett. Likewise, the Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, and Organizing for Action (President Obamas community-organizing operation formerly known as Organizing for America) are all involved, often with paid community organizers on the ground.

At FreedomWorks, we provided much of the same type of support: training, organizing, and providing logistical backing. Although we were savaged at the time as Astroturf, these wereand arelegitimate functions. But there is an important difference between advancing partisan political goals and advocating an ideological agenda.

Though my friends on the left may not realize this, they ignore it at their own peril: The Tea Party wasnt a partisan movement, especially in 2009 and 2010. Critics of the Tea Party forget (or ignore) the origins of our frustrations. At the massive Taxpayer March on Washington on September 12, 2009, every single activist I spoke with cited President George W. Bushs Wall Street bailout as their primary motive for getting involved. They would recite back to me his infamous rationale: I abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system. Thats what got folks off the couch and organizing. We were ideologues in 2009, and our shared philosophy bound us as a movement.

We targeted Republicans and Democrats with equal zeal, because, as our battle cry made clear at the time, we had to beat the Republicans before we could beat the Democrats. By contrast, todays protesters seem to be strictly targeting Republican town halls instead of making Democratic members of Congress feel the heat, too.

Second, its hard to find a focused, unifying set of issues or principles that connect todays Democratic protesters. Most seem motivated solely by Donald Trumps victory in November. But being anti-Trump is not enough: Even if they wanted to, Republicans in Congress cant really do anything about this. Are the disruptions today about the electoral process? Russia? Immigration? Health care? LGBT rights? One of the myriad other issues that seem to be drawing activists out? I cant tell. They will need to find unified principles and a cause.

The Tea Party, almost to a person, was unified on the principles of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility, and constitutionally limited government. Our policy agenda flowed from that: opposition to bailouts, deficit spending and government control of health care.

Third, if protesters want their cause to reach independents and disaffected Republicans (there are likely plenty), they had better keep it civil and respectful. Tea Partyers certainly got rowdy at the 2009 town halls, but they also came prepared, many having read and shared the contents of the health-care legislation that Pelosi had posted online. Surprising as it may be to some on the left, at FreedomWorks gatherings of Tea Party organizers, we were assigning readings about Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other successful nonviolent social movements. Violence can kill your cause, and we did our best to police our own community. Fair or not, todays protesters will own the worst behavior associated with their efforts.

Just shouting down members of Congressor in the case of one recent town hall in Louisiana, booing both the Pledge of Allegiance and the chaplain offering an opening prayer wont play well with anyone you need to win over. Not all protesters are the same and most are real people with real frustrations, but all protesters will be tarred by the actions of the worst among the group. Try to show a little respect, and it will be more effective.

Republicans are making a big mistake if they dismiss or ignore this movement. Contra the political mythology, the Tea Party was far more independent than Republican, and that translated into a broader coalition when coupled with the existing GOP vote. Today, the same battle rages for the hearts and minds of independents and Republicans uneasy with Trumps rhetoric.

So, a little advice to Republican elected officials: Dont avoid town halls. In fact, schedule more of them, like Representative Justin Amash has done. Listen. Hear your constituents. Defend your positions. Dont abandon the promises you made to voters in the election. If needed, provide for security at the event so that all citizens feel safe. Set up a system where everyone gets a chance to speak and to hear your response. Answer democratic engagement with more democratic engagement.

I realize how difficult this all may be in practice, but I agree with former Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords: Have some courage. Face your constituents. Hold town halls. Democrats failed that test in 2009 and 2010. Republicans run the risk of making the same mistake in 2017.

Matt Kibbe is president and chief community organizer of Free the People, and a senior editor at CRTV. He is the author of Dont Hurt People and Dont Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto.

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Wake Up, Republicans: This Could Be the Democrats' Tea Party - POLITICO Magazine