Hunter
10/05/25
1st Congressional District representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks defended her lack of town hall meetings in her third term, blaming Democrats for making an issue where there is not an issue.
The Des Moines Register reports in a call with reporters Friday, Miller-Meeks said she has had telephone town halls and said she will have in-person town halls. She also said her opponent, University of Iowa professor Christina Bohannan, has not had a town hall. Miller-Meeks added that she attends Rotary meetings and county fairs and can answer anyone’s questions they have.
Other Iowa Republican members of Congress have held heated town halls this year where attendees have criticized the party’s tax and spending law dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill.” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson encouraged House Republicans to avoid holding in-person town halls as some voters, enraged by the Trump administration’s funding cuts and mass firings of federal workers, heckled GOP lawmakers.
Progressive Iowa groups have held “people’s town halls” or “empty seat town halls to call out absent legislators.
Christina Bohannan’s campaign manager Dan Driscoll said in a statement, “It’s no surprise that Rep. Miller-Meeks is too afraid to face her own constituents, after she sold them out to the drug and insurance companies who gave her $600,000 in campaign contributions in exchange for voting for higher prescription and health insurance prices for Iowans,” a statement backed up by a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance data.
Republicans have criticized Bohannan for not visiting the Iowa State Fair this year and say she’s been absent from the campaign trail.