Town halls are intended to be public listening sessions to connect the Member of Congress (MoC) directly with their constituents. We can use these events to great effect – both to directly pressure members of Congress and to attract media to our effort to impeach, convict, and remove Donald Trump.

The town hall is your opportunity to get face to face with your member of congress and ask them publicly about their willingness to support and defend the constitution. This Citizen Action Guide will help you make your town hall an effective, compelling moment for the impeachment movement.

Having trouble finding a town hall?

You can call your MoC directly to ask when the next town hall will be scheduled. 

When you call, be friendly and say to the staffer, “Hi, I’m a constituent, and I’d like to know when his/her next town hall forum will be.” If they don’t know, ask to be added to the email list so that you get notified when they do.

Once a town hall is scheduled, confirm your MoC’s latest vote on impeachment using our tracker, and follow the instructions below!

Planning Before You Attend

1. Bring friends, family, and colleagues concerned about impeachment.
These events are about the community, and for us, that means demonstrating that your community supports impeachment. The more people you bring, the better.

2. Prepare several questions ahead of time.
When it comes to impeachment, representatives have repeatedly attempted to avoid the question by claiming that “we don’t have the votes” or that there are more important priorities to focus on. Your job is to keep the focus on their oath to support and defend the Constitution, and impeachment as a cornerstone responsibility they hold. 

We suggest questions that include information on the MoC’s record, votes they’ve taken, or statements they’ve made. You can check their most recent vote here. Please use these examples as a starting point. As you craft your own, remember that the key is an unambiguous, direct ask for your member to support impeachment. Public pressure works!

Should you Bring a Sign?

Signs can be useful for reinforcing the sense of broad agreement with your message. However, if you’re holding an oppositional sign, staffers are unlikely to give you or the people with you the chance to get the microphone or ask a question. Only bring a sign if you have enough people that some can hold signs while others ask questions. 

At the town hall

1. Get there early and meet folks. If you’re attending the event with others, connect with them beforehand to go over questions and think through how to re-focus non-responses on impeachment.

2. Get seated. Head into the venue a bit early to grab seats at the front half of the room, but if you have a group, it’s best for each of you to sit alone or in groups of two spread out throughout the room. This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.

3. Make your voices heard by asking good questions. When the MoC opens the floor for questions, everyone in the group should put your hands up and keep them there. Look friendly or neutral so that staffers will call on you. When you’re asking a question, remember the following guidelines: 

• Stick with the prepared list of questions. Don’t be afraid to read it straight from the printout if you need to.
• Be polite but persistent. Demand real answers. MoCs are very good at deflecting or dodging questions they don’t want to answer. If the MoC dodges, ask a follow-up question. If they aren’t giving you real answers, then call them out for it. Other group members around the room should amplify by either booing the MoC or applauding you. 
• Do not give up the microphone until you’re satisfied with the answer. If you’ve asked a hostile question, a staffer will often try to limit your ability to follow up by taking the microphone back immediately after you finish speaking. They can’t do that if you keep a firm hold on the microphone. No staffer in their right mind wants to look like they’re physically intimidating a constituent, so they will back off. If they object, then say politely but loudly: “I’m not finished. The Congressperson is dodging my question. Why are you trying to stop me from following up?”
• Keep the pressure on. After one member of the group finishes, everyone should raise their hands again. The next member of the group to be called on should move down the list of questions and ask the next one. 

4. Support the group and reinforce the message. Impeachment gets applause. After you ask a question, anyone who attended with you should applaud to show that the feeling is shared throughout the audience.  Whenever someone from your group gets the mike, they should note that they’re building on the previous questions – amplifying the fact that you’re part of a broad group.

5. Record everything! Assign someone in the group to use their smart phone or video camera to record other advocates asking questions and the MoC’s response. While written transcripts are nice, unfavorable exchanges caught on video can be devastating for MoCs. These clips can be shared through social media and picked up by local and national media.

After the town hall

1. Reach out to the media both during and after the town hall. If there’s media at the town hall, you should approach them afterwards and offer to speak about their concerns. When the event is over, you should engage local reporters on Twitter or by email and offer to provide an in-person account of what happened, as well as the video footage you collected. Example Twitter outreach: 

“.@reporter I was at Rep. Smith’s town hall in Springfield today. Large group asked about Medicare privatization. I have video & happy to chat.”

-Note: It’s important to make this a public tweet by including the period before the journalist’s Twitter handle. Making this public will make the journalist more likely to respond to ensure they get the intel first.

Be sure to elevate the voices of members of your group who are directly affected by specific threats when you reach out to the media.

2. Share everything. Post pictures, video, and your own thoughts about the event to social media afterwards. Tag the MoC’s office and encourage others to share widely.

If you would like some help crafting your question or speech, you are welcome to reach out to our Citizen Liaison and they will be happy to assist. They can provide more localized details for the specific MoC holding the town hall and may have records of their prior positions and statements on impeachment.