BENTONVILLE -- Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers was booed repeatedly Thursday while repeating a series of positions that won him his seat in Congress by large margins in every election since 2010.
The crowd attending the Republican congressman's town hall filled the 342-seat auditorium at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. Frustration at President Donald Trump's policies on immigration, health care, budget and other issues was strongly expressed by most of the attendees. Womack replied he and the president share many -- but not all -- of the same priorities.
For instance, there will be no progress toward a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the country until and unless the border is secure, Womack said -- to some applause. Womack drew some visible support at Thursday's meeting, his fourth in his district in a week, as conservatives spoke out too.
Yet Congress has no intention of cutting $6 billion from the National Institute of Health, as the president proposes, Womack said. "That is not going to happen," he said -- one of the few remarks of the night, along with support for library funding, that drew widespread crowd applause.
At a more contentious point in the hour and a half event, Womack told the crowd "In 2018, you can do something about it," when he's up for re-election. The comment drew chants of "Vote him out" from many.
"Is there any hope for our future if we can't be civil?" replied one teacher at the college who declined to give his name. "Our public discourse is going down the tubes."
Who's to blame for that polarization became a topic in itself at Thursday's meeting. Conservatives and Trump policy opponents blamed each other at the meeting, while other attendees said Womack's mind was already made up before the meeting started.
"A little bit more understanding of our differences by him would have helped," Asra Qiran of Bentonville said of Womack after Thursday's meeting. "We understand we are in the minority, but we still have valid points to make."
Kati McFarland, who recently moved to Fayetteville, confronted U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, at an even more contentious meeting in Springdale in February, one in which the senator faced a crowd of 2,000. McFarland also took a front-row seat at Thursday's event. She said Cotton was just as opposed to the majority of the crowd's view as Womack, but "he engaged the crowd, to his benefit. Womack gave non-answers. He deflected."
One thing both pro- and anti-Trump speakers said during the discussion was to thank Womack for appearing in person. Other members of Congress aren't scheduling many appearances, several participants noted. Thursday's event was Womack's fourth town hall in a week during a congressional recess. He also appeared at a similar event in West Fork in February.
The loudest response of Thursday night came when Womack defended the administration's environmental policies. Many members of the audience held up red cards, showing disagreement. Womack said," You might as well keep those red cards in the air, because I think Scott Pruitt will do a great job." That reference to Trump's director of the Environmental Protection Agency drew a roar of disapproval.
Jan and Mary Gosnell of Fayetteville left the meeting more than 30 minutes early, saying the hoped "for a little more discussion and a little less yelling, but the real reason I left was because the woman sitting next to me was obnoxious and loud."
Womack occupies one of the safest GOP districts in the country. Republicans have held Arkansas' 3rd Congressional District since 1967. Decades of redrawing district boundaries with each U.S. Census removed much of the district's Democratic voters since. The redistricting process has also removed counties further away from Womack's political base in Rogers and his heavily Republican hometown of Russellville.
The Democratic "wave" election of 2006 still saw Womack's predecessor, U.S. John Boozman, R-Rogers, win with more than 62 percent of the vote. Womack hasn't faced a Democratic opponent who stayed in the race all the way to the general election since he first ran for the office in 2010. Womack won that race with more than 70 percent of the vote.
But even Womack has fretted at other meetings in the past about whether he could become minority party member with little power, considering GOP prospects outside of his district. In similar town meetings with Republican voters in past years, he repeatedly warned much more conservative audiences of risks to the GOP House majority. He did this in years in which the kind of widespread voter anger he faced Thursday -- in a safe Republican district -- was far less prevalent.
Womack has also voiced frustration over his party in Congress in March after the GOP repeal and replacement bill on health care failed to even come to a vote on the House floor.
At one point, Womack told Thursday's crowd, "You guys remind me of Congress."
NW News on 04/14/2017