Without Town Halls, Representation Suffers
Disengaged Wittman can't hear us because he chooses not to
Greetings from Wittman Watch HQ!
Last week we wrote about Wittman’s failure to uphold the Constitution.
We continued our Myth of the Week series: Does Wittman care about public education?
Scroll down to see our social media roundup for the week.
Accountability to constituents is a significant responsibility shared by all Members of Congress. After all, they’re in our seats in Congress, and their jobs are to represent We the People.
One key way to demonstrate accountability is to host in-person town halls in order to provide legislative updates, field questions, and listen to constituent concerns. That is, unless you’re VA-01 Congressman Rob Wittman — in which case you honor neither tradition nor your core responsibility to answer to constituents.
Let’s be clear: refusing to host in-person town halls is not normal. Why does Wittman refuse to engage face-to-face with the people he’s supposed to serve?
A history of substandard engagement
Wittman hasn’t hosted an in-person town hall since at least March 2019. That refusal to engage reduces opportunities for him to represent the people of VA-01 in concrete, meaningful ways. A little listening can go a long way, yet Wittman consistently deprives his constituents of even that much.
Instead, he cuts corners by doing telephone town halls with preselected questions, hiding behind his computer screen for virtual events, and hosting limited community meetings, all while claiming to “value face-to-face interactions” with constituents. He’s also reduced the number of events his staff holds, and limits them to the communities where he has the most support: preaching to the choir, as it were.
His limited-access in-person meetings include community seminars and service organization meetings on topics such as fraud prevention, social media safety, and tax roundtables with local businesses. And sometimes he meets with donors at $500-a-seat fundraisers in swanky steakhouses (in this case, hours before a government shutdown).
Wittman has only hosted a handful of telephone town halls per year since 2009. He claims it’s a “highly effective and inclusive way to connect with thousands of constituents across the district at once,” increasing participation by those with busy schedules or limited mobility.
An eyebrow-raising problem is that telephone town halls allow Wittman to pre-screen questions. And he has limited them to an hour, which isn’t nearly enough time to properly address constituent concerns, especially if hundreds of people attend.
While virtual and phone town hall formats offer accessibility and flexibility, they’re nowhere near enough to meet constituent needs.
Why do we care about in-person town halls?
Barring barriers such as pandemics, residents are entitled to expect to see their representative in person. There’s a need for basic human connection between constituents and the representatives who have pledged to serve them. It reinforces the idea that the representative is interested in constituents’ needs, and not just their votes. It’s also one way to verify that a representative is actively doing their job.
Why are in-person town halls necessary?
They show that a representative sincerely cares about and engages with their constituents
They build trust and morale
The representative demonstrates transparency and a willingness to be accountable for their actions and votes
Attendees can’t be screened or excluded by criteria such as party membership
The representative demonstrates a willingness and capacity to address unpredictable questions and topics
They create a sense of community and purpose
They can build momentum towards achieving legislative action that benefits constituents
By refusing to host in-person town halls, Wittman has lost touch with his constituents. He can’t effectively serve us if he’s routinely avoiding meaningful contact with us. More importantly, he has lost our trust in his ability to stand up for our needs and concerns.
An abdication of duty
In the second half of 2025, Wittman was part of a general trend of Republican representatives avoiding in-person town halls. Why? Because Americans were upset and furious about legislative and other havoc the Trump administration unleashed, including megabill H.R. 1.
Deep cuts to Medicaid, cuts to clean energy incentives, grave threats to social safety nets, and an exploding federal deficit caused by tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy are some of the many issues constituents want their representatives to answer for. Now we can add to the list ICE aggression, the administration’s unconstitutional attacks on Venezuela and other countries, and affordability problems here at home.
Republicans may be avoiding in-person town halls in part to avoid facing angry constituents/protesters, but their main motivation seems to be protecting President Trump from accountability. Wittman is a complicit member of an entire political party that’s doing its utmost to help the President — a convicted felon — continue his rampage of corruption and cruelty.
Intense scrutiny over the lack of Republican town halls (examples here, here, and here) has been driven by constituents upset about the lack of opportunities to speak to their representatives in person. As Roger Chesley of the Virginia Mercury wrote:
“You [Rob Wittman] also skirted a chance to meet with your own constituents in April during a congressional recess, after the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advised GOP members not to hold in-person town halls. Many Republican lawmakers followed that gutless advice.”
Wittman may be scared of his constituents because we expect him to answer uncomfortable questions and address activities he knows he cannot legitimately and popularly support. It’s equally likely that he just doesn’t care about us, regardless of party affiliation. People who voted for him are just as likely to suffer from his voting record under President Trump. For example, let’s look at H. R. 1, Trump’s signature bill that Wittman continually defends. “Red” states (which tend to be poorer, more rural, more Medicaid‑dependent, with less willingness or capacity to replace federal dollars) are positioned to be worse off overall than “blue” states, which are better able to cushion the blow through higher taxes and policy countermeasures. The VA-01 district is a mixture of “red” and “blue,” but those who need the most support will be worse off as a consequence of H. R. 1.
No matter whether or why you voted Wittman into office, none of us deserves to lose healthcare, housing, food, or jobs for political reasons.
In 2025, constituents showed up in droves at Wittman’s office locations to voice their frustrations about being ignored. Wittman also cancelled mobile office hours in several locations, rather than have his staff engage with constituents as often as possible.
He has such an abysmal town hall record that other representatives have to step up to do his job for him, as in the case of the “Where Is Wittman?” Town Hall with Senator Ghazala Hashmi. Constituents have also taken the matter into their own hands, hosting their own town halls without Wittman to highlight the fact that he would not hold them himself.
Let’s sit with that scenario for a moment: Wittman has abdicated his responsibility so thoroughly that we, his constituents, are left to our own devices to draw his attention to the issues that matter to us.
What should we do about Wittman’s refusal to hold town halls?
We shouldn’t have to ask this question, but Wittman’s lack of commitment to town halls isn’t normal, nor is it right.
We can appeal to Wittman through calls and emails and advocate for him to do his duty, but since his past behavior is the best predictor of his future behavior, other strategies will likely yield more fruitful results.
Here are ideas for action we can take:
Sign the petitions to help get challengers to Wittman on the VA-01 ballot. Then vote Rob Wittman out of office in November. As soon as we flip the First District, we’ll have a representative committed to hosting in-person town halls.
Upcoming petition signings (not a complete list!):
Saturday, Feb. 7 and Saturday. Feb. 14 — stop by Historic Triangle Dems HQ, 113K Palace Ln, Williamsburg from 10 am to noon.
Saturday, Feb. 7 — stop by Tabb Library, 100 Long Green Blvd, Tabb from 1:30 to 3:30pm.
Saturday, Feb. 14 — stop by Elite Coffee & Lounge, 7500 Richmond Rd Suite B, Norge (former location of Anonymous Coffee) from noon to 2pm.
If you know of another, add it in the comments.
Support the candidates by donating to their campaigns, volunteering, signing up for their newsletters, attending their events, and sharing information about them on social media. (You can find their contact details here.)
Attend town halls hosted by other representatives who appear in Rob Wittman’s stead. The more people show up, the stronger the message.
Write “Letters to the Editor” about Wittman’s lack of in-person town halls. We might not be able to shame him into doing them, but the message will inform voters about his apathy.
If possible, host a constituent town hall yourself. Allow plenty of time to advertise beforehand and put out a press release (and make sure to send it to us!). At this rate, constituent town halls are about as official as the First District is going to get.
Share this article to help others understand the importance of in-person town halls.
Note that Wittman Watch covers all challengers to Wittman, regardless of political affiliation. So far, eight Democrat candidates have declared their opposition to him. Should someone aligned with the Republican Party do so, we’ll highlight them too. We encourage a broad field of challengers and amplify what they have to say, and encourage constituents to sign petitions to get challengers on the ballot.
What do you think about Rob Wittman avoiding in-person town halls? Let us know what you think by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.
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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.