David Scott Is Hiding From His Constituents

I noticed with some interest this story about Congressman David Scott, as linked by the Blogfaddah and Hot Air. In the video linked below, Scott screams at a questioner at an open meeting, implying the doctor who politely asked Scott some direct questions was not one of Scott's constituents. As you'll see in the report, this was (being charitable) a mistaken impression on Scott's part.

Fair warning--the volume on the commercial preceding the news report is ear-splitting:



An unedited version of the meeting, including Scott's rant, can be seen here.

Scott represents the 13th District in Georgia, which has been stretched many miles around Interstate 285 to collect a number of localities. As is the case with the doctor in the video, Scott happens to be my own personal congresscritter, and as it happens, I checked last week to see whether or not he'd be making any appearances during August.

It turns out that Scott is planning one and only one meeting on health care during this month-long recess, and he's holding it in the Democratic stronghold of Jonesboro, in Clayton County. In point of fact, this appearance doesn't even seem to be an actual town meeting; it's billed on Scott's website as a "health fair."

Although I didn't know it at the time, I took Scott's advice and emailed his office on Wednesday to ask whether the Congressman would be holding any actual meetings up here in the northernmost spur of his district, the not-remotely-a-Democratic-stronghold of Smryna in Cobb County. Smith's staffer, Michael Andel, replied that Scott holds "events all over the place," and noted that he'd held a town meeting in Smyrna last year, but stopped replying when I asked specifically whether a meeting on health care--which after all is something of a vital issue at the moment--would be held in this area during the recess. I suppose more than one meeting every two years is a bit too taxing on the Congressman's busy schedule.

I can't say I was terribly surprised. Scott very rarely pays any attention to the northern half of his district, which is highly gerrymandered to insure a majority of the votes come from Clayton County. Scott puts up a billboard every two years (and he should update the photograph on it--I didn't realize until I watched the video linked above that his hair has turned grey) and recently put in a satellite office in the basement of a local bank, but other than that we don't see or hear much of him at all.

And apparently, we'll be seeing even less these days. Judging by Scott's behavior over in Douglasville last week, he's got very little interest in being questioned, much less in being disagreed with.

Those darn free citizens. It's like they think Congressmen work for them, instead of the other way around.