BOWLING GREEN – Visit the website of Ohio representative Bob Latta (R-Ohio 5th District) and you’ll find under the “district events” tab that he hasn’t held an event since 2015.
The groups Bowling Green Persists and the nonpartisan League of Women Voters aimed to change that on Saturday, April 12. They invited the congressman to a town hall at the Peace Lutheran Church. There was just one huge hiccup: He didn’t show up.
Latta has been District 5’s representative since 2007. According to his website, he is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy; a member of the Subcommittee on Communications & Technology and the Subcommittee on the Environment. Latta is also a deputy whip and co-chairs the Rural Broadband Caucus and the Congressional Propane Caucus.
Organizers chose to make the environment an accommodating one by having former news anchor Jerry Anderson moderate the discussion. In the absence of his invited guest, Anderson began by measuring the temperature of the room. He instructed attendees to raise their hand if the issue he named was why they showed up. It soon became apparent that Social Security and education would lead the agenda.
Following that, the former TV journalist worked the room. Attendees read out the questions they would have asked, had their representative in Congress showed up. For one attendee who spoke to the Toledo Free Press, the chief concern was healthcare, as she runs her own small business.
“My business is just me. So, I’m paying both my FICA and the business part of FICA, which is in jeopardy, I feel, right now,” said Lia Ricci. “With all of the talk in Congress right now, about Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security; those programs that care for the most vulnerable in our community. That’s very important to me.”
Asked what she would have liked to have heard from Latta, Ricci explained that there was “a lot, actually.”
She added that she would like to hear specifically how he is going to defend education in her community. “I’m always going to come back to the most vulnerable in our community. They rely on the rest of us to look out for them, and that is key to a healthy community and society.”
Evident by the small church having both its sanctuary and lobby filled to the brim with people, the demand for answers was overwhelming.
“We’re really, really tired of having an absent representative,” Ricci said, laughing, which she pinned on the perceived absurdity of the situation. “It makes me laugh, but it’s a laughter of frustration. We deserve representation, it’s literally what our country is based on.”
Every call placed and email sent – from her to the congressman’s office – has gone unanswered, she claims. Despite that, Ricci intends to press on until her concerns are addressed.
Holli Gray-Luring, of Bowling Green Persists, told the TFP that “he just completely runs away from the opportunity to talk to people.”
Nationally, representatives – largely Republican – have been subject to heated exchanges with their constituents over Trump administration actions. During these events, the environment has often started with civil discussion and devolved into a shouting match. However, Holli insists that the expectations for Saturday’s event were clear.
Our group, Bowling Green Persists, is about hope and light and positivity. We do strive to make the world a better place, and we do some activist movements, but it’s all done with peace. We were prepared for that and we did set the stage when we discussed our opening lines in the beginning.
Holli Gray-Luring | Bowling Green Persists
She adds that her disappointment with the decision of Latta to not attend isn’t about a missed opportunity to make a spectacle. Rather, it was a missed opportunity for him to be a bridge.
“I think he would be the best person to start bridging that gap, that divide. I think that he’s just making that wedge of division much greater by not being here. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republican or a Democrat, we need our public officials to be here and just listen to us and guide us. We want the truth. That’s what this is about: this is an open forum for truth.”
The Toledo Free Press has reached out to a spokesperson for Rep. Bob Latta to get his side of the story. This story will be updated with that response if one is provided.
