Letter to the editor

Townhall folks were mostly from Washington County

On May 6, I attended a town hall at the Washington Library to hear about Representative Miller-Meeks’ support for the budget bill being worked on by Congress.

There was a panel of speakers who shared their concerns about how rural areas like ours would be impacted by cuts to Medicaid and other vital programs. While I’m grateful the KCRG-TV9 station made the effort to send a news crew to our neck of the woods, if that’s the only account you saw, I want to set the record straight.

The makeup of the organizers, panel, and audience was reported inaccurately as being mostly from outside of Washington county. The Southeast Iowa Union’s Union’s Kalen McCain wrote an article about the event that detailed concerns of the presenters, reported a response from the Miller-Meeks staff the next day, and actually included an estimate of who was local (roughly 14 of the 20 in the room; and everyone there was a constituent of Miller-Meeks).

Also, the KCRG piece pivoted around a comment from an organizer of the town hall who said that support for Trump is eroding. The overarching topic of discussion, however, was Miller-Meeks’ support for tax cut bills that include Medicaid and education cuts. (Regardless of how Washington County voted in 2024, national polling shows Trump's approval is declining.)

The story I’d like rural Iowans to hear is that budgeting for these needs is critical to our communities thriving, and that there are emerging progressive grassroots voices in our communities. It’s disappointing that that story was ignored by KCRG, and I want to make sure that it’s being heard.

Eileen Beran, Kalona