Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran will hold Johnson County town hall on Saturday
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran will hold a town hall Saturday in Olathe, his first in Johnson County since 2017.
It will take place at 1:15 p.m. at the American Legion Post at 410 E. Dennis Avenue, Moran’s office announced Friday afternoon.
Moran prides himself on town halls and typically holds at least one in each county during every two-year congressional cycle.
The short notice and the decision to schedule the event on a holiday weekend is likely to rankle some Johnson Countians after a four-year wait to see their senior senator.
In 2019, Moran held 73 town halls in the state, the most of any member of Congress from either party, according to the Town Hall Project, which tracks how often lawmakers have in-person town halls. That includes a town hall in Miami County.
But the COVID-19 pandemic upended Moran’s plans, causing him to cancel meetings in Johnson County and elsewhere in 2020.
The last town hall Moran held in the county was in 2017 as congressional Republicans and then-President Donald Trump were pursuing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
At a rowdy town hall in Lenexa, a number of Moran’s constituents voiced their fierce opposition to the proposed repeal of the health care law.
Moran emerged as a key swing vote, helping block one of the GOP’s repeal plans before supporting an amended version of the bill. The ACA remained intact after Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain blocked the second version.
This town hall will take place with a new president in office and Moran again poised to be a swing vote on a key piece of legislation.
Moran, who stands for re-election next year, was one of 11 Republican senators to sign onto a bipartisan infrastructure framework after negotiations with President Joe Biden and Senate Democats.
However, the Kansas senator has already indicated that he could withdraw his support for the bipartisan plan if Democrats pursue other items on Biden’s agenda through the budget reconciliation process in order to bypass the need for Republican votes.
Moran’s votes will be closely watched as the infrastructure legislation, a key piece of Biden’s domestic agenda, moves forward. He’s already facing attacks from a GOP-linked group, the Coalition to Protect American Workers, over his support for the bipartisan plan.
Kansas’ other Republican senator, Roger Marshall, held an invitation-only town hall for veterans in Lenexa in June. The event was not widely advertised or open to constituents who had not received an invitation. Marshall has yet to hold a general public town hall in the county.
This story was updated to include that Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall held an invitation-only town hall last month.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 2:41 PM.
