Rowdy N.J. Town Halls: Trump Protesters Carried Away, Get Loud

There was a time when meeting a New Jersey congressman — even one you didn't like — would be the quietest meeting you'd ever have.

Now you're guaranteed to be surrounded by hundreds, even thousands, who are filling the seats of New Jersey community buildings and staging rallies to protest President Trump.

Loud, often angry crowds have been showing up to these town halls and rallies held across the state and the nation to voice their opposition to Trump's policies — particularly his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

And if the congressman didn't plan to attend, people came anyway and set up town halls of their own where they protested just as loudly as they would if the congressman was there.

"The public town hall meeting is one of the bedrocks of our representative democracy. The people of the Fighting Fourth district are owed face-to-face time with our representative in an open, unscripted forum," said Jim Keady, a resident of Spring Lake, which is part of N.J.'s 4th District, represented by Republican Chris Smith.

Republicans have brushed off the protests as organized actions intended to show Trump's opposition is a lot bigger than it is — and maybe they're even paid.

The president himself weighed in on the activity.

One of the groups leading the protests is Indivisible, which formed in the wake of Trump's election as a way to organize liberal opposition. Many of the groups are local — and they're not organized in far-away places, organizers say.

Here are some of the rallies and protests held statewide:

• "No Hate. No Fear. Immigrants are welcome here. No Hate. No Fear. Refugees are welcome here." These were among the sayings chanted in both English and Spanish by immigrant residents, activists and politicians Thursday afternoon at the doorstep of Rep. Leonard Lance's Westfield office. Read more here...
• Hundreds of residents came out to voice their concerns about Trump at Lance's Town Hall on Wednesday night. More than 900 people filled the auditorium inside Raritan Valley Community College, and about 200 more people filled the spill-over room on Feb. 22, Lance told Patch. Residents who did not get a spot lined the campus outside. Lance believes this was the largest turnout to one of his 41 town hall meetings he has ever had. Read more here....
• Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican congressman who represents a wide swath of Monmouth County, hasn't held or attended a town hall meeting in 25 years. So the fact that he wasn't present Wednesday night at a public meeting in Manalapan was not exactly a surprise to organizers. The meeting, held at the Manalapan branch of the Monmouth County Library, was organized by local liberal groups who say they organized the forum in Smith's absence, and to highlight the fact that he hasn't held a town hall since the early 1990s. Read more here....
• Immigrant residents and activists rallied for justice in Elizabeth Thursday, responding to raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Elizabeth. The rally is protesting "against Trump's deportation machine and demand for an end to the raids." There were reports of protesters being arrested and media being blocked as well. Read more here...
• Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican from New Jersey, held a last-minute, invitation-only "telephone town hall" meeting where he reportedly said he would move to block funding for a Mexican border wall. His office has denied this claim. "I was on the telephone town hall and can confirm that Mr. Frelinghuysen never said his committee would not fund the wall," Steve Wilson, a media liaison for Frelinghuysen, told Patch. Read more here....
• Rep. Tom MacArthur is one of a number of local representatives who have resisted calls to host town hall meetings because of the raucous and angry crowds that have shown up at some. So on Wednesday night, an interest group from South Jersey staged its own town hall at the Frances Demasi Middle School in Marlton and invited MacArthur to attend. MacArthur wasn’t in attendance and instead held a tele-town hall at a radio station in Toms River simultaneously. But at the town hall, speakers called on MacArthur to vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act, raise the minimum wage and stop Trump’s immigration actions, among other issues. Read more here...

Here are some of the photos and videos from the rallies:

Photo courtesy of @FiOS1NewsNJ