VENICE

Rooney's answers at Town Hall satisfy few

Earle Kimel
earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com
Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL 17th District) held a town hall meeting Monday at the Englewood Event Center. Rooney fielded questions and comments from his base of constituents about President Donald Trump, the Affordable Care Act and immigration policies. [Herald-Tribune photo / Matt Houston]

ENGLEWOOD — U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney fielded questions on topics ranging from the future of the Affordable Care Act to the decorum of President Donald Trump Monday, during an hour-and-a-half town hall meeting with a crowd of more than 600 people at the Englewood Event Center.

The honeymoon period at the podium lasted through the pledge of allegiance that the five-term Okeechobee Republican recited with his son Sean. On the first question, Venice resident Michael Holston asked Rooney to explain how he justified supporting both an appropriations bill to help Florida waterways and clean up the Everglades and voting to repeal an Obama Administration rule regulating the disposal of coal ash waste.

“To me, that’s highly hypocritical,” Holston said. “Would you care to explain?”

Rooney — whose family hails from western Pennsylvania — explained that in his view the rule was putting coal companies out of business, and extrapolated that similarly tight standards could endanger cattle ranchers and farmers. That response elicited a few jeers and set the tone for what was at times an adversarial approach between the questions from the audience and Rooney’s responses.

“When they asked the questions, they really didn’t want the answer,” observed Cynthia Crowe, a member of the Republican Club of South Sarasota County. “When you ask the question, you wait for the answer; if you want to boo him after the answer, go ahead.”

Crowe had attended the town hall with Rooney, whose district includes several central Florida counties and a portion of south Sarasota County, seeking a better measure of the man.

“I think he conducted himself fabulously,” she added. “He did an excellent job.”

The meeting was scheduled after Rooney met with demonstrators demanding a town hall outside of his Feb. 23 stop at Venice City Hall for a private lunch with community leaders.

With respect to the Affordable Care Act, Rooney said it would be irresponsible of Congress to repeal the legislation without having its replacement available for vetting by the American people. House Republicans presented their proposed replacement later Monday.

Rooney also recently co-sponsored a bill requiring that pre-existing conditions be covered in any successor to the ACA.

Venice resident Ron Feinsod, one of the founding members of a local Indivisible activist group, followed up by asking, “Why are you trying to repeal something for six years, without having anything to replace it ... why don’t you stop talking about repealing it and talk about fixing it.”

That prompted chants of “Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!” from the crowd.

Rooney said the law could be repealed with 51 votes, but replacement legislation would take 60 votes — “clearly we’re not there yet ... we are not at the point where we believe we can pass what we believe to be better.”

On other significant issues, Rooney said:

■ That for people older than 55, Social Security payments should remain at their current level, but for those younger than 55 changes must be made to shore up a failing system, adding that changes in Medicare must be made as well.

■ He would consider a suggestion raised by Feinsod to raise the cap on the income level for Social Security — though he currently doesn’t support that position.

■ He would support a bill requiring future presidential candidates to release their tax returns, but while he would have thought Trump would have had to release his taxes, “he won, and it didn’t seem like people really cared about it.”

■ A travel ban is appropriate at this time, because the affected countries like Yemen don’t have the ability to effectively vet the refugees seeking to come to the United States.

When questions veered toward Trump, Rooney’s suggestion, that, “I think that we just need to give this guy a chance,” was punctuated by several seconds of crowd chants of “No!”

“So we want Trump to fail, right?” he later asked rhetorically and was greeted by chants of “Yes!”

“I think you should give him more than a month,” Rooney continued.

Eventually, chants turned toward “Russia! Russia! Russia!” to which Rooney said, “I think we’ve got our next question."

Rooney, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said his briefings have revealed no evidence that the Trump campaign and the Russian government colluded during the campaign.

That being said, he quickly added that foreign governments like Russia and China are already trying to influence elections through propaganda, such as RT television, so his main concern — and it’s something that’s asked of FBI Director James Comey every time he testifies before the intelligence committee — is whether the Russians, or anyone, has hacked into voting machines at the precinct level.

“And the answer to that is ‘no,’ not at this time,” Rooney said.

Rooney later fielded a question about appointing a special prosecutor or nonpartisan investigation on the issue by noting that his job on the intelligence committee — which is bipartisan — is to do essentially that.

He added that he’s one roughly four Republicans sponsoring a bill requiring Congressional approval for lifting of any sanctions against Russia.

When asked about whether a special prosecutor or committee should investigate allegations made by Trump in a series of tweets that the former President Barack Obama had ordered wiretaps at Trump Tower, Rooney again said that the House Intelligence Committee is best suited to conduct such an inquiry.

Rebecca Havens, of Port Charlotte, questioned the ethics of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his failure to disclose contact with the Russian ambassador, and said he should be removed.

“I think it would reunite this country if we started off with high ethics,” Havens said. “We need to have, from the president down, people with high ethics in these positions, so if they start off lying, it makes the division greater.”

“I would like to respect my president, my attorney general and everyone he has put in office,” she added. “And I do not.”