The House holds biweekly pro-forma sessions during district-work periods, with a handful of representatives assembling before an otherwise empty chamber and legislative days often ending in minutes. Speaker Mike Johnson called for an early August recess to prevent a vote on releasing the Epstein files and instructed Republicans to promote the One Big Beautiful Bill in their districts. Town-hall meetings frequently become contentious, with historical and recent examples of disorder and violence. Several Republican representatives faced sustained boos, heckling, and aggressive questioning from constituents while attempting to present and defend legislation.
In the dog days of August in Washington, D.C., with Congress off on its district-work period, the House still convenes biweekly pro-forma sessions, in which a handful of straggler representatives assemble in front of an empty chamber. When I watched one unfold on a recent morning, the Speaker pro tempore presided over the customary reading of a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, and the legislative day concluded within five minutes.
Town halls, which originated in the New England colonies in the seventeenth century, often devolve. In 1795, a Philadelphia town hall held to debate the Jay Treaty ended with attendees throwing rocks; two hundred and thirty years later, angry protesters at the Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's town hall were tased and shot with stun guns.
This summer, in Nebraska, Representative Mike Flood, one of a handful of Republicans to host a town hall about the " Big Beautiful Bill," was booed for the duration of his PowerPoint presentation. He tried to recite talking points over shrieks of "Liar!," and was then asked why he wouldn't "stand up to fascism" or release the Epstein files.
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