Earlier this month, Congressman Gabe Evans (R-CO) posted on X that he “recently held a town hall with Phillips 66 hardworking employees,” and shared photos of him speaking to a couple dozen people in a conference room, along with images of him taking a tour of the facility.
Evans has yet to hold an in-person town hall since taking office. By comparison, Evans’ Democratic colleague to the west, Congressman Joe Neguse, recently held his 15th such event.
Evans held a public conference call meeting on April 2. His office publicly announced the event, which it characterized as a tele-townhall, a day in advance and provided details on how to join and ask questions.
Since then, however, the only other event Evans has characterized as a “town hall” was another telephone-only event that, as with the Phillips 66 meeting, was hosted by the oil and gas industry. Evans posted on May 20 that he had just held a tele-town hall hosted by the American Petroleum Institute (API), an advocacy group that lobbies for the oil and gas industry. Neither it nor the Philips 66 event was publicly announced in advance, nor were they open to the public.
Participants in the API tele-townhall were invited in advance, but by API directly, as the transcript of the robocall invitation indicates:
“Hello, this is Morgan with the American Petroleum Institute. Press 2 to not receive this type of call in the future. On Tuesday, May 20, at 6:00 p.m., our team will be conducting a live, interactive town hall meeting with Representative Gabe Evans over the telephone to discuss important energy topics impacting Colorado. You will receive an invitation call at approximately 6:00 p.m. on May 20. To participate, simply remain on the line and you will automatically be connected to the live teletown hall event.”
Reached via email, Colorado Common Cause Executive Director Aly Belknap stressed the importance of town halls being accessible to everyone in the district.
“Elected officials should set up spaces where they can speak to and hear directly from their constituents,” said Belknap. “This means that in addition to closed-door forums where attendance is tightly controlled, there should also be opportunities that are widely accessible to the public, regardless of political views. Townhalls should be planned with common barriers to participation in mind; that can mean providing translation, selecting accessible facilities, and enabling remote participation. Townhalls give constituents the opportunity to be heard, and they give public officials an avenue to hear constituents and respond; it’s in everyone’s best interest to open these forums as widely as possible, to promote public dialogue and civic participation.”
Evans’ office did not respond to a request for comment as to why the Congressman considers the API and Phillips 66 events “town halls.” This article will be updated with any response received.
