while with all the shifts in Washington many constituents are reporting their desire to meet with elected representatives in person and find out what the federal government is doing to address their concerns but last week the chair of the national Congressional Republican committee directed members to avoid in-person town halls for now out of fear they'd be heckled by protesters or interrupted by activists a look into the schedules of New Jersey's Congressional members show Democratic Representatives are continuing to hold in-person Town Hall meetings within their districts at the same rate but the state's three Republicans are not senior political correspondent David Cruz has more how are you going to vote on the CR are you in favor of mass deportations in New Jersey this video of Congressman Tom Kaine Jr ignoring NJ spotlights Ben hulak went viral last year and sered to highlight the Republicans lack of public interaction with voters a strategy that has irked his opponents an activists but has actually served him well as evidenced by his defeat of his last two Challengers it's a strategy that house Speaker Mike Johnson said last week Republicans are employing across the country George Soros funded groups and others literally pay protesters and you know uh I I saw my my friend Hakim Jeff uh decrying that I've said that but we know that that is a fact uh Democrat activists who don't live in the district very often will show up for these Town Hall events and they'll go in an hour early and they'll fill all the seats and so the constituents and the people from the community that are actually represented don't even get a seat now I'm not saying everyone in these uh all the Democrats and these uh these uh Town Halls that you've seen on television were not from the local area but look these are there are people who do this as a professional they're professional protesters so why would we give them a forum to do that right now the three Republicans in New Jersey's delegation appear to have gotten the memo Caine Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew rarely hold any public forums they also rarely speak to the nonpartisan press as evidenced by their lack of participation in this story but the Congressmen have said that they meet with constituents in smaller groups almost every day and that the telephone Town Halls they have are actually more productive when they're not being interrupted by demonstrators you are not doing your job you are disrespecting the needs and the expectations of your constituents and you're being a coward Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman says hundreds of thousands of residents in the district that the New Jersey Republicans represent are going to be directly impacted by proposed budget cuts to programs like Medicaid Medicare and Social Security not to mention education and Veterans health programs press releases and tightly controlled telephone forums are insufficient she says so what the speaker basically said is hide out hide out until the heat is off and then you all can come out and and be Full Burst with your lives Stockton Professor Claire aberth he says a congress person's calendar may be full of meetings but that doesn't necessarily mean he's meeting a lot of people they have public calendars of these events that they're doing but they're often doing a lot of constituent meetings um meetings with leaders in the district that we actually never know about um and so I think there's often a lot of communication that they're doing outside of a town hall um so if he doesn't hold one of those he's probably doing XYZ other things um but it isn't often times those opportunities aren't soliciting the sort of broad participation that you might get from a town hall Watson Coleman said today that she and her Democratic colleagues are preparing to hold Town Hall meetings in Republican districts in order to give residents there a fuller picture of what's happening in Congress and how it will impact them all they're waiting for she says is an invitation I'm David Cruz and Jamie Spotlight news