Blum faces hostile crowd in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - A day after walking out on a local TV interview and becoming mocked by critics across the nation, U.S. Rep. Rod Blum strode into a basketball arena Tuesday night to face about 1,300 loud, unruly voters, most who disagreed with him on issues ranging from health care to President Donald Trump's tax returns.

Their mood was clear from the start. When West Point-bound Ryer Barnes of Cedar Rapids finished leading the Pledge of Allegiance, audience members shouted the final line and then some: 'for all … not just the rich.”

Blum, 62, who is in his second term representing the 1st District - made up of 20 counties in Northeast Iowa - was on his 2016 opponent's home turf. He received 48 percent of the vote in Linn County last year, but that support was mostly drowned out Tuesday by critics.

Before he had completed his opening remarks, the crowd began chanting, 'questions, questions, questions.”

'If you're willing to listen tonight a little bit, you'll leave here feeling a little bit better,” Blum said before spending about an hour taking questions from a few supporters among those who lobbed hostile ones.

'I felt he was doing his best to placate these pesky people until he could get back to the comfort of his lifetime pension job,” said Lisa Goodwin of Cedar Rapids, who asked Blum about Planned Parenthood funding. 'But he gritted his teeth and said, ‘It's only an hour. I can get through this.'”

Goodwin could have done with less shouting, but chalked it up to the passion people feel about politics. She would prefer to sit down with Blum and hear him out, though 'I probably wouldn't like his answers.”

A lot of shouting is what Sam Bruxvoort Colligan of Strawberry Point expected as he waited in line to have his ID checked at the door before entering the gym. He didn't plan to join in.

'I want to be a calm presence,” Bruxvoort Colligan said. 'I want to thank him for coming. I think it's courageous for him to come out and to keep doing town halls.”

Checking IDs was one of the ground rules Blum laid down for the four town hall meetings he's holding this week. That prescreening - which also requires an RSVP in advance - generated negative publicity for him even before he started his town hall tour Monday in Dubuque.

Limiting attendance to district residents was his attempt to prevent the forums from being 'raucous, contentious.”

His strategy didn't seem to work. And that was not the worst of it.

Video of him cutting short an interview by KCRG-TV9 appeared on news websites and was promoted on social media by the Democratic Party and progressive interest groups, with the hash tag #RunAwayRod.

In that TV interview Monday, reporter Josh Scheinblum asked Blum about his decision to prescreening attendees.

'I don't represent all Iowans - I represent the 1st District of Iowa,” Blum explained. 'That would be like saying, ‘Shouldn't I be able to, even though I live in Dubuque, be able to go vote in Iowa City during the election because I'd like to vote in that district instead?'

Then Scheinblum asked: 'Would you still take donations from a Republican in Iowa City?”

Blum smiled, stood up and removed his microphone. 'This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. He's just going to sit here and badger me,” Blum said as he walked away.

According to Blum, the interviewer was supposed to be about his support for a community center in Dubuque.

In the town hall Tuesday, Blum expressed dislike for the way the GOP House health care legislation was rushed. He said he voted for it because he believes it will lower premiums for working people and protect access to coverage.

The crowd didn't like his explanation that by using $130 billion to buy down premiums for people with pre-existing conditions and those in high-risk pools the GOP plan could lower group health premiums by 20 percent or more.

Without action, Blum said, 12,000 Iowans on individual health plans would likely lose coverage after the last statewide insurance company pulls out of the exchange.

There was more agreement on his support for federal funding to help Cedar Rapids build flood protection and for medical cannabis.

Referring to restriction on the use of medical cannabis, Blum said, 'We need to change the law. No doubt.”

The viral video and yelling and heckling wasn't the worst of town hall meetings, said Blum, who paused frequently rather than talk over the crowd. His office received calls from people threatening to shoot him or shoot up the forums, he said. Others said they wouldn't come because they feared violence.

'It's kind of sad that politics has come to this, that the discourse has become so uncivil that you receive death threats for serving as a member of Congress,” he said.

Blum has two more town halls planned - 7 p.m. Wednesday in Cedar Falls and at noon Thursday in Marshalltown.

l Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com