By BERRY CRAIG
AFT and KEA/NEA retiree
03/02/25 - republished with permission from ky.aflcio.org/news/
Desireé Owen says she lacks the appropriate attire to wear to First District Republican Congressman James Comer’s Paducah field office.
The Ballard countian means a chicken suit. "If you have one or know where I can get one, please contact them through my Facebook page," she asked.
Owen vows she'll sport the suit because “our congressman is not responding to calls for town halls."
The devout Democrat and former Kentucky State AFL-CIO-endorsed candidate for the state House grew up in Lyon County. “I have experience," she said. "I wore a lion suit as the mascot for the Lyon County Lions High School basketball team."
Meanwhile, Four Rivers Indivisible members and supporters have been holding peaceful Thursday protests at Comer's office, calling on him to schedule a town hall.
Comer chairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The protestors also want the congressman to "do his job as committee chair and oversee Elon Musk and DOGE," said Leslie McColgin, Four Rivers Indivisible co-leader. Her group is a local affiliate of the national Indivisible organization.
“Oher Republicans have held town halls in other ruby red Districts,” Owen said. Nonetheless, she conceded that Comer might be hesitant to face the homefolks because more than a few GOP lawmakers “have gotten a tongue-lashing” at town halls over what a Democratic website calls “Trump’s disastrous first weeks as president.”
Comer is all MAGA all the time.
The Democratic website says “instead of making life easier or cheaper for Americans, Trump and House Republicans are threatening vital programs and trying to rip away working families’ health care in order to give massive tax breaks to billionaires.”
NBC news has reported that Republican bigwigs are advising members that if they “feel the need to hold such events, they do tele-town halls or at least vet attendees to avoid scenes that become viral clips, according to GOP sources. A GOP aide said House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them altogether.”
Owen is also circulating an online petition calling on the congressman to come to western Kentucky and meet his constituents. As of Monday morning, 186 people had signed up.
Four Rivers Indivisible is also peacefully protesting outside Sen. Mitch McConnell's Paducah office on Monday mornings.
Marshall countian Jerry Sykes, a United Auto Workers retiree, is a regular protestor at both venues. He says Comer and McConnell are two of the most anti-labor lawmakers in Washington. The AFL-CIO Legislative Scorecard backs him up. Few legislators score lower than Comer and McConnell.
The scorecard rates representatives and senators on a scale of zero to 100 percent based on where they "stand on issues important to working families, including strengthening Social Security and Medicare, freedom to join a union, improving workplace safety and more." The latest scorecard (for 2023) rated Comer 10 percent in 2023 and 12 percent since he's been in Congress. McConnell got a zero for 2023 and 17 percent throughout his Senate tenure.
Comer's sharpest critics include Northern Kentucky Tribune columnist Bill Straub. "Comer is a boob," the veteran journalist and Kentucky Journalism Hall of Famer wrote last December. "He instigated a horse manure impeachment probe against Biden, has repeatedly let Trump off the hook and now wants to send those who had the guts to confront the Mar-a-Lago grifter to the pokey.
"That’s the sort of guy Kentucky is sending to Washington to represent its interests. He’s also the sort of guy that has morphed Congress into a horror show that is the focus of the nation’s malevolence. Jamie Comer is a symbol for everything that is wrong with the current state of American democracy."
Owen agrees, advising Comer, "If you don't have the courage to face your voters, you should be removed from office. You work for us."