Why are we, their constituents the last on the list to talk to? Why is Senator Tillis going to the Missouri Lincoln Days over the upcoming Senate Work Period on February 24 – 26 to talk to Missouri citizens? We believe that there is a pattern here. In 2012, Senator Tillis would not meet with his constituents (when he was house speaker). In fact, he had many of us escorted off the second floor of the Legislature Building just for disagreeing with him. Even though in 2011, he meet with other constituents that agreed with him in the same location.
Out of frustration, we have started a petition asking Senator Burr and Senator Tillis to have a town hall meeting. This petition quickly garnered support and the number of people (with over 8,000 signatures) and it continues to climb. In fact, a GoFundMe page was recently created to actually pay Senator Burr’s campaign fund in an attempt to make contact.
On March 1st, we, citizens of North Carolina, will present both Senator Burr and Senator Tillis with our petition and an invitation to attend our town hall meeting on March 17th at Chapel Hill Town Chambers, 405 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill at 6:30 p.m. We have questions and concerns that we would like them to address. Whether Senators Burr and Tillis attend or not, the town hall meeting will go on. We are not alone in conducting an “empty chair” town hall event for Burr and Tillis. As you may know, there are has been events in Charlotte, Cary, and Durham. At the Cary event, over 5,000 individuals watched the live stream, 400,000 people viewed coverage of the event, and 350 people attended that event in the hall with countless people waiting outside. We put Senators Burr and Tillis on notice.
We are not going away. We want to make it clear to our US House representatives that we are not paid protesters, we are voters. We will be voting in 2018. We will voting in large numbers.
If Senators Burr and Tillis do not attend the March meeting, there will be other events during the April Senate Work Period. Those events will continue and until we are listened to.