Congressman Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky’s 3rd district, which includes almost all of the Louisville Metro, held a Town Hall in the Ballard Fine Arts Center on Sunday, February 23 from 2-3 P.M. He was joined with Representative Tina Bojanowski, Representative Sarah Stalker, Councilwoman Josie Raymond, Councilwoman Paula McCraney, and Kentucky State Senator Karen Berg. With whirlwinds of information and misinformation spewing from Washington D.C the past weeks after President Trump took office, Congressman McGarvey wants to ensure every citizen’s concerns are heard. “I think every member of congress should have to stand in front of their constituents right now,” says McGarvey.
The Ballard auditorium was filled Sunday afternoon, with people having to raise their hands for others to find open seats. Dozens of concerned citizens lined up for a chance to ask their questions at a microphone. Questions were asked detailing any topic from the conflict in Israel and Gaza, to Medicaid here in Kentucky. “We don’t need to be spending billions of dollars over there to kill people, when we need billions of dollars here,” one person said at the microphone.
Many other questions were asked. “How can you convince your fellow members of congress to support our low-income Americans who need healthcare?” was among one of them. “If you cut an already insufficient budget to take care of all those vulnerable people, you are going to put people in the absolute most dire circumstances… it is not politics, it is life,” McGarvey said in his response.
McGarvey’s constituents have other questions for him though, regarding the amount of aggressiveness he intends to use in the future. “You have said in interviews that they are willing to defy courts… when lawful institutions are unlawful, and the only option we have left is non-violent, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience. Are you or your staff willing to practice civil disobedience?” one such constituent says. McGarvey says, “It’s absolutely frightening to think the president of the United States really and truly not just does something that’s unconstitutional, but then defies the courts that say it’s unconstitutional.” Congressman McGarvey also held a town hall at Central High School on Saturday, February 22. People in the crowd then started chanting “get arrested”, saying that McGarvey needs to take more extreme approaches in government disputes. “I really appreciate what you’re doing, but I have to tell you though, it’s not enough,” a man says on Sunday. “The time to be nice is over,” McGarvey says in response.
Another major concern, especially for Ballard High School, is the challenges facing the Department of Education. McGarvey responds, “I think it’s disastrous what they’ve done. When Kentucky gets a billion dollars in funding from the Department of Education for our already under-resourced public schools… Thomas Jefferson created the Department of Education and did so in part because he did not want us to have a caste system… To dismantle the department of education, to take resources out of public schools, to take dollars away from kids who want to go to college… I think it is short-sighted, it is wrong, it’s cruel.” JCPS serves around 97,000 students today and is Kentucky’s largest school system.
Connor Perry, Miss Kentucky 2024, says “I have severe concerns about the quality of education in Kentucky… It is important to know what you are prepared to do and more importantly how we can help protect JCPS… One, how can I help you, two, what are the actual steps we are going to take?” The Congressman says that “Louisville only goes as far as its educational institutions allow it to go. We must have the resources we need in our public schools…The only entity you don’t want running JCPS is the United States congress. We don’t and we shouldn’t decide curriculum… The biggest tool we have in our tool box is funding.”
Amy and Jason Squires are concerned citizens of the Louisville community. “The chaos in Washington” is what has brought them to the town hall. “There are more people that are feeling like I’m feeling,” says Amy Squires, “and afraid to speak up,” says Jason Squires.
