Republican Has 64 Year Old Social Worker Carried Out of Town Hall Meeting

Representative Mike Lawler (R-NY) had 64 year old social worker Emily Feiner, a constituent, physically carried out of his town hall meeting by four state police officers after he did not answer her question and she shouted at him to answer it.

Lawler presents himself as a moderate Republican. He flipped a seat in a swing district by a narrow margin. Roll Call rates him as one of the ten most vulnerable House members in the next midterm election.

After the town hall event, Feiner said she knew the meeting would be unusual. Attendees were met with a long list of rules, which included demands to show proof of residence and prohibitions against filming and photography. To enter the meeting, attendees were required to verbally agree to the rules. Feiner said, “It was quite infantilizing, and I think designed to chill any kind of reaction.”

In the session, Feiner asked Lawler, “Please detail what your red line is. At what point will you actually stand up for the Constitution you swore an oath to defend? Thus far, you haven’t done so.” He didn’t directly answer her question, moving on to discuss appropriations. She called out: “Answer the question, answer the question.”

Lawler’s staff told her to leave. Feiner refused. She said, “I think that I live in America, which still has a Constitution and a First Amendment and a right for citizens to ask questions of their representatives.”

After the troopers removed her from her seat, the audience booed loudly and chanted “Let her stay!” and “Shame!”

Jennifer Cabrera, a friend of Feiner, filmed the incident. Lawler’s staff demanded that she stop recording. Cabrera said, “[Representative Lawler] was trying to essentially move on without answering it, and she wouldn’t let it go. That’s the type of person that Emily is: She’s not going to be cowed by somebody just because they have a position of power.” Soon after Feiner’s removal, Cabrera was carried out of the room too. Several other constituents were also removed.

Feiner says she asked Lawler about the Constitution because “he’s done nothing yet, while presenting himself as a moderate, to indicate that he is, in any way, going to act as a check on this administration.”

Lawler put out a statement after the event denouncing her as the “radical far-left activist.”

After the incident, on social media Feiner said, “There are no lengths our oligarchy and Rep. Mike Lawler won’t go to in order to stifle dissent. I was certainly no threat. I asked my congressperson what his red line was to finally, vocally oppose the lawless administration, and he didn’t answer the question. So I called out for him to answer it, and he had me removed. This is what the USA has come to. The Constitution is in shreds.”

She said being carried out by police is not very important to her. “What is much more important to me is that they are pursuing a playbook that is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s—that this is what they do with dissent; that they have no problem carrying a 64-year-old woman out of a town hall that was being held by my publicly elected congressional representative. There’s no doubt in my mind this is meant to try to chill dissent.”