Democrats planning fewer town hall events as Iran vote looms

Democratic lawmakers have scheduled one-third as many town halls as their Republican colleagues as they weigh their votes on the Iran nuclear deal, according to data compiled by LegiStorm this week.

Congressional Democrats have planned 18 town hall meetings through September, the research organization said, compared to 56 for Republican lawmakers.

{mosads}While additional town hall events will likely be added in the coming weeks, the early disparity could indicate caution among Democrats as they come under pressure from both the right and left on whether to accept or reject the agreement, expected in September.

Democrats have been burned by town halls in the past. Events held in the summer of 2009, when the debate over ObamaCare was raging, helped to fuel the Tea Party movement that swept away their House majority. 

The House adjourned for a five-week recess on Wednesday, and the Senate is expected to follow suit next week, which means the mounting pressure campaigns on Iran will have to target lawmakers in their states and districts.  

The White House is counting on congressional Democrats to support the Obama administration’s deal with Iran against what is likely to be unified GOP opposition. Democrats will likely be the deciding factor in whether Congress will reject a certain veto from President Obama.

Many Democrats have so far largely refrained from weighing in on the deal, even after multiple appeals from the White House and closed-door briefings on the agreement.

Public polling on the issue is mixed, and deep-pocketed groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which vehemently opposes the deal, are running ads to kill it.

Liberal groups including MoveOn and Credo have also made the Iran deal a priority, vowing to blanket lawmakers’ districts in favor of the deal.

The amount of pushback lawmakers will get during their August recess “depends on where you live,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), said on Wednesday, after another closed-door briefing on the deal for House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol.

“I think the Jewish community feels very strongly,” he said.