May 30, 2025

Here we go again. Republican Members who voted for the House reconciliation bill had to face the music with their constituents this past week, and it was as ugly as you’d expect.

Boos, chants, factual corrections and more dominated events – interrupting town halls and overshadowing press conferences as Representatives tried to spin their choice to cut programs like Medicaid that help working families in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Meanwhile, other constituents shifted their focus to the Senate, heading to Senators’ offices and kicking off protests as the budget reconciliation process heads to the upper chamber.

One thing is certain: people in the states have more than enough passion to put a full-court press on Senators while also holding House Members accountable for their votes. Buckle up.

VIEW FROM THE STATES

California: KVPR - 'I feel betrayed.' Dozens protest after Rep. Valadao votes to cut Medicaid

• Rodolfo Morales-Ayon expressed his concern over what the bill could mean for programs like Medicaid. “I feel very betrayed,” he said. “I come from a very low-income family in a low-income community. Without Medicaid, many of us won’t be able to afford treatment.”

• Morales-Ayon, who is a student at The College of the Sequoias in Visalia, lives in Pixley, a small farmworker community in Tulare County. “[Valadao] seems to be more committed to his party and the president than his constituents who he’s supposed to represent,” Morales-Ayon said.

• Small business owner Audrey Chavez echoed his concerns and displeasure with Valadao.“I’m greatly disappointed because he’s from our area,” the Bakersfield resident said. “He knows the population; he knows we’re rural communities; he knows how much we need these services.”

Fresno Bee - Central Valley families protest Rep. David Valadao’s vote for Medicaid cuts

• Central Valley families in U.S. Rep. David Valadao’s District 22 protested outside the congressman’s Valley offices in Bakersfield and Hanford this week after he voted to approve Medicaid cuts.

• Brenda Gonzalez’s 9-year-old child who has been diagnosed with autism and depends on Medicaid for health care. “Thanks to the speech therapy he receives, my child has been able to speak and communicate. But he still needs more specialized support,” said Gonzalez in Spanish. Gonzalez, who lives in Bakersfield, said she speaks for many families in the Central Valley who depend on Medi-Cal. “His therapies aren’t a luxury — they’re a necessity. There are thousands of children in California and across the country who need this kind of support,” Gonzalez said.

Colorado: CPR - As GOP members of Congress tout ‘Big Beautiful’ budget bill in Denver event, opponents provide noisy backdrop

• Protesters, focused primarily on the planned Medicaid cuts, booed through virtually the entire event. One held a sign reading “Gabe, 29% of us need Medicaid to Live,” referring to the percentage of residents in his district who rely on the program, which provides healthcare to low-income Americans. During the comments, the crowd chanted short phrases like “shame on you” and “midterms,” an electoral threat against a Representative who won his seat by fewer than 2,500 votes.

• The crowd, which State Patrol had to ask to back off a bit at the start of the event, included a number of Evans’ constituents, unhappy with his support for the bill. “We are protesting against the bill that cuts Medicaid and food assistance, takes food out of hungry kids' mouths,” said Ernistine Garcia, who lives in Evans district. “Not only that, they want to take it and give a massive tax break to the billionaires, the upper one percent. And so it's like killing us so that they could have more.”

Colorado Newsline - Republicans defend spending bill, which could strip Medicaid from 200K Coloradans

• Speaking over heckling chants from a nearby crowd of protesters, two of Colorado’s top Republicans stood outside the state Capitol on Thursday, defending their party’s sweeping federal budget bill in a press conference that leaned heavily on a series of misleading claims about Medicaid and immigration.

• “Without Medicaid, people die,” Sara Loflin, executive director of the advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado, said in a statement Thursday. “Evans wants voters to believe that the people who will lose coverage don’t deserve health care, but thousands of Coloradans will fall through the cracks, and some of them will die as a result of Evans’ vote.”

• “When you see your bill getting more and more unpopular as people learn the truth about it, you lie more,” said Wynn Howell, state director of the Colorado Working Families Party, after Thursday’s press conference. “When all you have is lies and scapegoats, you have a problem with your bill.”

Pennsylvania: WHYY - Cancer survivors, health care advocates rally in Philadelphia to demand Pennsylvania Senators reject Medicaid cuts

• A coalition of cancer survivors, health care providers, disability advocates, social services organizations and nonprofits rallied outside of Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick’s Philadelphia office to demand that he and other lawmakers reject proposed federal cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program for people with low incomes.

• Alisha Gillespie, of Chester, Pennsylvania, called the proposed cuts and requirements “inhumane” and said it would have been “impossible” to comply when she had Medicaid last year while battling breast cancer and raising three children. “[There were] days that I couldn’t even get out of bed to make dinner, to even go to the bathroom,” she said. “So, I can’t imagine having even a part-time job to even try to make ends meet for surgeries or any type of treatment.”

Iowa: KCRG - Ashley Hinson booed at town hall meeting in Elkader

• Rep. Ashley Hinson held her second town hall of the year - this first in eastern Iowa - in Elkader on Tuesday... and many attendees had a lot to say. It comes after Hinson was jeered at a town hall meeting in Mason City last month.

• Adam Koresh, a working student at the University of Northern Iowa would still qualify under the new requirements, but he’s frustrated with the rhetoric classifying those on Medicaid as wasteful. “I just think it’s important for people to understand that these people on Medicaid are not the ones committing this fraud, waste and abuse...I think with more people that speak out about this, more people will be able to understand that it’s just everyday people.” he said.

Nebraska: KOLN - Rep. Mike Flood fields fiery crowd in Seward at town hall event

• In a similar scene to the one in Columbus back in March, U.S. Congressman Mike Flood spoke with a contentious crowd at Seward High School during his town hall event Tuesday afternoon. Before the room opened for questions, boos and shouts rang out from the crowd.

• Flood also defended many of the concerns brought up during the question and answer period regarding cuts to programs like Medicaid in the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill”. “I voted for it in sync with almost the entire Republican conference,” Flood said.

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Contact: Kristin Sosanie (kristin@fairshareusa.org) or Ashley Woolheater (ashley@fairshareusa.org)

Fair Share America supports the movement in the states and nationally to make wealthy individuals and the most profitable corporations pay what they owe so that all of us can thrive. We are a groundbreaking, federal and multistate initiative focused on building long-term civic engagement and political power to deliver lasting tax justice. Follow us on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.