Walt Minnick Dodges Town Hall Meetings

The campaign of Bill Sali, a Republican running for reelection in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, issued the following news release:

In May, Walt Minnick proposed a series of 10 joint town hall meetings with Congressman Sali and has since backed out of every single one. It is apparent that Walt Minnick is afraid of letting Idahoans get to know who he really is and what he stands for.

In May, Walt Minnick said, “As candidates, it is our obligation to get out in front of the people who need representation and hear their concerns. Today I am inviting Bill Sali to do that with me, to show the spirit of bipartisanship that is so absent from Washington, D.C. politics today.” Minnick’s campaign has failed to return repeated calls and emails from the Sali’s staff attempting to arrange the town halls.

Today Sali held a press conference where he questioned if Minnick had something to hide. Sali remarked, “Walt Minnick has failed repeatedly to show up to the town hall meetings he said were so important for the people of Idaho to understand who we are – It is clear that he does not want Idahoans to know that he has a D+ rating from the NRA and that he supports health insurance for illegal aliens.”

Sali continued in saying, “What Minnick doesn’t want you to know is that he is a radical environmentalist who has longstanding associations with groups which want to prevent domestic and offshore drilling. He knows that drilling is popular in Idaho and he is afraid of what people will think once they find out that he’s responsible for the gas prices we are all experiencing today.”

Walt Minnick served on the Governing Council of the Wilderness Society for 16 years. During his tenure there the Wilderness Society fought drilling in 11 states, on 30 million acres of land amounting to over 24 billion barrels of oil. The policies enacted by the Wilderness Society with the help of Walt Minnick have caused our nation to remain dependent on foreign oil.