TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A Republican congressman in Kansas sought Tuesday night to sound bipartisan, centrist notes while defending the GOP’s approach on health care and other issues during a town hall meeting with national Democrats already targeting him in a district that President Donald Trump narrowly lost last year.
Rep. Kevin Yoder told about 100 people at the city hall in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe that he’s willing to break with Trump, citing what he saw as the president’s inadequate response to a white nationalist gathering and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. But he drew boos from many audience members when he also said he believes Trump genuinely wants to make the U.S. better.
His 3rd Congressional District marries Democratic neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kansas, with perpetually expanding acres of subdivisions and shopping centers in GOP-leaning suburbs to the south. Four of the five representatives in the past 50 years have been Republicans, but the district was centrist enough for Democrat Dennis Moore to hold the seat for 12 years before Yoder captured it in 2010.
Yoder mixed his defense of orthodox GOP positions, such as support for gun rights or opposition to moving toward universal government health insurance coverage, with calls for greater bipartisanship in Congress. He touted his ability to work with Democrats on issues such as protecting individuals’ email privacy.
When a woman in the audience asked him whether he’d work with Democrats and women on health care, he said, “Of course, I’d be happy to work with anybody that wants to work towards a solution.”