Video: Rodney sighting in Rockaway; activists protest Senate health bill at Morristown hospital

Where’s Rodney?

It’s been a rallying cry for anti-Trump activists, who have spent months trying to coax Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th Dist.) — once a familiar face at parades and ribbon cuttings — to hold his first town hall meeting since 2013.

Well, Frelinghuysen surfaced on Sunday, at the White Meadow Lakes Festival Weekend in Rockaway Township.

And Emily Kullmann, chair of the Rockaway Democratic committee, happened to bump into him.

She delivered a personal town hall invitation–along with a plea to save DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), an Obama program to prevent deportation of children of undocumented immigrants.

“We need to help people instead of harm them,” she told the 12-term congressman, describing a Honduran immigrant who she said would be killed if forced to return there with his family. 

“They’re going to take his 10-year old daughter and human-traffic her to death. That’s his reality. He’s been here 27 years,” said Kullmann, who volunteers for the Morristown-based Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center, and has demonstrated outside Frelinghuysen’s Morristown office with NJ 11th for Change. 

“Respectfully, you need to be current,” Frelinghuysen told Kullmann, citing news accounts over the weekend reporting that for now, at least, Trump won’t end protections for the so-called Dreamers, as the immigrant children are called.

Frelinghuysen, a Harding resident who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said he agreed about the need to help people.

“I know you have some preconceived notions, but I’m a pretty reasonable person,” the Congressman told Kullmann. 

Activists have noted that Frelinghuysen–once regarded as a moderate on social issues, who supported Planned Parenthood– has fully backed the conservative agenda of the President and the GOP congressional leadership.

Fellow New Jersey Congressmen Tom MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.) and Leonard Lance (R-7th Dist.) have faced angry constituents at town hall meetings. So far, Frelinghuysen has opted for conference calls with voters.

Prior to the video portion of their conversation, Kullmann said she voiced concerns about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Frelinghuysen responded, she said, by expressing faith in his friend, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to do a “really good job” as special counsel investigating the matter.

On Monday, meanwhile, activists gathered outside Morristown Medical Center to demonstrate against the Senate’s proposed Obamacare replacement bill:

Video by Bill Lescohier for MorristownGreen.com

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has deferred a vote on the Republicans’ latest version of the bill because Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), whose vote is crucial, is recuperating from surgery.

In an interview with Morristown Green in May, the CEO of Morristown Medical Center’s parent company said the House version of the Affordable Care Act repeal — Trumpcare– would end insurance coverage for millions of Americans and flood hospital emergency rooms with charity cases.

“What we ought to be focused on now is how to build on improvements of what’s working today, address issues that need to be addressed, to get functioning insurance markets, and see how do we keep the notion of Medicaid expansion going forward,” said Brian Gragnolati, president and CEO of Atlantic Health.