One of the only bi-state members of the U.S. House to hold a town hall meeting lately is Eric Burlison. It was over the telephone. KMOX listened in.
The Congressman began with a promise.
"I want to make it very clear: we do not filter anybody's phone calls," Burlison said at the start of the call. "If you have a question, even if it's something I don't agree with, you will get through."
That appeared to be true, evidenced by the range of opinion on Elon Musk.
"Basically, he's shutting things down with no authority from the American people. He's not elected. He's not appointed and duly confirmed by the Senate," one constituent caller said. Burlison replied: "In the Executive branch, there's only one elected official. It's the President."
"I would like to know why everybody is so scared to death of Elon and Trump," another said. "When the American people voted for Trump, they voted to implement DOGE," or the Department of Government Efficiency, Burlison said.
"I was just wondering how you consider the Democrats the 'evil' and 'not being able to balance the budget' when Clinton did, but then Bush came in and gave all the tax cuts to all rich the people, then Trump came in for four years and raised the deficit," a caller challenged.
"I agree with you," he said. "No one is more disappointed by Republicans who let the American people down than me. That's why I ran for office."
Most of the questions were about DOGE and Musk; there were fewer about the military text message issue. And many of the comments were about completely different topics, including the future of energy.
"We can't continue to do nuclear if we're going to do it 1960s-style," a caller stated. Burlison said that's a common belief: "Nuclear has become, especially small modular nuclear reactors, a topic that is getting bi-partisan support."
This discussion was via telephone and broadcast on YouTube. The Democratic political group Progress MO says the last time the 7th district had an in-person town hall meeting was 2011 by then Rep. Billy Long.