I held thirty-nine of them my first year in the Senate, all across Illinois, in tiny rural towns like Anna and prosperous suburbs like Naperville, in black churches on the South Side and a college in Rock Island. There’s not a lot of fanfare involved. My staff will call up the local high school, library, or community college to see if they’re willing to host the event. A week or so in advance, we advertise in the town newspaper, in church bulletins, and on the local radio station. On the day of the meeting I’ll show up a half hour early to chat with town leaders and we’ll discuss local issues, perhaps a road in need of repaving or plans for a new senior center. After taking a few photographs, we enter the hall where the crowd is waiting. I shake hands on my way to the stage, which is usually bare except for a podium, a microphone, a bottle of water, and an American flag posted in its stand. And then, for the next hour or so, I answer to the people who sent me to Washington.Attendance varies at these meetings: We’ve had as few as fifty people turn out, as many as two thousand.
