Bacon speaks in South Omaha at relatively tame town hall

Compared with U.S. Rep. Don Bacon's three previous town halls, Saturday's gathering in South Omaha was tame.

About 200 people gathered at the Disabled American Veterans building at 4515 F St. to hear the congressman respond to written questions submitted by attendees - the same format Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, has used for all of his town hall meetings.

The audience asked the most questions about Bacon's support of the House GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. Bacon repeated the comments he gave at last week's town hall in Bennington:

He supports the GOP plan and thinks the individual market has become unaffordable for many Nebraskans.

"I think (the GOP plan) will make it cheaper," Bacon said over a short-lived burst of booing from the crowd. Others in the audience shushed them, telling opponents to let the congressman answer the question.

"This town hall was much more civil than his past ones," said Michael Davis, 35, of Omaha, a Bacon supporter. "The crowd seemed a lot more moderate."

Nicole Engles, 32, thought the minimal heckling on Saturday was because of less-pointed questions.

"I think yelling can sometimes play a role when he's meandering around tough questions," Engles said.

Scott Williams, 35, of Omaha said he thought Bacon missed an opportunity to address some of the news that has unfolded in the past week - namely, details surrounding the investigation into ties between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia.

"He should have discussed it further," Williams said.

On that issue, Bacon repeated the answer he gave at last week's town hall: "Right now, there's no direct evidence of collusion." After that answer, the audience erupted - not with booing, but with laughter.

Bacon later stumbled over his answer to a question about whether he supports impeachment of Trump, saying, finally, "Let's let the investigation do their thing."

The congressman, who later Saturday held a town hall meeting in Elkhorn, received applause for saying he supports a "compassionate way forward" to legal status for immigrants working in the U.S. He said building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border wouldn't address the problem of immigrants overstaying their visas.

"It felt at times like he was pandering to the crowd," Engles said. "Though looking around, I wished the South Omaha community was more represented."

In response to a few questions about Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' focus on school choice, Bacon said he thinks decisions about charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools should fall to the states.

Rebecca Barrientos-Patlan, a South Omaha community advocate and one of the moderators of the meeting, said she thought Bacon let each side be heard.

"The congressman is a human man - he's not going to have the right answer for everything," she said.

"But the only way to learn is to listen," Barrientos-Patlan said. "I think he and the crowd did that."

mara.klecker@owh.com, 402-444-1276