Are Republican legislators obligated to interact with voters who disagree with them?

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What do constituents have a right to expect from their elected officials?

And how have those expectations — and the reality — changed over the years for American voters?

Today we live in an increasingly fragmented country as Republican legislators have supported controversial moves of the Trump administration.

Now, reality is setting in for many constituents who voted Republican but aren’t on board for trade wars, cutting Medicaid, cutting staff at many governmental agencies or cutting funding for public assistance and research projects. They want to ask their elected officials why they voted as they have and to justify their actions.

But often, today’s Republican legislators aren’t available for interaction. They don’t respond to letters, texts, emails or phone calls. Increasingly of late, they don’t hold in-person town hall meetings. They’re using the playbook outlined by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the House GOP campaign arm, who both advised no more town hall meetings after angry voters heckled and argued with legislators at town halls earlier this year.

So it has been with Seventh District Rep. Michelle Fischbach, who represents the large, mostly rural district running along Minnesota’s north-to-south border. I live on the eastern edge of this district. About the only contact I have with her is at election time when she sends out postcards touting her stands on the issues of the moment.

There was a time when Fischbach was more approachable. Back in 1996, when she first ran for Minnesota’s state Senate, I invited her to participate in a “meet the candidates night” I was chairing for our local women’s group. She responded to my letter, attended the event, answered both prepared questions and those from the audience.

It was a more civilized and less polarized time, when Republicans and Democrats played the same game for different teams. The two parties often were not that far apart on the issues and legislators listened to their voters and often went out of their way to help them, as another constituent of Fischbach’s told me.

But today Fischbach, like many of her fellow Republican legislators, doesn’t seem to want to be accountable for her legislative actions. She refuses to do a town hall in the traditional sense of interacting with the constituents. The closest she came was a few weeks ago, when she held a ticketed event to make a short speech, answered a few audience questions with unrelated responses and disappeared out the back door.

It’s hard to say what Fischbach really thinks about people protesting her performance. But she did refer to the protests as “garbage” in a recent radio interview and her newsletter berated protesters as the radical left coming after her and anyone who stands with President Donald Trump.

All this could be protective coloring to continue to earn her endorsement from Trump, an endorsement that no doubt helped her win her seat in 2020 over the 30-year incumbent. It could be that she seems to interact only with constituents espousing Trump’s political moves and rhetoric and that she feels her support of Trump’s administration is what they want to hear from their legislator. It could be she buys everything the Trump administration says and does. But the bottom line is that she was elected to represent her constituents — all her constituents — and time after time she only connects with those supporting this administration’s approach.

Constituents also have a right to disagree, whether through protests outside her office or at a town hall meeting. If Fischbach doesn’t think voters have the right to hold her accountable, she needs to remember what happened to a predecessor of hers named Arlan Stangeland, who served from 1977 to 1990. His career ended when he was accused of making 341 long-distance phone calls to a female lobbyist at taxpayer expense. He insisted it was none of his constituents’ business. In fact, he came right out and said, “Let the voters decide.” They did and he was out.

Fischbach and many of her Republican colleagues display a similar disdain for their constituents by refusing to interact with anyone who disagrees with them. Although they had no problems with voting on issues in ways they knew were not in the best interests of their constituents, they apparently do have a problem defending their actions. But if they’re too afraid to stand up for their record, they should step down.

As former President Harry S. Truman said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Lois Thielen is a central Minnesota journalist, a longtime editorial columnist for the St. Cloud Times and the author of six local history books. She and her husband farm near Grey Eagle, Minn.