Compelled by her conviction that President Donald Trump must be impeached, Ariel Summers showed up last week at a congressional town hall meeting in Stillwater. "A lot of Democrats like myself are frustrated with the inaction," said Summers, a bank employee who lives in St. Paul.
The escalating impeachment debate also brought out Trump supporter Tom Stephanie. "Ever since the first day Trump was in office, Democrats have wanted to impeach him," the Maplewood retiree said, to hoots of support from some in the audience.
The meeting, hosted by U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., was one of several around Minnesota recently as House members around the nation check in with voters on what could become the most decisive issue of the 2020 election. A daily torrent of revelations about Trump's efforts to get Ukraine, and later other countries, to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden has inflamed a constitutional brawl that appears to follow a familiar political fault line.
"I know and can well imagine you're here tonight out of concern over what's becoming the biggest issue of our times," McCollum told about 200 people sitting in an auditorium at Stillwater Area High School.
A 10-term Democrat from St. Paul, McCollum laid out a case for impeaching Trump. She walked the crowd through a PowerPoint presentation mounting a case that Trump actively and repeatedly promoted foreign interference in U.S. elections.
"I take no joy in this," McCollum said. "It's not what I came to Congress to do."
McCollum's Fourth Congressional District, centered on St. Paul, is strongly Democratic. But the outer suburbs around Stillwater are politically divided. The historic city on the St. Croix River is the seat of suburban and exurban Washington County, which broke slightly in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016, an election result that closely mirrored that of the state as a whole.
"I think it's unfortunate [impeachment] is consuming Congress right now," said Mikki Murray, chairwoman of the Fourth Congressional District Republicans. Murray, who works in telecommunications, came to the town hall to tell McCollum she should spend time on more pressing issues.