Headed to Tucson on Tuesday to rally support to beat McSally for voting for #Trumpcare and urge McCain/Flake to vote no #adoptadistrict — Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) May 6, 2017

On Monday, Gallego told me it might have previously been considered “rude” or “un-statesmanlike” to go into another representatives district, but these old norms no longer apply in the era of President Donald Trump. “This is a new time in politics, and we’re going to have to use new tactics,” he said. “You’re dealing with a pathological liar as president. You’re dealing with a speaker of the House who will not stand up to the president and defend the authority of Congress. The blatant lies that are coming out of Paul Ryan’s mouth and the Republican Party are just abhorrent.”

Representative Mark Pocan, vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said his group has been discussing the “adopt a district” strategy for months. But the GOP House’s passage of the AHCA last week turned the idea into action. Pocan and activist group Forward Kenosha will be holding a town hall in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is House Speaker Paul Ryan’s 1st Congressional District. Pocan, who grew up in Kenosha, says some 20 members of the Progressive Caucus are considering their own “adopt a district” events. “If you had 20 people doing it in 20 districts across the country, that would be national news,” Pocan said. There’s certainly no shortage of districts to target: According to Politico, “only 14 of the 217 House Republicans who voted for the bill last week—less than 7 percent—are listed as holding town halls with their constituents.”

Given the enthusiasm “adopt a district” is generating, you’d think the Democratic Party would be eager to help expand the strategy. But Gallego and Pocan both told me party leadership has been absent from discussions of “adopt a district” tactics. “I don’t know why that is, or where they are, or what’s going on,” Gallego said. “There has not been a satisfactory response.” (Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, told me, “Pelosi supports these efforts and has long encouraged Members to do events in neighboring Republican districts on health care.”) Instead, activist groups are helping to provide organizational support. Indivisible NY19, a local chapter of national anti-Trump activist group Indivisible, sponsored Maloney’s town hall on Monday. “If we played a small part in this ‘adopt a district’ trend, we’re happy to have been a small spark in that,” Dustin Reidy, a spokesman for chapter, told me. “I hope every single Democrat next door to a dead-beat Republican does this. ... I think it’s good to show people what it would be like to have a congressman who cares.”

There are perils to the tactic. Adopt-a-districters are easily cast by Republicans as interlopers. “It is a shame that Representative Gallego is choosing to hold political rallies outside of his district, instead of spending his time serving the constituents in his own congressional district in Phoenix,” McSally spokeswoman Kelly Schibi told the Arizona Daily Star. Gallego pushed back on that charge. “We know the people, and they know us,” he said. He described “adopt a district” as an opportunity for Democrats of all stripes to “galvanize, organize, and stiffen the spine of the resistance.” Gallego, a progressive, noted his ideological differences with the more centrist Maloney, but said, “We come from different parts of the political spectrum, but more importantly we realize the old rules aren’t going to work anymore if we’re going to take back the House and stop repeal of the Affordable Care Act.”