Texas Representative Roger Williams owns and operates a legacy car dealership in Weatherford, TX, 220 miles away from his supposed district in Austin. He claims a homestead exemption in Weatherford yet maintains an apartment in downtown Austin, I think above the walk-in humidor in Perry’s Steak House.

He’s the worst.

Roger recently crowed about voting against the $1.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act, promising that he’d "work each and every day on your behalf to drive down the national debt." And yet the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that last December's tax reform bill he supported- efficiently titled "H.R.1 - An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018"- would clearly add over $1.5 trillion in red ink to the deficit over the coming decade. Even the right-leaning Tax Foundation pegged the cost at half a trillion dollars- undermining the claim that the cuts "pay for themselves."

It would have been nice for his constituents to have the opportunity to ask about this rhetorical inconsistency, so as soon as Eventbrite made tickets available to a local town hall event in downtown Austin several of us registered and reserved tickets. Turns out it was a Fake Town Hall all along, a private event courtesy of the KOCH charmers at Americans for Prosperity.

Getting turned away at the door with tickets in hand was unsurprising but no less frustrating for Central Texas voters who aren’t entirely convinced that Roger Williams is a real boy. Honestly, he’s a phantom, a carefully managed hologram, posing for photos in Washington but treating Travis County like lava. Many of us waited around yesterday to catch him or his staff exiting the building, but he slipped away like a cockroach.

It’s good to see the Parkland kids stepping up to publicly challenge lawmakers to a new round of town hall meetings April 7 and beyond. At least one of Roger’s challengers, Democrat Julie Oliver, has pledged to promote and hold town hall meetings once a month, and we’re going to hold her to it.