Jean Mikle

@jeanmikle

"I'm sorry, excuse me, congressman," Dr. Elizabeth Feuer said from across the meeting room at Monmouth County Library Headquarters, her gaze fixed on an elusive target. Activists, political foes and constituents of U.S. Rep. Chris Smith have been picketing his local office and deluging his staff with phone calls and postcards since the November election demanding he hold a traditional town hall-style meeting. Now the object of their dogged attention was just feet away.

"We've been trying to speak with you for weeks now. I'm a retired psychiatrist. I think you owe it to me and my former patients to hear what I have to say, alright?" said Feuer, maneuvering around a woman to step closer to the congressman. The activists charge that the conservative Republican lawmaker, whose 4th District includes parts of Monmouth and Ocean counties, has been ducking them.

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But Smith, 63, who was wrapping up a Feb. 10 meeting with the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association at the Manalapan library when the activists moved in, wasn't budging. Smith wasn't about to give in and he certainly wasn't going to host an impromptu town hall meeting.

"Have a nice day," he told the Colts Neck doctor before exiting the room.

With a Republican president and a conservative Republican Congress in control, and a Supreme Court about to have a 5-4 conservative majority, this is Smith's season in the political sun. For more than 30 years, Smith has been a leading voice to end abortion, defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, positions with which many of the activists that trail him are at odds.

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But as the scene at the library building would attest, the opposition will not go quietly into the night. Indeed, for a new legion of left-leaning voters embittered by November's election results, Smith has become an obsession.

Robin Nowicki, a Manalapan resident and member of District 4 Coalition for Change, said the activists are trying to shine a light on Smith because they believe he "keeps getting elected because there is no real coverage of him."

"He flies under the radar because the community doesn't know about his views," Nowicki said. "No one knows what he's doing." She describes Smith's positions are "out of touch" and "extreme."

Smith sees the activists' persistence differently. "Where's the dialogue here?" Smith said in an interview where he explained his objection to town hall meetings and what he sees as over-the-top exuberance by those demanding he host such gatherings. "It is to make headlines with the Asbury Park Press, CNN and everything ... Past is prologue. If someone calls me 200 times in a two-week period (requesting such a meeting), that's obsessive."

A safe seat

It isn't just Smith feeling the heat.

Borrowing a page from the tea party after Obamcare was voted into law in 2010, Democratic activists have targeted Republican lawmakers, and some middle-of-the-road Democrats as well, for dogged treatment at town halls — usually a staple when members of Congress return to their districts for winter recess.

Lawmakers began a 10-day break on Friday.

USA Today, which is tracking town halls across the country, reported Feb. 14 that members of Congress, mostly Republicans, were already finding large crowds of "sometimes angry voters awaiting them as they return home to districts after a Twitter-happy President Trump took office." The more raucous meetings play on the networks and YouTube.

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"Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women (opposed to Trump's policies) are in my grill no matter where I go," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, told an audience of conservative groups last month, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch report. "They come up (and ask) 'When is your next town hall?' And believe me, it's not to give positive input."

Some of the attention is organic, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of the Democrats in Congress, also has a hand in the goings on. It is targeting 59 district seats for special attention. According to Roll Call, the DCCC raised an online, off-year record $7.8 million in January.

"The main thing that we've pushing is we want a town hall meeting," said Ocean Township resident Natalie Totorello, who has called Smith's office several times requesting that a meeting be scheduled. "He meets with a lot of pro-life, anti-choice groups, but he hasn't held a more open meeting."

For all the attention, though, Smith's seat won't easily be flipped to blue. Smith's district has about 140,000 registered Republicans, 126,000 registered Democrats, and about 235,000 unaffiliated voters.

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Smith has garnered more than 61 percent of the vote in each election since 1982, making his seat "safe" in the political world. Last November, he defeated Democrat Lorna Phillipson, 63 percent to 33 percent, a nearly 2-to-1 margin. He is serving his 19th, two-year term in Congress.

"It's a strong Republican district and he's an incumbent that wins each time by an average of 30 points," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, West Long Branch. "The only thing that could upend an incumbent that strong is a scandal, which is what happened when Chris Smith beat a damaged incumbent to win his first term."

In 1980, Smith defeated Democrat Frank Thompson Jr., a 13-term member of Congress who was convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges in the Abscam scandal that rocked Washington. The election occurred a month before Thompson's conviction; he had easily defeated Smith two years earlier.

The DCCC's targeted campaign would seem to acknowledge Smith's formidable position. The only New Jersey GOP House member not on the DCCC political hit list? Smith.

In any case, the more immediate question, for Smith foes and friends alike, is what's right around the corner. There is no shortage of policy battles just ahead.

Making political hay

Ask Marie Tasy about Smith and her enthusiasm is plain.

"I can't say enough good things about Chris Smith," Tasy, executive director of the anti-abortion group NJ Right to Life, Piscataway, said of the congressman she's known for 25 years. "He's the real deal. He's a great human being; he cares about everyone. He's not a single-issue candidate, by any stretch of the imagination."

He is a stalwart on NJ Right to Life's key issue.

Co-chairman of the bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus, Smith has pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, describing the organization as running "the largest chain of abortion mills in the world."

Smith said in 2015 that he did not believe same-sex marriage to be a fundamental human right, as defined by the United Nations.

Such positions, along with Smith's support for repealing and replacing Obamacare, have attracted the ire of activists. They regularly picket outside his Freehold office each Tuesday, asking him to protect Planned Parenthood and abortion rights, and opposing plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

For Smith, though, he is seeing his agenda advance just one month into President Trump's term.

A bill Smith sponsored that would prohibit using subsidies or tax credits provided through the Affordable Care Act to buy health insurance that covers abortion was approved by the House last month.

The bill also would make permanent the Hyde Amendment, which bars direct federal funding for abortion through programs such as Medicaid and federal employees' and veterans' health coverage. The House on Thursday passed a resolution that would allow states to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood.

"This is the turning point for the right-to-life movement," he said on the eve of last month's March for Life in Washington.

Regarding the repeal of Obamacare, Smith says the GOP-led Congress is "working on a replacement," though there are reports Republican leaders are not in accord on their next move.

An outright repeal, without a replacement, would cost some 800,000 New Jerseyans their insurance and the state an estimated $795 million in federal subsidies, according to the New Jersey Hospital Association.

"Increasing eligibility for Medicaid (to cover the uninsured) is something we could have a true consensus on," Smith said.

He supports Trump's immigration restrictions, although he says Trump's executive order — stayed by the federal courts — temporarily barring immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations was "poorly implemented."

Still, Smith said he believes the president is right that there are "gaps in data when vetting refugees from conflict zones."

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"I believe that a balanced immigration process can be implemented that achieves a necessarily enhanced vetting process for those who seek refuge in the U.S. while protecting Americans to the greatest extent possible from acts of terrorism," Smith said.

Another battle line

He also has a hand in less contentious health debates.

Smith has become a legislative champion for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Lyme disease and autism, securing millions of dollars in funding for research into those ailments.

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When asked which legislation he hopes to see passed in the next two years, Smith touts a bill that would provide grants for law enforcement — and the possible use of tracking devices — to help recover Alzheimer's, dementia and some autism patients who often wander away from home.

The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, overwhelmingly passed the House in December but did not get a vote in the Senate.

He serves as co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Alzheimer's Task Force, Coalition for Autism Research and Education, and Congressional Lyme Disease, Heart and Stroke and Spina Bifida Caucuses.

"He's really been a champion for Alzheimer's disease," said Katie Macklin, senior director of advocacy for the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. "He's been such a strong supporter of increased funding for Alzheimer's and dementia research."

Smith recently helped secure $1.4 billion in federal funding for Alzheimer's research that he had helped secure for the National Institutes of Health. His grandmother had Alzheimer's, so he has first-hand knowledge of the debilitating nature of the disease, he said.

His International Megan's Law of 2016 helps protect children worldwide from pedophiles by notifying other countries when convicted sex offenders are traveling there.

"Trafficking continues to be a passion of mine," Smith said. He said since the International Megan's Law passed, 160 convicted pedophiles have been turned away at the border in Thailand, where child prostitution and sex trafficking are common.

He also sponsored the David and Sean Goldman International Child Abduction and Return Act of 2014, which helped establish procedures for the quick return of children abducted to other countries.

It's named after the Tinton Falls father and son that Smith doggedly helped reunite after Sean Goldman was kept in Brazil by his mother after she took him there on a trip.

During his latest re-election campaign, he garnered endorsements not just from the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, but from the New Jersey AFL-CIO and police and firefighters unions.

Dodging the dissenters

Tortorello laments that Smith has not made an effort to meet with constituents like her who disagree with many of his views. Smith denies that he is out of touch.

While refusing to hold a town hall gathering, Smith says he meets with constituents on a regular basis. "I'm out in the community all the time," Smith said.

(Story continues below the gallery.)

The congressman said he had forsworn in-person town hall meetings for years, forced by bad behavior in the past. "Seventeen times so far we've had to take threats that have come from" those deluging his staff and office.

"In the office, one of them called my staff bastards. He went on a rampage in anger. The staffers were very upset. Slammed the door, called them all bastards," Smith said. "We turned him into the threat assessment (officials), they said he is a threat. A cease and desist letter went out to him."

Smith said he remains concerned about the safety of staff. He has no plans to schedule a town hall.

A host of political groups insists they will persist nonetheless.

Totorello, who moved to Ocean Township from Union County in 2013, said she became active with the group Action Together Monmouth County, born from an online community, Pantsuit Nation, that backed Hillary Clinton for president.

Action Together Monmouth County, Indivisible New Jersey Fourth and District 4 Coalition for Change are among the newly energized progressive groups that have been pressing Smith on Obamacare, women's health and immigration.

Totorello said she's never been politically active until now but believes Smith's views on issues like abortion and gun control are "very extreme."

She said she believes Smith should take the time to hold a town hall so he can hear his constituents' concerns.

"As a taxpayer, he should talk to us about what he's doing," she said.

Smith has received differing ratings from traditional conservative groups. In 2014, Smith received a C+ rating — indicating a mixed record on gun control legislation — from the National Rifle Association. He's consistently received a 100 percent score from the National Right to Life Committee.

Nowicki, of the District 4 Coalition for Change, points to Smith's votes to repeal Obamacare and in favor of the REINS Act, which would require Congressional approval to implement any regulation that would have an economic impact of $100 million or more.

Critics say the act is actually a way to hamstring the regulatory process; proponents say it is a way to cut through the unnecessary red tape.

"Something like the REINS Act really matters," Nowicki said. "It really caught us, and we felt, we really need to make a statement on that."

Smith likens today's protests to anti-Iraq War demonstrations in 2007 when he opposed a firm deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq and demonstrators picketed at his office.

Shortly after he held a 90-minute meeting with activists that was documented by a Trenton Times reporter, Smith's Hamilton office was vandalized, with computers damaged and disconnected.

The vandalism was discovered after about 20 anti-war activists entered the office to protest the war, according to an Associated Press story on the incident.

"Police investigated," Smith said. "We know they did it but we can't prove it."

He remains on guard.

At the meeting at the library headquarters in Manalapan, Smith appeared cautious and standoffish when the activists were let inside at the start of the meeting with the Alzheimer's group.

Tale of the tape

As far as legislative impact, Smith ranks No. 2 in Congress for all current members, for offering the most bills that became law, over a more than 20-year period, according to GovTrack, a nonpartisan website that tracks members of Congress.

Forty-seven bills on which he was primary sponsor were enacted into law. Sixty-six percent of the bills Smith has sponsored involve international affairs; 15 percent, health, and 7 percent, law enforcement, according to GovTrack.

For the 114th Congress, Smith ranked first for having the most bills — 30 of 44 — with bipartisan sponsorship. He introduced seven bills that became law, third most among House members.

On the same day Smith met with members of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association in the afternoon, he spent the morning at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, where he and U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-Ocean, had cut the ribbon for a new state-of-the-art aviation hanger that will house Communications Electronics Research Development Engineering Center (CERDEC).

Smith said he worked for years to make sure funding was available for the new hanger and also that CERDEC would not be relocated.

"It was a full-court press," Smith said, noting he worked closely with MacArthur as well as local officials to gain funding for the new hanger and to make sure the Joint Base, New Jersey's second-largest employer, survived the Base Realignment and Closure process. "The upshot is, we made the difference."

At the Alzheimer's Association meeting, about a dozen people who had been outside in the hallway eventually came into the meeting room to listen to Smith speak about Alzheimer's research.

One of them was Manalapan resident Jan Waple, whose 73-year-old father was stricken with Alzheimer's two years ago and now lives in a memory-care facility.

Her voice cracked as she told Smith her family's story, noting that her father's care cost $120,000 a year.

"My mother will lose all of her life savings," Waple said. "For those of us who do not have those resources, the ACA (Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare) is absolutely crucial. How do I know, going forward, that I won't be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition? This is important for the families of your constituents."

"There will be an effort to ensure pre-existing health conditions are continued," Smith said. He said Obamacare has hurt small businesses and soaring deductibles are making many plans useless.

Smith tried to assure Waple that repealing Obamacare will happen at the same time as a replacement plan is put in place. But when the meeting ended, Waple remained unconvinced.

"I want to point out that he didn't answer my question," she said.

Jean Mikle: (732) 643-4050, jmikle@gannettnj.com

Contributed: Bob Jordan and Herb Jackson

Towns included in U.S. Rep. Chris Smith's 4th Congressional District:

Mercer County: Hamilton and Robbinsville.

Monmouth County: Allentown Borough; Avon-By-The-Sea Borough*; Belmar Borough*; Bradley Beach Borough*; Brielle Borough; Colts Neck; Eatontown Borough*; Englishtown Borough*; Fair Haven Borough*; Farmingdale Borough; Freehold Borough; Freehold Township ; Holmdel*; Howell; Lake Como Borough*; Little Silver Borough*; Manalapan*; Manasquan Borough; Middletown (part)*; Millstone; Neptune City*; Neptune Twp.*; Ocean Twp.*; Red Bank Borough*; Roosevelt Borough; Rumson Borough*; Sea Girt Borough; Shrewsbury Borough*; Shrewsbury Twp.*; Spring Lake Borough; Spring Lake Heights Borough; Tinton Falls Borough*; Upper Freehold; Wall. (* denotes new towns since 2013)

Ocean County: Bay Head Borough, Jackson, Lakewood, Lakehurst Borough, Manchester, Point Pleasant Beach Borough, Point Pleasant Borough (part), Plumsted.

Chris Smith's Committee assignments:

House Committee on Foreign Affairs, senior member; Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights & International Organizations, chairman; Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere; Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe - U.S. Helsinki Commission, co-chairman; Congressional Executive Committee on China, co-chairman