A routine town hall Saturday with South Carolina's GOP Rep. Mark Sanford and Sen. Tim Scott ballooned into a three-and-a-half hour marathon with protesters who've been out in force at local meetings around the country.
Sanford admits he asked for it, BuzzFeed News reported.
Sanford organized the town hall in conjunction with the Charleston chapter of Indivisible, a loosely organized network dedicated to resisting President Donald Trump’s agenda and confronting local members of Congress.
"They said they wanted to do one, and we said, 'OK, let’s do one,'" Sanford told BuzzFeed News.
At the crowded meeting with constituents – which focused on the repeal and replace plans for Obamacare and other goals of President Donald Trump – Sanford urged protesters, "Let’s not make this a referendum on [Trump]. It’s the Irish prayer: we can control certain things, certain things we can’t control," BuzzFeed News reported.
According to the Post and Courier, Scott told a small group afterward there might be a better way.
"That [town hall] is not necessarily the most productive and constructive ways for us to engage and disagree,” he said according to the newspaper. "If we’re going to have a chance to disagree, then we should be able to ask a question, and speak my answer. You can hate my answer and not vote for me."