Where is Cory Gardner?

In 2014, Cory Gardner was elected to the US Senate to replace incumbent Mark Udall. Much of Senator Gardner's campaign focused on bringing an independent voice to the Senate as opposed to Udall's, who he said voted with President Obama 99% of the time. During his tenure in the Senate, Gardner has voted with the Republican Party on nearly every issue and has not provided the independent voice he intended to bring to Washington.

After the election of 2016 that brought Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States, this independent voice is still nowhere to be seen. About a month into President Donald Trump's first term in office, Senator Cory Gardner has voted with President Trump 100% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight's tracking interactive. This has angered many in Colorado leading to increasingly demanding calls for Senator Gardner to hold town hall meetings so constituents can voice their opinions to the Senator.

The Senate is currently in recess. During this time, elected members of Congress tend to spend their time at home, holding town hall meetings and getting to speak with their constituents. Throughout the country, angry constituents have been flooding into these meetings for other elected officials to voice their frustration with the Trump Administration's recent actions relating to immigration and health care.

This is not the case for Senator Gardner. He has not provided any public notices about any town hall meetings and has allegedly held meetings in Burlington and Fort Morgan, according to Facebook posts he made. Not one of offices could be reached to confirm that these meetings took place, leading to the question of whether these meetings were even held.

His most recent Facebook post says he'll be meeting with constituents across the Front Range and Eastern Plains. After calls to every single one of his offices in Colorado, no staff member could confirm any such meeting has been planned. After calling the Senator's DC office I was told that they were not aware of any town hall meetings scheduled and that I would have to speak to the state offices to get a town hall meeting schedule. So I called every state office and all but one went to voicemail or the voicemail was full. The Denver office was the only office to answer phone calls from the Aurora Independent and they told me to call the DC office, whom I had just called earlier. Senator Cory Gardner's staff does not appear do be on the same page.

Elected officials should use their recess time to meet with constituents and hear their concerns. Senator Gardner is not providing the opportunities for constituents to voice their concerns directly to his face, preventing him from fully representing the views of his constituents. He should immediately post any scheduled town hall meetings to ensure his constituents he is willing and able to represent those who put him in office.

Editor's note: the last few attempts to reach Senator Gardner for comment took about a week. We will update this post if any requests for comment are fulfilled.