This weekend, the office of 2nd District Democratic Congressman Jared Polis announced that he expected 900 people at each of the town hall meetings he has scheduled for Sunday, one at Broomfield High School and the other at the Fort Collins Lory Student Center Theater.

Polis is an outspoken critic of the Trump administration and its cabinet appointees. His office has said he has been very enthusiastic about meeting with constituents and has been looking forward to this week’s town hall meetings. His enthusiasm seems spiced with at least a splash of schadenfreude.

Colorado Congressional Republicans recently have shied away from in-person meetings after videos of unruly town halls have starred besieged conservatives in states around the country. Ten thousand people reportedly called into a tele-town hall hosted by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner at the beginning of the month. They peppered him with pushback against Republican health care reform, administration saber rattling on marijuana and Trump team dealings with Russia. The week before, a thousand people showed up for a meeting with a cardboard cutout of the senator in a mock town hall meant to underline Gardner’s here-and-gone presence on the Front Range during the Congressional recess.

Like Polis, state Democratic lawmakers are happily embracing the energized public participation. Crowds of hundreds have been squeezing into microbreweries where the Boulder County Democratic caucus members have fielded hours worth of questions. Some thousands filled a school gym this week for a meeting on health care policy hosted by prominent House Democratic women.

In the wake of a disastrous election year, Democrats are enjoying the moment.

The irony of Republicans rolling out “Trumpcare” and dodging testy town halls almost exactly eight years after Democrats rolled out “Obamacare” and were swamped at testy tea party town halls has been lost on almost no one.

The release announcing Polis’s Sunday town halls closes with a paragraph that half winks at the reader.

“Polis is scheduling additional town halls for April, and he is planning several telephone town halls for when he is in Washington, D.C.,” it reads. “Polis has a history of accessibility, hosting over 30 town halls during the past Congress, and responding to over 150,000 constituent letters and emails.”

– john@coloradostatesman.com