On the morning of Feb. 8, a Chester County Press reporter sent an email to State Rep. John Lawrence of the 13th District, requesting an interview with him to discuss the sweeping legislation from the Trump administration that will likely have an impact on the residents of his district.

No response to the email arrived. Weeks later, the reporter approached Lawrence at a public meeting to again inquire about the proposed interview, and he was politely turned down. Meanwhile, in the nearly two months that have passed since that email was sent, a series of recurring instances have joined themselves at the hip.

President Donald Trump, perhaps buoyed by a false sense of having a full mandate, has run roughshod over what had previously been regarded as legislative sanctities and begun the task of rescripting the laws and policies that govern our Republic. As of last week, he had signed 106 executive orders, 24 proclamations and 27 memoranda. Some are logical, such as the U.S. addressing the egregious acts of indecency unleashed on the people of South Africa by its government. Some are frivolous, like ending the use of paper straws, but some are overtly draconian, such as implementing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), withdrawing from the World Health Organization, ending DEI programs and legislating radical indoctrination in schools. 

The ferocity of the president’s pen affixed to these documents – and his scored-earth philosophy of getting there – is being met with the same speed and exuberance at the country’s town halls, which have become an open forum between residents and lawmakers. Despite recommendations from the GOP not to attend them, several diligent Republican lawmakers have stood in front of their constituencies and faced the verbal slings and arrows that have attacked those whose only affiliation to Trump is that they both share the “R” distinction next to their name. Most meetings have gone off with little fanfare – merely a civil back-and-forth discourse that have informed and articulated – but some have become viral reminders that our democracy’s freedoms are often taken for granted and end up going completely off the rails. Republican lawmakers – some eviscerated by those in attendance for toeing the company line - are being hammered by voters who are expressing their dissatisfaction with Trump’s executive power, Elon Musk’s buzzsaw blast through federal agencies that have left thousands jobless, the ramifications of Veterans Administration cuts, the potential economic sting from the institution of tariffs with competing countries, and the role of the U.S. in Ukraine and Russia and in the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine. 

Democratic elected officials aren’t having a great time with it, either. They are being gob smacked by complaints that they aren’t organized, have no singular voice and are not pushing against the Trump administration hard enough. Collectively, the dialogue has become an equal opportunity, bipartisan assault, augmented by loud voices, interruptions, finger-pointing frustration and very few solutions. 

They have become our nation’s latest diplomatic scab wound, opened time and time again with no thought given to healing. 

This type of behavior would never happen at a town hall moderated by Rep. John Lawrence – history has proven it so - and we feel that now is the time for the official from the 13th District to listen, person-to-person, to the concerns of those who live in his district.

Since becoming a state representative in 2010, Lawrence has spent the last 15 years as one of the most dedicated voices of reason in the machine of Chester County government, who has carried the respect of not only this newspaper but his colleagues in the House and the vast majority of his constituency. In the vanishing document of trust between voter and the elected, Lawrence is a steadfast outlier, a lifelong resident among us who possesses the intelligence to pare down the complexities of an issue with the calm, common sense demeanor of communicating it. Right now, down country roads and in schools and businesses and homes, there are residents of the 13th District who have questions about America and about their own livelihoods that need to be answered. They have fears that need to be reassured. John Lawrence has proven to them repeatedly that he will always remain by their side, not as a publicity hack for the Republican party but as a voice of strength and reassurance to the people of the district he has represented for more than a decade.

Now is one of those times, and while he has no ultimate influence over the course the unknown territory of this nation is being led to – and while he can perform no miracles - it is time for John Lawrence to do what he has done so well for so long: Open the doors, let the people in, and listen.