The one thing MTG doesn't have that every other member of Congress has

ROME, Ga. — When a man threatened in November to use a sniper rifle to assassinate Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican’s team responded by swiftly shutting down her congressional district office in Dalton, Ga.

And it wasn’t the first time that Greene shut down an official district office — her Rome, Ga. office quietly closed a year prior and remains closed.

Greene’s one remaining district office is publicly unlisted and unadvertised, her congressional spokesman confirmed. In order to visit, constituents must fill out a meeting request form on Greene’s website or set up an appointment by phone, where only then they will be given the physical address of her office, said Nick Dyer, who requested the office address not be publicized citing security concerns.

Short of someone divining the existence of Greene’s all-but-secret district redoubt, or being told about it by a staffer in Washington, D.C., it publicly appears Greene has no official, fixed district office at all.

Greene’s congressional website directs constituents in Georgia’s 14th District to literally talk to a wall — they’re pointed to Box 829 inside Dalton’s U.S. Post Office. The same goes for her campaign office, which sends people not to a bustling hive of re-election activity, but to a gold, postcard-sized mailbox in a UPS store in a strip mall in Rome.

Security concerns for Greene certainly seem serious — she said she receives death threats “on an almost daily basis,” and she’s taken expensive measures to enhance her security protection, including a $65,000 fence around her home in Rome.

But some constituents perceive a lack of Greene’s presence in her sprawling district in Northwest Georgia, leaving them frustrated and wondering if she cares more about burnishing her national image than helping locals. Some of Greene’s constituents are turning to other legislators — including Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators — when they need assistance.

In his experience, Garry Baldwin, a military veteran and former mayor of Aragon, Ga., said Greene doesn’t do enough to bring “living wage” jobs to the district or to address the “frustrating” experiences with understaffed local Veterans Affairs offices.

“Everybody’s fed up with Marjorie Taylor Greene. She doesn't represent us. We're not getting anything, any benefit of her being our representative. Period,” said Baldwin, a Democrat. “She doesn't have a physical office in the district. She’s got a P.O. box. She’s got a telephone number and all you get is a voicemail.”

Calls placed to Greene congressional staff members at the phone numbers for the congresswoman’s D.C. and Dalton, Ga., offices went to voicemail — and remained unreturned at the time of publication.

Greene’s campaign committee did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Dyer did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment prior to publication but spoke with Raw Story by phone after publication. This story has been updated accordingly.

From a federal office building to a P.O. box

Greene used to have a district office in the federal building that houses a courthouse in Rome, Ga., recalled Wendy Davis, a former city commissioner for Rome, Ga., who ran in the Democratic primary for the 14th District seat in 2022. Davis lost in the primary to Marcus Flowers, who in turn lost to Greene by more than 30 percentage points despite raising more than $15.6 million.

“A lot of people were unhappy that she closed the Rome office, but more people heard that there was a Rome office when she closed it, if that makes sense,” Davis said.

At the time of publication, Greene’s office did not confirm why her Rome office closed in 2022, and for months, she failed to answer questions from local reporters about the impending closure. Local media reported on major changes within the federal building that included relocations of a post office and an FBI office along with rearrangement of courtrooms.

“The federal building is extremely difficult for people to access,” Dyer later told Raw Story on Tuesday. “The traffic was virtually zero, and to save taxpayers money, to put things into hiring more staff for the Dalton office, that office was closed.”

Davis said the federal building is “very secure,” requiring visitors to go through metal detectors, so she theorized that the closure of the office had less to do with “security worries” and more to do with resource allocation with a lack of visitors.

“I’ve always been somebody when I was working with people who were elected officials, I want you to have a lot of offices. If you don't have a lot of offices, have a lot of pop-up offices,” Davis said. “I know it's more complicated in today's more volatile world, but to me, that's one of the things that I can't imagine she holds up and says, ‘this is a great thing I did, closing my office.’”

Greene’s congressional website lists her district office as P.O. Box 829 in Dalton, with no physical address to visit. Her campaign "office" is located at 3 Central Plaza, No. 142, in Rome, which is a mailbox located inside a UPS store in a strip mall that Raw Story recently visited.

Clarence Blalock, a candidate in the June 18 Democratic runoff election, with the winner to take on Greene in November, said he — in contrast with Greene — would not sequester himself from constituents.

“Commercial rent’s cheap here,” Blalock said, predicting he’d have at least two or three district offices if he won the election. Blalock said he envisions one office in Paulding County to the South of the 14th District’s boundaries, one in Rome in the central part of the district and one in the northern part of the district, perhaps in Catoosa County, near the Tennessee line.

“I want to make sure people know that I'm here. I want to spend more time in the district than her,” Blalock said.

Office politics

Members of Congress aren’t required to have a minimum number of district offices — it’s up to the member how many offices they have and often depends on the “size and makeup of the district,” said Kristin Nicholson, director of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

Nicholson, who declined to comment on any specific member, said she previously worked with a legislator who had seven district offices in southern Illinois and another who had just one district office in a much smaller state.

Greene’s 14th Congressional District has a population of more than 765,000 people, according to the 2020 census,_Georgia?g=500XX00US1314), which is comparable to most districts in the state, according to figures from the [Georgia General Assembly](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/reapportionment-document-library/2020-data-for-congressional-districts-population-deviation.pdf?sfvrsn=1b52ccaf_2)\.

All Georgia congressional representatives have at least one physical district congressional office.

Rep. Sanford Bishop, Jr. (D-GA), who represents the state’s 2nd Congressional District, and Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), who represents the 12th District, each have three district offices. Allen has an additional satellite office, too.

Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), a Donald Trump supporter who led would-be January 6 rioters on a tour of the Capitol the day before, has two offices in Georgia’s 11th Congressional District. One is appointment-only and the other appointment-preferred but allows walk-ins.

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) announced in November that he’d temporarily shutter his 6th Congressional District office in Cummings, Ga. due to threats of violence. He reopened the office just over two weeks later.

“What drives most members in making those decisions is there's generally a big priority placed on being visible and accessible to your constituents,” Nicholson said. “It's sort of up to each member to decide what kind of operation they would set up in their district that would best achieve that goal.”

No matter the size of their district, all House members can have up to 18 full-time staff and four part-time staff, which are often divided among a D.C. office and their district offices, Nicholson said. In reality, because of budget cuts, most members have eight to 10 full-time staff, she said.

The legislators themselves often work out of a main office in their district when they’re not in D.C. in order to meet with constituents or state advocates, as well as engage with their staff, Nicholson said.

“When they're in the district, they certainly aren't tied to an office the same way they are like when they're in D.C. because a lot of that district work is about being out in the communities and attending events and visiting various organizations, sites, schools, businesses, et cetera,” Nicholson said. “But, that district office does tend to at least be sort of like the base of operations where they would come for meetings and that kind of thing.”

Dyer later told Raw Story, ”Congresswoman Greene doesn't work out of that office very often because she's in D.C..”

“Obviously, she does do travel, and obviously, we're stuck in D.C. a lot lately, but she's happy to meet with her constituents and do her job as a member of Congress,” Dyer said.

Dyer said at least one staff member is always in the district office, with as many as six employees and interns there at once.

Phone calls and meeting request forms are monitored daily, and “we get back with every constituent that leaves a voicemail,” Dyer said. Dyer said the congresswoman’s offices get hundreds of calls daily, and “we do our best to get back with every single constituent in a week or less.”

Dyer added: “It may take a few days because we get calls from everywhere, all over the place, that flood our voicemail, and that's part of the reason why we can't answer every single phone call is because we get calls every single day from all over the country, with people either praising Marjorie Taylor Greene, attacking Marjorie Taylor Greene, prank phone calls, people calling because their reps aren't answering, that sort of thing.”

District offices are the “hub for their casework and constituent service,” Nicholson said. Constituents might come to a district office for help accessing federal resources and programs or assistance with issues involving Social Security, Veterans Affairs or immigration, she said.

Dyer estimated that “98 out of 100 times there's no need to be in person for these issues” where constituents might contact a district office, which can be handled remotely, he said.

“We get rave reviews for our constituent services,” Dyer said.

Security threats against legislators have increased in the last four to five years, so members need to strike a balance between their accessibility to constituents and their safety, Nicholson said. In 2023, the U.S. Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Section investigated 8,008 cases, compared to 7,501 in 2022, noting that threats typically surge in an election year.

The House and Federal Election Commission have expanded allowable expenses on the administrative and campaign sides to include security measures, such as allowing $10,000 from a member’s annual office budget to go toward security needs, Nicholson said.

Particularly in a district where members often don't have access to Capitol Police, those security expenses might include bulletproof glass, security staff and security and locking systems, Nicholson said.

Constituents complain about lack of access to Greene

Some Democrats and Republicans told Raw Story that Greene’s lack of presence is felt throughout the district, and they can’t even access her through public forums like town halls.

“I can't talk to her. You tell me where she is. MIA MTG,” Blalock said. “Where is she? Where's her office?”

Her last known district town hall in April was held in Whitfield County, where advance RSVPs were required and government IDs needed for entry. The address of the event was not released publicly prior.

“Due to her popularity, we have people RSVP so we can get constituents in the door. That is critical for the town halls. They are meant specifically for constituents,” Dyer said. “We have people that would travel from hours away to attend a town hall. We do that explicitly to ensure that only constituents are in the location. Due to the security concerns, we only give verified constituents the address to those town halls.”

Given that hundreds of people attend these events, Greene’s team asks for questions to be submitted on their way into the meeting, Dyer said.

“She goes through personally all of them unless they're offensive,” Dyer said.

A 2022 report by the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a project of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, concluded that the generally “unscripted and often raucous gatherings provide the public with a direct line of communication to their representatives,” and that “legislators with few legislative accomplishments also chose to hold fewer town hall meetings.”

“It's a one-sided messaging platform,” said Rob Nolen, chair of the Catoosa County Democratic Party, who chose not to go to Greene’s most recent meeting but watched the video recording. “I would imagine that the bulk of people there were Republicans and pretty diehard conservatives. There were a lot of people sort of yelling out and speaking out against things she was saying, and she really systematically shut them down. It's just obvious that she wants to be able to say what she wants to say and have that be the soundbite, and there's no substantive discussion.”

Members of Congress might limit their town halls to a “known audience” for legitimate security reasons, Nicholson said. They have the ability to host these events as they please, such as hosting online town halls instead of in-person, she said.

“Vetting the questions in advance, sometimes members do that just to make sure that they can give full, thoughtful responses to questions, and other times, obviously, members are just trying to control what they have to respond to,” Nicholson said.

Greene isn’t a stranger to everyone.

Kelly Thurman, an employee with the Murray County Sheriff’s Office, said he has met Greene and says she “comes pretty regular here to the sheriff’s office. We met her several times. She’s had some town halls here.”

When Greene is in town, it’s usually for “a big Republican meeting or rally,” and she meets with people at restaurants “occasionally,” Davis said.

“I don't feel like she's done the kind of work that a lot of people do of coming and sitting down and meeting with people and just listening to what's going on,” Davis said.

Deric Houston, who captured 14.5 percent of the vote in last month’s 14th Congressional District Democratic primary, said he’s never met Greene because she’s rarely out publicly in the 14th congressional district.

“She’s never in the district. Never in the district,” Houston said. “When she's in the district, she does a town hall. I've seen her do, I think, two town halls in the last six months.”

By comparison, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who represents the entire state of Georgia, has visited the 14th Congressional District at least twice since he was elected in 2021, Davis said.

“One time he came and met with a lot of local elected officials, and I've been in politics a long time, I've never seen a U.S. senator sit at a table,” Davis said. “It wasn't about his speechifying. He literally made everyone who had been invited to the table say what was on their mind and what the senator could do or what our community needed and went around the table and his staff actually did follow up from that conversation.”

Shawn Harris, the other Democratic candidate in the runoff election on June 18, said Greene “drives right through” Polk County, where he lives, each week if she’s heading to her home in Rome.

“You can't get to Rome without coming through here when you’re coming from the airport in Atlanta. She never stops. Never stops,” Harris said. “You can ride all over this place, you can't find anybody that says, ‘I talked to Marjorie Taylor Greene right here in Polk County.’ This is a place you just drives through,”

Don Westlake, a Republican and beef producer in Polk County, said one of the reasons he is voting for Harris is because he meets with people in the community unlike Greene.

“I've never met her … what I understand, she lives in Rome, so she has to come through here,” Westlake said. “I've never, never seen her or met her, talked to her. I've never seen her go out and talk.”

Most members find it “pretty vital” to be “present, visible, attending events” and having a robust staff to do casework in the district and be accessible to constituents, Nicholson said.

“Particularly, these days when it's so extremely difficult for most rank and file members to make a big impact legislatively, that constituent service and casework piece of the operation has become even more important than ever because it's a place where they really do have total control,” Nicholson said. “Any member who wants to do good constituent service has that ability, whereas they may not have the ability to get a hundred bills passed into law.”

This week, Greene spoke at a rally for Trump in Las Vegas, where she compared the former president, who was convicted on all 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial, to Jesus Christ.

Greene has rallied on Trump’s behalf throughout the country from Iowa to South Carolina this year.

Greene was in her district Monday for an academy send-off dinner in Dalton for “five young people from the district that are now going to military academies,” Dyer told Raw Story.

This story was updated on June 11 at 1:26 p.m. ET to reflect post-publication comments from Greene spokesperson Nick Dyer.

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