Vernon Brown
Daithi Wolfe.
Madison resident Daithi Wolfe: 'I feel like our democracy is in such peril right now that, if I didn't get the $1,500 back, it wouldn't bankrupt me.'
Tickets for the Republican Party of Outagamie County’s Lincoln Day luncheon on May 3 — featuring headline speakers U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, and Republican gubernatorial candidate and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann — ran $15 apiece. Amy Thomas, statewide organizer for the progressive Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, purchased tickets and made the drive from Milwaukee with her son, Sam.
She didn’t plan to disrupt the Appleton event, but if permitted, did want to record it to “document things that are happening behind closed doors.”
“[It’s] so that we can amplify it, and folks are aware of what the narrative is, what the message is, and how it is detrimental to our democracy,” Thomas says.
She was met with a surprise at the door. An organizer, consulting a printed out list of names, said they had “oversold” tickets to the event and that she’d receive a refund. Thomas feels like she was turned away because someone recognized her name and activism.
“I didn't believe it,” Thomas says. “I bought the tickets two weeks in advance. Had they known that they were oversold, they could have emailed me in advance and let me know.”
Thomas wasn’t the only activist not given access. Daithi Wolfe from Madison bought 100 tickets — a $1,500 value — to the luncheon and planned to distribute them among similarly minded activists in Appleton and Madison. He was surprised to see Johnson headline the luncheon, given the senator “doesn't have time to attend a town hall or be invited to something where his constituents are going to get to talk to him.”
It’s unclear when the senator last held an in-person town hall. Johnson’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.
Wolfe says he did not plan to disrupt the event; instead, he was working on creating T-shirts or handouts urging Johnson to uphold the U.S. Constitution and oppose Trump.
He had hoped to have people reimburse him for the tickets, but was willing to eat the cost if they did not: “I feel like our democracy is in such peril right now that, if I didn't get the $1,500 back, it wouldn't bankrupt me. I could feel like it was an investment in the Constitution or our democracy.”
But a week before the event, Wolfe checked his bank account and saw that his $1,500 had been refunded. He initially tried emailing the party and received no response. Once Wolfe got on the phone with their office, he says a volunteer told him that “Madison liberals were trying to take [the event] over” and that the event was not public.
The Republican Party of Outagamie County says in an unattributed email statement that it only ordered food for 100 people and the event was oversold: “We stopped selling tickets online for that reason and refunded all of the guests as OVERSOLD that purchased tickets online.” In response to follow-up questions, the person emailing said “our only statement from the party is the email I sent above.”
On Facebook, the party thanked attendees and said “‘outsiders’ made for an interesting entrance for our guests,” likely referring to a protest outside the luncheon venue.
As the Trump Administration has pursued its government-slashing efforts, activists have turned out to town halls organized by Republican legislators to press for answers and to protest.
Faced with angry and sometimes disruptive protesters, Republican representatives have largely stopped holding public meetings, with party leadership backing the move. In early March, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advised party members to stop holding in-person town halls, as clips from the events, often depicting constituents shouting down their representatives, made the rounds across the internet. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson offered similar advice.
Some Republicans in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, including Wied and U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, have switched to virtual town halls with pre-screened questions. Others, like U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, have maintained that holding in-person events is “something that comes with the job.”
“You just want to make sure that people are respectful,” Fitzgerald told WISN’s UPFRONT show on Sunday. Fitzgerald held a West Bend town hall with constituents in February.
Many constituents have been calling on Johnson to hold an in-person town hall. Similar calls emerged in Trump’s first term in office in 2017, but Johnson largely held virtual tele-town hall events instead, as he is doing now. In contrast, former Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold throughout his 18 years in office met with constituents in each Wisconsin county at least once per year.
“That was 1,300 listening sessions compared to zero for Johnson,” Wolfe says. “There couldn't have been a bigger contrast between these two in terms of whether they cared about and wanted to listen to their constituents.”
While town halls are public events, county party chapters often limit public access to their meetings, where party officials may hope to speak candidly about strategy and current events. In Polk County, the local Democratic party chapter in March banned the press from covering their meetings, citing “the increasingly complex political landscape we find ourselves in for 2025,” according to the Inter-County Leader.
“In addition to our strategic discussions, we aim to build a progressive community where individuals can share their ideas and concerns freely,” the Polk County Democrats told the publication. “We believe that having the press in attendance may not foster the kind of open, collaborative environment necessary for these goals.”
Lincoln Day events, often luncheons or dinners, celebrate the Republican Party and serve as annual fundraising and networking events. They are not meant to be venues for public comment. Yet Thomas says that “at no point did it say you must belong to the party, you must have voted a certain way to be able to attend.”
“They accepted my money for the tickets, so I expected fair treatment and transparency,” Thomas says. “I think it's important for political parties to be accountable to citizens and not just those who agree with them.”
Accountability is top of Wolfe’s mind, too.
“We're his constituents,” he says of Johnson. “We deserve a chance to be in the same room with him.”
