On the afternoon of February 27, 2025, about 90 people stood outside a congressman's office on North University Avenue in Little Rock. They held handmade signs. One said "Support & Respect Federal Workers." One said "Truth Matters." One said "French Hill Town Hall??? When?"

They were mostly senior citizens. They had organized by text message, because they couldn't get their elected representatives to show up for a public forum. In the words of the woman who sparked it, Caroline Stevenson, they were "desperate."

Stevenson is 90 years old. She was born in El Paso and came to Arkansas as a child, when her military family moved to Fayetteville after her father was deployed in World War II.

That protest was supposed to be a one-day thing.

By February 2026, it had run 52 consecutive Thursdays — a full year, every week, at the corner of Markham Street and University Avenue, in rain, sleet, heat and snow. The neighboring Chipotle let them use the lot. Somebody made a sign calling the group the "Grantifa," and it stuck.

"We didn't start out to set a record or to do it for a year at all," Stevenson said. "People just wanted to keep going."

In all that time, French Hill has not held the in-person town hall they are standing there asking for.

What he does instead

Hill has not stopped communicating with constituents. He has just picked a format where he controls the room, because there is no room.

On April 3, 2025 — five weeks into the weekly protests outside his office — Hill held a "tele-townhall". Constituents dialed a toll-free number. The audio was streamed one way to his Facebook page, with a recording posted afterward.

A telephone town hall is not a town hall. Nobody can see who else is on the line, or how many people are waiting to speak, or who got passed over. Nobody can stand up. Nobody can follow up when the answer doesn't answer the question. The person holding the event decides which callers reach the air, and there is no way for anyone outside to know what was left out.

That is the entire appeal of the format, and it is why so many members of Congress have moved to it.

He's had chances to show up. He hasn't taken them.

The weekly protest isn't the only invitation Hill has declined.

On March 18, 2025, a coalition of Arkansas groups — the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, the Arkansas Citizens First Congress, the League of Women Voters and Young Democrats of Arkansas — filled First United Methodist Church in downtown Little Rock for a public forum. They invited Hill, Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. John Boozman. Not one of the three came.

The people who did come said what they'd hoped to say to them. "Doing the right thing is not partisan," said Chris Jones. "I don't care if you have an R or D next to your name," said Hallie Shoffner. Col. Marcus Jones, speaking about the promise made to people who serve, said: "Part of that bargain is the government will take care of us."

In August 2025, protesters delivered a letter to Hill's door opposing cuts to federal programs. A letter to a door, because the door doesn't open.

What they wanted to ask him about

It's worth being specific, because "they want a town hall" sounds like a process complaint. It isn't. There is a list.

Health coverage. Analysis by the Center for American Progress projects that 32,000 more people in Hill's district will be uninsured because of the health cuts in Trump's budget bill, which Hill voted for. Statewide, 14,441 Arkansans lost Obamacare coverage this year after Congress let the subsidies that made it affordable expire.

Federal money pulled out of the district. DOGE cut more than $172 million in grants from Hill's district — money that had been going to the University of Arkansas, the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, and Winrock International.

Bank fees. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Hill personally wrote the resolution that killed a $5 cap on overdraft fees — a rule that would have kept about $5 billion a year in ordinary people's checking accounts.

Those are the kinds of questions a person asks in a room, out loud, with neighbors listening. They are much harder to ask on a phone line where you may never be called.

The job description

Here is the thing about representative government that Hill's own committee title should remind him of. He is not the manager of Arkansas's 2nd District. He is its representative. Standing in front of the people you represent and taking their questions — including the hostile ones, especially the hostile ones — is not a courtesy he extends when it's convenient. It's the job.

Hill has held this seat since 2015. He is the chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, and he runs its hearings in person, several times a month, in a room in Washington.

A 90-year-old woman and her neighbors have stood on a Little Rock street corner every Thursday for over a year, in the snow, asking for one hour.

He hasn't given it to them.

We deserve better.

Source

Led by a nonagenarian, the 'Where's French Hill' group marks 52 consecutive weeks of protest — Stephanie Smittle, Arkansas Times, February 19, 2026. Photo: Brian Chilson / Arkansas Times.