David Amess was stabbed to death at a meeting with constituents Friday.<\/b>
\nThe name alone \u2014 \u201cthe surgery\u201d \u2014 evokes a place where help is sought and given. British lawmaker David Amess, like others, hosted his all-are-welcome surgeries regularly, meeting the voters he represented with a smile and a ready ear for whatever concerns, problems, gripes and hopes they might have. Shockingly for a country proud of its parliamentary democracy that has served as a model for systems of government elsewhere, Amess\u2019 availability ultimately also cost him his life. The fatal stabbing of the long-serving Member of Parliament in an attack Friday that police were investigating as a terrorist incident immediately cast fresh doubt on whether it remains safe and reasonable for British parliamentarians to continue meeting so readily and openly with voters. Their so-called \u201csurgeries\u201d set British MPs apart from lawmakers in other countries where the governed rarely \u2014 if ever \u2014 get to meet those who govern them. Being able to drop by, even without an appointment, to chat with and perhaps to chide those in power helps keep British politicians engaged with their communities and allows voters to raise and vent about problems that otherwise could fester if ignored. Or so the thinking went. In an era of polarized politics, terrorism threats, social media awash with fury and \u2014 not limited to Britain \u2014 eroded respect for figures of authority, public accessibility has become increasingly fraught with risk. The stabbing of Amess came five years after another MP, Jo Cox, was slain by a far-right extremist in her small-town constituency. In 2000, a man wielding a sword also attacked lawmaker Nigel Jones and his aide Andrew Pennington, killing him and wounding the MP. Those assaults did force MPs to be more careful. But they remain remarkably accessible \u2014 and potentially vulnerable. Don Foster, who served for 23 years as MP for Bath until 2015 and now serves in the upper chamber, the House of Lords, says he was often unaccompanied at his surgeries, listening to constituent concerns about housing, schools, money, utilities, hot-button topics like immigration and where the MP stood on this or that issue. Others sent emails or letters and telephoned, generating hundreds of cases each week for Foster and his staff to handle. At surgeries, \u201cpeople would turn up, sit in an outer room and be called in by me every 10 minutes or so until I had seen everyone. I would make notes of the issue and suggest what action my staff should take,\u201d Foster told The Associated Press. Constituents also came to him during off-hours, collaring him when he was shopping. Following police advice, he beefed up his office security after the attack on Jones. Foster also he kept a private list of people whom he would not meet alone. He says they included a stalker \u201cwho had a fixation about me\u201d and a man who had lost his job and felt the MP should find him a new one. \u201cBy the time I retired, there were over 20 people on that list,\u201d Foster told the AP. \u201cThere were several people who came to see me on a very regular basis \u2014 often people I judged to have mental health issues.\u201d Police arrested a 25-year-old British man for the attack on Amess. A lawmaker since 1983, Amess would put up a placard outside \u2014 \u201cMeet Your Local MP\u201d \u2014 to let constituents know when his door was open. He tweeted about his final surgery three days in advance, with an email address and a phone number for people to book appointments and the full address and even a photo of the meeting point, the Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, to make him easy to find. Even compared to some other European democracies, British MPs stand out with their regular and roving surgeries. Lawmakers are available via appointment in Germany. In France, lawmakers do regularly roam from town to town to make themselves available to voters, and not all require appointments. A Normandy lawmaker has been criss-crossing his constituency in a van with a mobile phone number on the side door and a folding table inside. And in Greece, voters can drop by MPs\u2019 offices. But regular open-house meetings aren\u2019t a thing in Italy or Spain. In the United States, Congress members\u2019 town meetings with constituents also are less frequent and easygoing than their British counterparts\u2019 surgeries. Security precautions have ramped up since 2011, when a gunman killed six people and injured 13, including then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, during the Arizona congresswoman\u2019s \u201cCongress on your corner\u201d event. While aware of the risks, Amess didn\u2019t want to become inaccessible. \u201cWe are advised to never see people alone, we must be extra careful when opening post and we must ensure that our offices are properly safe and secure,\u201d he wrote in \u201cA Survivor\u2019s Guide to Westminster,\u201d published last year. \u201cIn short,\u201d he added, \u201cthese increasing attacks have rather spoiled the great British tradition of the people openly meeting their elected politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n