Nearly 1,000 friends, relatives and constituents from Mr. Gioia's district crowded into the auditorium, where the couple swayed to a gospel choir.
The case also poses an important question about the scope of a 1993 Supreme Court precedent that required a Long Island school district to open a school auditorium to the showing of films with a religious viewpoint on issues concerning family life.
"You are the heroes of this district," he told a packed auditorium at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.
At a recent school board meeting, district residents packed a middle school auditorium to hear the most hotly debated proposal on the table: to lay off 35 teachers at the end of the school year.
"We were a tax bill to them and now we have something to offer," said John T. Oates, the superintendent of schools for the Taconic Hills district, as he showed off the auditorium.
On a rainy night in June last year, 2,000 people crammed into a public school auditorium in Barcelona's El Raval district.
"We are witnessing a school-reform process that is not about reforming schools," he told a packed auditorium in his South Ward district.
At the investment banking division, Mr. Hourican tried to restore confidence when he assembled about 150 bankers in the bank's auditorium in London's financial district.
The board then went into a private session, over loud protests from the audience, and residents took over the auditorium to discuss various options for the district, which has been mired in a growing financial scandal since March.
"Dave and I have worked together for 15 years, so I guess that gives us some bipartisan experience, right?" Outside the auditorium, students said they accepted that the district's strong Republican tendencies make a Trammell victory unlikely.
