Cville Dems

The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

Legislation / Legislative Process

Saturday Dec. 6, Cookies and Conversation with Katrina and Creigh

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A flyer for Cookies and Conversation with Del. Katrina Callsen and Senator Creigh Deeds on Dec. 6, 2025 from 10 to noon at the JMRL Central Library. Bake, Take and exchange cookies while talking Virginia politics. Also bring canned food, grains, cooking oil and hygiene products, baby formula, et cetera.Come chat with Sen. Creigh Deeds and Del. Katrina Callsen on Saturday, Dec. 6, for “Cookies and Conversation” from 10am to noon in the Swanson Room of the downtown Jefferson-Madison Regional Library. Bring your questions – and cookies for a holiday exchange (don’t forget an empty container!) – and to enjoy a relaxed conversation with your representatives! 

If you missed our food and toiletries drive last month, feel free to bring donations on Saturday; Katrina and Creigh will take anything collected to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.



Rep. John McGuire a No-Show at Town Hall Meeting

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A cardboard cutout of John McGuire at a odium onstage with a full auditorium of Democrats and other constituents wanting answers

Almost 1,000 people attended a town hall at Charlottesville High School’s MLK Auditorium on Saturday, April 26 to which 5th District Republican Congressman John McGuire had been repeatedly invited by Indivisible Charlottesville — but did not respond. The group propped up onstage a full-sized, cardboard cutout of McGuire at a podium.

Attendees then lined up at several microphones set up around the auditorium to ask questions they would have posed to the real McGuire on a wide range of topics including the economy and federal funding and job cuts. They also wrote questions on cards to be collated and delivered this week to McGuire’s office. We’ll see if he responds.

Also among the audience: other local, county, and state lawmakers. Thank you to Creigh Deeds, Katrina Callsen, Amy Laufer, Lloyd Snook, and Michael Payne for coming to listen to your constituents, and to Hashmi Ghazala for her inspiring words.

Note: Indivisible Charlottesville also shared a very amusing “bird-dogging” video of one of its members nabbing an unexpecting McGuire on the street in Charlottesville to personally invite him to attend!

Message from the Co-Chairs

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Dear Dems,

Let’s be clear: We’re facing a constitutional crisis of previously unseen proportions.

Donald Trump and his unelected co-conspirators are ripping apart the US government with no regard to the legality of their actions. What’s to be done?

Below are some actions you can take. If you have others to suggest, please share them with us by contacting our newsletter editor, Mary Jane Gore, at communications@cvilledems.org.

Thank you for all you do,

Nancy Damon and Josh Throneburg

Make Calls to Capitol Hill

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Formal portrait of congressional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wearing dark suit and standing in front of the American flag.If you’re angry, frightened, fed up, and want to get politicians’ attention, NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) emphasizes the effectiveness of phone calls to your congressional representatives, no matter which side of the aisle. From her Instagram account:

“For the first few years that I was in office, Republicans flooded my phones. Do you think they really thought they were going to change my mind? No. But they constantly and consistently [called].

Republicans flood the phones far more than people who are not Republicans flood the phones. And it does have an effect, because you really start to understand the strength and the scale of what you are up against.

Republicans need to get that message too, because it skews our whole environment to the right when the constant pressure comes from one place. Like, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but people who watch Fox News all day and right-wing media all day call their members of Congress, and they tend to call members far more, and far more consistently and regularly than everybody else does. And that really matters because phone calls are one of the biggest ways that members measure, not just it’s not just numbers, it’s how they measure enthusiasm, it’s how they measure how much people are mobilizing around a certain issue. And the more they see them mobilizing, the more careful they will be in terms of not making those people more upset. And they will get pressured into acting, or hedging, what have you.”

If you want to pick up a script quickly for a call to representatives in DC, take a look at 5 Calls, a progressive issue website that provides short and sweet scripts for calls on a host of issues.