Cville Dems

The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

Legislation / Legislative Process

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.

Josh Goes to the White House to Discuss Rural America!

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Cville Dems co-chair Josh Throneburg wearing a suit and tie chats with other attendees at the White House rural summit called Investing In Rural America. Television screens and an American flag are behind them.[Cville Dems cochair Josh Throneburg shared this account with us.]

Six weeks ago I received an unexpected invitation to the White House for a ‘Rural Communities in Action’ event. The Biden Administration wanted to feature its historic investments in rural communities across the country as well as hear from people on the ground about the work they are doing.

After clearing two separate security stations, I made it ‘on Campus’, and headed to the event.

About 100 people were invited to attend from all across the U.S. The gentleman in front of me was a county manager in rural Nevada, a young woman from Puerto Rico who was going to college on an Agricultural Scholarship was in the front row, there was a mayor from a small town in Wisconsin, and many more.

The primary speakers at the event were Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack; Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is heading up the new Farm Bill; and Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.

Secretary Buttigieg talked at length about investments in rural America, especially infrastructure investments that benefit rural communities. Biden’s Infrastructure Bill provides for clean water, high-speed internet, new roads and bridges and much, much more. Secretary Buttigieg also noted how his office is working to remove the red tape that can make it difficult and tedious for rural entities to apply for government sponsored loans and grants.

Senator Stabenow focused her remarks on the Farm Bill. This is the third time she has led the charge to pass a farm bill and she talked both about the exciting investments that they are working on for this bill, but also about the incredible frustrations at how dysfunctional Washington is right now. She said that working on this bill has been much, much harder than before.

Finally, Secretary Vilsack masterfully painted the picture of rural decline over the last 50 years. He talked about how we have lost over 500,000 farming families in that time; how there are counties across the country that have been in persistent poverty (20%+ poverty for at least 30 years or more) and how a high majority of those counties are rural. But he not only described the problem, he inspired with the work of the Biden Administration to turn the tide. He noted how in recent years rural populations are finally beginning to grow again and how, during Biden’s first term, over 50 counties have been taken off the persistent poverty list. He described, in detail, the work that was being done to revive rural communities, and it was exhilarating.

I walked out of the White house that afternoon with lots of thoughts but one major takeaway — we have to give this Administration four more years to expand on the amazing work it is doing. I know a lot of rural residents are Republicans, and that Republicans claim to care about rural voters… but talk is cheap. It is Democratic policies around climate, infrastructure, jobs, agriculture, and much more that actually benefit rural communities. Let’s keep doing the work, and maybe do a bit better job of bragging about it along the way, so that rural voters can see the difference electing Democrats makes!

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