All Bark, No Bite: A Referendum on Van Orden’s Bad Behavior
MADISON, Wis. — With few policy achievements to speak of, Derrick Van Orden has made this election a personality contest—and he’s leaving much to be desired. Between the bad behavior, ultra-rich friends, and ego seen from space, Van Orden has made clear he thinks he’s better than everyone else.
Van Orden has made news with his repeated outbursts, yelling at teenagers and farmers while pushing an extreme and unpopular agenda to cut SNAP food assistance that 78,000 Wisconsinites in the 3rd District rely on. At the same time, Van Orden has pushed for massive tax cuts for the very wealthy—leaving the rest of us to pick up the bill
Read more coverage on Van Orden’s bad behavior below:
HuffPost: “Rebecca Cooke leads Van Orden 49% to 48% in a new poll, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo obtained by HuffPost. The poll was commissioned by the DCCC. […] ‘From repeatedly bullying children, to being on Capitol grounds on January 6th, to relentlessly attacking reproductive freedom, Derrick Van Orden is one of the most vulnerable members of Congress,’ said DCCC spokeswoman Mallory Payne, referencing a number of Van Orden’s scandals. […] Van Orden was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt. In July 2023, he yelled at a group of Senate pages who were lying on the floor in the Capitol’s rotunda to take pictures of the ceiling. ‘Wake the f*** up you little s****. … What the f*** are you all doing? Get the f*** out of here. You are defiling the space you [pieces of s***],’ Van Orden reportedly told the pages, according to The Hill, which cited an account given by one of the pages. At the Republicans’ national convention in July, Van Orden got into an altercation with a Code Pink protester, with each claiming the other had pushed them. ‘I think Derrick Van Orden has certainly proved himself to have gone Washington in the way he reacted to those young Senate pages,’ Cooke said. ‘That’s not how we talk around here.’”
Wisconsin Independent: “He ‘just went into quite a barrage of things, pointing directly at me and not really concerned about anybody else that was in the room,’ Von Ruden, a Westby dairy farmer and the president of the union, told the Wisconsin Independent. He called it a ‘scolding.’ […] ‘It is part of a pattern that is disturbing, and it’s not that he’s part of the other party, quote-unquote, that makes me not want to vote for him,’ Bruce told the Wisconsin Independent. ‘I voted for Republicans when I believed that they stand up for small farms and agricultural policy. But I’m not going to vote for someone who just shouts me down when I’m trying to have those conversations.’ […] Van Orden went into a ‘stream of consciousness, run-on sentence monologue’ about the CBO, Bruce said, calling the group ‘Democratic liars’ and the report ‘bullshit.’ He said Van Orden looked agitated and was slapping his desk, saying, ‘That kind of agitation just built into what really felt like being subjected to a tirade rather than having a conversation.’ Bruce said that Van Orden and his staff were dismissive of him because they believed he was a Democrat, saying he wore ‘the other jersey’ and would never vote for Van Orden anyway. Bruce, who has been advocating for farm issues since 2017, said it was the most disappointing meeting he’s ever had with a legislator.”
Wisconsin Watch: “‘In the 3rd District in particular, the hope is that Democrats are able to make this — much like a referendum on Trump — a referendum on the Republican incumbent Van Orden and the controversies surrounding him,’ Walter said. […] Former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney — who endorsed Harris in Wisconsin this month — told a reporter she would not vote for Van Orden if she were a Wisconsin resident. Cheney has widely criticized Trump and other members of her party for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. ‘It makes sense that someone who is new to office, their first attempt at reelection is a referendum on their behavior in office, and Van Orden’s behavior has been abysmal,’ Garcia said. […] This has been a historically unproductive two years for the House, Chergosky said, having passed a much fewer number of substantive bills than previous sessions. […] ‘Standard playbook for a House incumbent is to tout their policymaking achievements, but what happens if there aren’t really any policymaking achievements?’ […] Last year, Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden criticized Van Orden for ‘choosing big corporations’ over small dairy farms in the state. ‘Despite raising these concerns with Van Orden’s office, he hasn’t included amendments to help small farms in the Farm Bill and hasn’t stood up to the big corporations who are using the current policies to put family farms out of business,’ Von Ruden wrote in an op-ed.”
WPR: “Van Orden is no longer a political newcomer. He’s an incumbent member of Congress, running in arguably the most competitive congressional district in the state. The retired Navy SEAL’s outspoken nature has attracted national attention a few times in the last two years. […] Van Orden also shares Trump’s reputation as a political firebrand. He was one of several Republicans to heckle President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech in March, yelling the word ‘lies’ when Biden took a shot at Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. […] Cooke has continued to criticize Van Orden for his presence at the Trump rally prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and said Van Orden’s outbursts in Congress during his first term ‘is not the decorum that we want to see from a member of Congress.’”
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