Congressman Pocan steps in after Congressman Van Orden ignores invite to Viroqua listening session

March 24, 2025

VIROQUA, Wis. – On March 18 over 300 people attended a listening session at the Temple Theatre in Viroqua that was intended for Congressman Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien), but since Congressman Van Orden declined to attend Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Madison) stepped in to answer constituent questions. The event was organized by the non-partisan Concerned Citizens of Vernon County who said they came to together and decided to hold an event and invite Congressman Van Oden after they grew frustrated with his refusal to hold a public listening session where voters could asked questions or express concerns in person.

Like other Republican lawmakers across the country, Van Orden has been under fire in recent weeks for avoiding in-person meetings with constituents, claiming paid “agitators” were being sent to cause trouble. Van Orden canceled a meeting with constituents in Eau Claire in February, claiming he was being ambushed by people who had been sent the meeting details, and a day later his staff changed the location of a community meeting in La Crosse at the last minute after constituents signed up to attend. Van Orden then held a virtual town hall, but constituents who attended said they weren’t able to ask their own questions.

One of the organizers of the event, former Viroqua City Councilperson Tanja Birke said they tried numerous ways to get in touch with Congressman Van Orden and when all those efforts failed, they decided to hold the event with out without the congressman.

“So we reached out and we asked the aides that answered the phone in the office what to do,” said Birke. “And all they said was we should sign on his town hall list. And we just got nowhere. We’re aware that he had a town hall just the other day. It was a virtual town hall. It was held in the middle of the work day. I’m working Wisconsin resident and that’s not a good time for me to meet with my Congressperson. And also, it was 35-minutes long with vetted questions. It’s not an open forum. We wanted to offer residents an opportunity to just say what they want to say to our Congressperson. And I’ll be honest, I’m concerned that he feels like it’s okay to mock and make fun of his constituents. And I’m concerned when he says things like, I’m not going to meet with my constituents because there’s a group of paid George Soros funded agitators and that are acting like Nazis and communists and you know. That’s just simply not true. And it’s it’s not a very good excuse.”

Birke would later ask the audience while onstage where they were from and there were overwhelming responses for Viroqua, Vernon County, Crawford County and several other surrounding counties. The audience would later erupt in laughter when Birke specifically asked if there were any George Soros paid activists in the audience, and if they would please sit in a designated area for paid activists.

Birke said she works as a home healthcare provider and deals with very vulnerable populations and became involved when the benefits to many of her clients were threatened.

“I am a home care provider in Vernon County and I work every day with the elderly who rely on Social Security, with vets who rely on the services that the VA provides,” said Birke. “Who have limited access to healthcare, who use FoodShare. I see the way these funds are being used locally and that are very important and very necessary. And to threaten those things, to threaten our access to healthcare, to threaten our access to food. It’s just not okay with me. I know people who are feeling frightened because of the deportations. I know people who are feeling that like they’re being told they’re not a person because they’re maybe transgender or LGBTQ. I have friends who work for social services, and for the Park Service. And I have friends who are public educators, and all of these things are being threatened. They’re being gutted. It’s just not OK with me.”

When asked how her experience with her current representative compares to her previous representative, Birke said she did not always agree with Congressman Ron Kind, but he always showed up and always listened.

“I went to a number of town halls with Mr. Kind and he always showed up in person.
said Birke. “Those were not easy. You know, he was not necessarily popular with some of my neighbors. He made votes that were tough. And we didn’t always agree with him. I was never told by Mr. Kind that I’m a communist or a Nazi. I was never told that he would not meet with us because he’s afraid of what we’re going to say. He always showed up for us. He always listened. We didn’t always agree, but he was always there.”

Birke also said that if Congressman Van Orden had decided to attend the event they would have run the event the exact same way, with three minutes to speak and using a moderator. When asked what Birke would like to see in her government and representative she said the residents here are very dependent in the services that are being threatened for cuts.

“There are so many issues,” said Birke. “We are one of the poorest counties in the whole state. There are so many of us who rely on the services that are run by the government. And there’s a lot of things that need to be changed, but we cannot just strip these things away from people. Access to healthcare or rural farming. Our funding for our farmers, don’t take our, the access to food benefits away from our farmers, and their access to Medicaid and Medicare. Our elderly. I’m always thinking of the people who are kind of the, our most vulnerable, because I’ve worked for years in healthcare. Most of my adult life has been spent caring for the elderly in their homes. These are the people that we need to to support and protect. And that’s exactly what our government is all about. That’s exactly what I want my government to do. Public education, access to good public education. These are the issues that are just everyday issues for our South West Wisconsin constituents.”

Birke said all of the comments from those that attended would be recorded and/or collected and delivered to Congressman Van Ordens office. Birke also asked the audience for donations to pay for the venue (The Historic Temple Theatre). Birke said that she and her husband were footing the bill for the space.

Birke later introduced Congressman Pocan and said they decided to invite him so there was someone in attendance who could answer questions about what was happening in Washington. Pocan said he has been holding a number of town halls, including some in Republican held districts, as more and more voters reach out to get their questions and concerns answered. Pocan said his office has seen a record volume of calls. Pocan said holding listening sessions is one of the most basic parts of the job.

“There are two basic fundamental responsibilities for elected officials,” said Pocan. “Especially for members of Congress who are back and forth between Washington DC. One is to take your values and views to Washington, and two, to try to explain Washington back here at home. Sometimes that’s the much tougher spot. But you can’t do that if you don’t show up, and you have to do town halls.”

Congressman Pocan also said he had an exchange on social media with Congressman Van Orden and asked him directly if he would be attending the Viroqua event. Pocan said he responded by calling him a “horrible little creature” but would not say if he would attend. Pocan also handed out a T-shirt to audience member with the word “VEROQUA” on it because he claimed that Congressman Van Orden misspelled Viroqua in one of those tweets.

Pocan then went into the specifics of some the actions taking place in Washington. Specifically why he thinks Republicans and Congressman Van Orden are being disingenuous when they say programs like Medicare and Medicaid are not getting cut. Pocan said while it is true that the spending bill that was passed does not specifically say those programs will be cut, the bill calls for over $880 billion in cuts in the department that runs those programs, and there would be no way to make that number without cutting those programs in some way.

“If Derrick was not in his basement playing video games, what he would be saying right now is, I did not cut Medicaid because Medicaid is not mentioned in that bill,” said Pocan. “Okay, if I had the lying buzzer, I would press it right now. Because what it said was the Energy and Commerce Committee, under their jurisdiction, has to cut a minimum of $880 billion. In the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee is Medicaid, Medicare and everything else that’s health care related in the federal budget. Everything else adds up to $581 billion. Their target is $299 billion more than everything else in their jurisdiction, which means you either have to cut Medicaid or Medicare. Plus, I don’t think there going to cut every single other thing that’s in that budget. So that means a deeper cut will happen, either to Medicaid or Medicare. So that’s the first lie.”

The second area that Pocan said Republicans are not being clear about is the cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program that provides meals for kids and helps farmers by buying up surplus commodities.

“The second part of that tax bill is about a $230 billion cut to the committee of agriculture in their jurisdiction that largely will be the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” said Pocan. “Many of you are growing crops that ultimately get sold to people who are receiving supplemental nutrition assistance, and you might be selling it through other means that have had funds cut. This is the number one program keeping kids out of poverty in America, and the assistance comes to $6.20 a day in food assistance, and they want to cut that because it’s too much.”

Pocan said Republicans and the Trump administration claim the cuts are in an effort to eliminate waste and fraud but they are really to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy.

“So they cast this that set up the cuts to pay for an extension of Trump’s tax cuts from his last administration,” said Pocan. “Those are about four and a half trillion dollars of tax cuts that are not for probably almost anyone in this room, but they will be for Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and folks like that. If you can afford to belong to Mar-A-Lago, you are likely on the list to get a tax cut, but most people won’t see it if you extend the tax cuts for 10 more years, like Donald Trump is proposing at the end of that the two sets of tax cuts, 83% of the money will have gone to the top 1% so what they’re doing is coming up right now with four and a half trillion dollars to pay for the tax cuts.”

Pocan cited the example president Trump gave in his state-of-the-union speech where he claimed that dead people were getting social security checks as a way to tell that the cuts have nothing to do with waste and fraud.

“He (Trump) took a lot of real estate in that speech telling lies about Social Security over and over and over,” said Pocan. “A lot of time to say, so many people between 100 and 110 so many people did 110 and 120, so many people between 121 and 130. So he went all the way up to 360 years old, claiming, implying that people were getting Social Security. Well, here’s where the bullshit meter really goes off. Alright, so different Inspector General reports have said that’s a complete lie. …. We passed a law in 2015 that said no one over 115 will get a social security payment because there are not people there, so no one has got one ( a check). So all of that time putting out lies about Social Security. That tells me Social Security is absolutely got a target on its back, and we have to be vocal about that to protect ourselves Social Security.”

From there Pocan took questions from those who attended for over an hour, covering topics from flooding, farming, the future of Medicaid and Social Security, the rising cost of living, education funding, tariffs, election integrity, LGBTQ+ rights and more.

Viroqua resident Jennifer Morales said she is concerned that as services and benefits are ripped away that groups that have already been targets will be even more vulnerable as people look for someone to blame.

“When you dismantle these programs and these safety nets, we see desperation,” said Morales. “People get desperate, and they start looking for people to blame. And so we see that with trans people, with immigrants, with public school teachers, with poor people, with disabled people, all of us become targets for the blame for the disaster, and we are not the cause of the disaster. The disaster is being chosen in Wisconsin. We love our rural culture. We love our small towns. We have a vibrant main street that we have fought hard to earn and support. We want to keep our way of life here, and that is not possible. So if my elected representative was actually in this chair in front of me, I would ask him tell me three concrete things you are going to do to protect us, to protect our main streets, to protect our farms, to protect our vulnerable communities, and when are you going to do it?”

Roxanne Klubertanz-Gerber works with the disabled and elderly at the Richland County Aging and Disability and Resource Center (ADRC) said she is already seeing the impact on people who are not getting benefits and services.

“We have continuously been told, no cuts to Social Security, no cuts to Medicaid,” said Klubertanz-Gerber. “However, what we’re seeing in our office right now is that all of these cuts to the staffing of Social Security is trickling down already. So for example, I had a staff member that’s assisting somebody who’s over 65 in getting their benefits. Took them seven tries to fax something to the local office, because of cuts at our local office. We have found that after 17 minutes on hold with our local office, they are cut off so there’s no hold times anymore past 17 minutes. This is something that’s going to just continue to get worse. We’re seeing offices that have gone from 12 workers at Social Security office down to four offices that have been completely eliminated, with no information out to us on what do you do next. We are hearing that they’re no longer going to allow people to call in, which was rolled back, but then those are things that they’re thinking about. What can Congress do to be able to help us protect our Social Security offices and to roll back some of these cuts to staff?

“While I think I can’t speak for every Democrat, I think every Democrat in the House would vote to keep the funding for Social Security and staffing and everything that you’d have in place,” said Pocan. “We don’t have the majority, and elections have consequences. We can’t even initiate a lawsuit, because Mike Johnson has to do that. He’s the Republican Speaker.”

Pocan went on to say that voters can support lawsuits that are being initiated by others to prevent some of the cuts.

Another voter from Rockland asked about the fear of not holding elections in 2026. Pocan said the best way to send a message that elections have consequences will be in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race happening here in Wisconsin in about a week.

“The number one way to give the middle finger that Elon Musk and Donald Trump is to defeat their bought candidate for the state Supreme Court,” said Pocan. “We just have to be very ready to send some messages from Wisconsin, the most competitive district in Wisconsin right now to pick up a congressional seat. Is your congressional district.”

Dylan Bruce is a Vernon County farmer said he is a member of the Wisconsin Farmers Union and said he had a very negative interaction with Congressman Van Orden in Washington.

“I’m proud to be the third generation on my family farm,” said Bruce. “And that’s what I do full-time for living and I wanted to share that perspective with our absentee representative. Over the last eight years as a member of the Farmers Union, I’ve had a lot of meetings on both sides of the aisle, and by far the most rude and hostile meeting I’ve ever had was with Representative Van Orden.”

Bruce continued to talk about the cuts that will hurt small farmers.

“Representative Van Orden’s attitude is one of the middle school bully,” said Bruce. “So if he did show up here today he would come in, gaslight us, shout over people and refuse to actually hear what we have to say. And one of the lies he likes to tell is that he’s a friend of agriculture. He’s a friend of a very, very small segment of agriculture that gets the vast majority of subsidies in funding. And the few things that he’s actually done, like his dairy innovation bill, prove that they are just feeding that feedback loop of get big or get out. And that’s the attitude that he would want to see. So, my question would be. Who do you work for? When are you going to show up? When are you going to come talk with farmers like me? Because after he shouted us out of his office, I invited him to come share a beer with him. Come visit my farm. I’m not that far away. I’ll come to your farm. Our seed company works with a network of 35 small farmers through the Midwest. We depend on things like the local Food Purchase Assistance Program. It was something like $5.2 million for Wisconsin. And you know, what is that? How many of Trump’s golf trips does that account for? Maybe two for that same budget, right? So we’re talking about pennies on the dollar of the actual budget that’s out that are programs that help small farmers. So when they’re cutting them, it’s not actually about saving money. It’s about attacking those constituents and those small farmers to help small farmers that are the backbones of our rural communities, that support our rural businesses, that are the vast majority of our military that he supposedly likes to support. So, I’m just gonna reinforce he’s a liar. He’s a bully. Don’t let him intimidate you. Just get back out there.”

Emma Hood is a public health nurse said the concerns raised about trans people and gender issues are misplaced.

“Waking up to the executive order of defending women from gender ideology extremism,” said Hood. “So one in four women will be experiencing intimate partner violence in their lifetime. That’s in heterosexual, cisgender relationships, that’s not transgender people, over 50% of female homicide victims are killed by intimate partner violence. For people care about money it’s estimated that domestic violence costs us tens of billions of dollars every year in costs. The estimated lifetime burden is $3.6 trillion. So when they’re talking about gender ideology, extremism and defending women from it, I don’t see that it is the source of that is the existence of LGBTQ or trans people.”

Hood said she is concerned about the victimization of marginal groups because the rhetoric at the national level that is dangerous and the public health statistics show people are feeling less safe in Vernon County.

“We have the compass report, which is how we get feedback from our community,” said Hood. “So this is the feedback from the 2024 compass report. When people are asked if they feel like they were treated respectfully, regardless of their race, culture, religion, gender or sexual orientation, 50% of people in this county related responded that they was either poor or fair in this community, that’s half of our community. When asked about discrimination, it was a problem in our community, 50% responded that they were either moderately or very concerned about discrimination in community. And here’s the point here, when asked about school bullying, 70% people responded as either moderately or very concerned about school board or bullying in our community. What we’re seeing on federal level is bullying.”

“Look, all the commercials last November by Republicans,” said Pocan. “They’re the ones who are making this a political issue. Here’s the reality, there are more billionaires in the Trump cabinet and appointments, 13, than there are trans athletes, 10, in the NCAA. The Republican governor of Utah, when their Republican majority legislature passed the bills banning girls from playing in sports, trans girls from playing in sports he vetoed it. The reason he did it was out of 75,000, K-12 children in organized sports throughout the state of Utah, three were trans, and one was a trans girl. This is about adults bullying people. And then he brought up the suicidality rate, which was at as high as 80% for teens who are going through this. So the reality is, the people say Dems are pushing the agenda. We’re not pushing any agenda. All the bills that are introduced are by Republicans taking away people’s rights.”

Viroqua resident Kim Littel is a former special education teacher and now serves on the Viroqua School Board. Littel said she is opposed to cuts to the Department of Education. Littel said cuts to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funds could mean a loss of as much as $600,000 to Viroqua Schools. Littel went on to ask everyone to consider what the loss of Medicare or Medicaid would not only impact hundreds of people in the community, but could impact our rural hospitals.

“I want you to think about what that’s going to do to our rural hospitals,” said Littel. “Because our rural hospitals, over 50% of the funding comes from those sources. So all of these things will have trickle down effects, and then what will happen to our rural hospitals? And we have an excellent hospital here, and you have others around the area, and that is going to trickle down and affect them. So I just want people to think about, and that’s really my message to people to think about, there is a trickle down effect. Not only to the people that will be directly affected by Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and all those cuts our hospitals, which are often with schools which will be deeply impacted the heart and blood of our rural communities.”

“You laid it out perfectly, that there are ripple effects,” said Pocan. “If you cut Medicaid funds, those funds are what help keep hospitals open. And many of our rural areas are using Medicaid more heavily than other parts of the state, and if you start putting that pressure on, what’s going to happen to those hospitals?”

David Bruce asked what can be done about cuts to agricultural programs and tariffs, both of which could hurt farmers. Pocan said the appropriations numbers call for cutting $230 billion either in food assistance programs or farm programs.

“Our number one trading partner for agriculture in Wisconsin is Canada,” said Pocan. “Our number two partner is Mexico. Our number three partner is China. Tariffs are on Canada, Mexico and China. So this is going to have a direct impact on farmers who sell their product abroad or depend on products abroad. Look, I’m not against targeted tariffs. In fact, we all should support them. If you’ve got them dumping cheap steel in the United States, and you’re going to lose the steel industry, and steel workers going to lose their jobs. I support putting a tariff on that, but if you’re going to do indiscriminate tariffs that cover everything and say a country is going to pay for it, that’s like Mexico paying for the wall, right? It’s not going to happen.”

Katie Olson is the mother of a severely disabled child and wanted to ask Congressman Van Orden about his promises that cuts will not impact services like those her son is getting.

“So given that we are only about 30 years from children that, like my son, were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in institutions like Willowbrook, I came today so excited to hear what Mr. Van Orden had to offer in terms of positive feedback about Medicaid,” said Olson. “He must feel very positive about it if we’re going to make that kind of commitment to financial cuts, but also not any of our services. So what I wanted to hear tonight was some specifics about Medicaid services that have positively impacted Mr. Van Orden’s life, and what he was going to do to make sure that those services stayed intact as he fulfilled his commitment to make those cuts. But unfortunately, he’s not here.”

“Medicaid, it’s healthcare and long-term care for people, BadgerCare in Wisconsin, 55% of our seniors in nursing homes,” said Pocan. “How many people have someone they know who is receiving some help from Medicaid right now? Can you raise your hands?”

About 90 percent of the audience raised their hands.

Vernon County resident Kristina Reser-Jaynes said she is concerned about the plan for education in Project 2025 that calls for the privatization of schools.

“Here in Viroqua over 20% of the revenue limit is going out of our public school to vouchers,” said Reser-Jaynes. “And that’s almost a million dollars in our middle school here. NPR just did a article about this school in Milwaukee that is getting $40 million of our tax dollars, and they’re recruiting kids from rural communities to go to school there (online). And they’re taking funds from our schools. There were 241 schools with referendum questions for public education on the ballot last year, and if they’re going to do that at a national level, I think it will be devastating. And can you talk a little bit about all the money that’s in this, the DeVos’, the Heritage Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, all those things. Why do they want to destroy public education? I think it’s fundamental to our democracy to have a free public education.”

“Donald Trump is already moving things forward to try to put more money into voucher programs,” said Pocan. “So taking public education dollars into private schools. Wisconsin was one of the first states that started this a couple decades ago. When we first started, it was wild. We gave money to schools that used it to buy catalogs. We gave money to a guy who ran a school said he could read a book by putting his hand on it. This was the accountability standards. It’s gotten a little better in Wisconsin, but you do not see nationwide voucher programs where those dollars go to private schools that have better outcomes, you are not seeing that. And secondly, those dollars that go to those schools, they don’t have to take the same student diversity that you have in public schools. So often, they’re not accepting kids with special education needs and children who might be a problem child who needs a little extra attention, and by doing that, they’re taking resources away from public schools and giving public schools less where they need more resources.”

Viroqua resident Kim Ward said she operates a corporate guardianship service and serves 80 of the most vulnerable people in our community, and she is already seeing the cuts to services impacting her clients. Ward said about 90 percent of her people are on medical assistance. Ward said renewals for benefits are taking longer and she has seen clients who have had appointments rescheduled nine times.

“A lot of my people are in the community and are very aware what’s going on.,” said Ward. “So they’re coming in, they’re asking what’s going to happen. So my question to Mr. Van Orden is, what am I supposed to tell my people when they ask why the President and his supporters want to take away, they live paycheck to paycheck on their disability check, just barely, and now that’s going to be threatened for them too, and they’re all scared. It’s just a horrible situation.”

“You bring it back to the core, which is this is a four and a half trillion dollar theft from the middle class,” said Pocan. “From those aspiring to be in the middle class to the very wealthiest top percent, they’re going to benefit from this.”

Kathleen Crittenden made her statement directly to the empty chair on the stage.

“Mr. Van Orden, I am deeply offended that you’re calling me and my friends, your constituents, paid agitators, just because we have to contact you to communicate with you,” said Crittenden. “There is no one in your district, Republican, Democrat or other who needs to be paid to have a desire to communicate with their elected representative”

Nancy Wedwick lives in the Coon Valley area and owns a business and was thinking of starting another business, but said the economic uncertainly that has been created is impacting them. Wedwick, who is president of the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council said there is a great deal of concern over the removal of the flood control dams in the area following a federal study that said they should be removed. Wedwick asked if there will even be funds available to remove the dams or do upland practices to help offset the loss of the flood protection they provided.

“Will there be any funding to deal with, at all, the natural disaster that will happen?” Wedwick asked.

Wedwick also expressed concern over the changes to federal websites that seem to be erasing whole groups of people.

“A much bigger concern when I see columns of words that are being erased from the federal lexicon,” said Wedwick. “Simple words, climate change, environment, diversity, equity and inclusion. The things we learned in kindergarten, by the way, just to be nice and include people and share, and help people out. When we see the word woman being removed from the federal lexicon. These are big ideas that are taken away, swept under the carpet and put away. And so, I worry about what is going to happen here in this beautiful Driftless area that we live in, unique in all the world. What is going to happen here if we’re going to just erase these words. And how are people going to be able to survive?”

Pocan said the administration is trying to pull back funding for infrastructure projects and conservation practices like those included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

“The word reference was from a New York Times article where they talked about words that are now directives not to use on websites and other things,” said Pocan. “And it’s very relevant. Donald Trump is a wannabe authoritarian. Elon Musk is an un-elected billionaire with power that only rivals and maybe exceeds the presidents. And yet, just so you all know, I, Tammy Baldwin, and Ron Johnson, and Derrick van Orden, can’t have a federal contract as a member of Congress. Clearly corruption. Federal employees can’t have a federal contract and anything they have jurisdiction on, because that would be corruption. Elon Musk as right now, he’s had over $20 billion of federal contracts while he’s turning off and on this big and he’s getting about $8 million a day in federal contracts right now, and by passing the continuing resolution, they can now go and take a contract that was awarded to Verizon and give it to Starlink, which they’re likely going to do, to give Elon Musk another contract.’