Two publications report contentious meeting between Congressman Van Orden and farm group

Congressman Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien) has a track record of verbal outbursts and confrontational behavior with the public, but now members of Wisconsin’s Farmers Union say the first-term Congressman berated them during a meeting on farm policy in his DC office last month.

The Crawford County Independent reports that on Friday, Sept. 13, Dylan Bruce, President of the Vernon-Crawford Chapter of the Wisconsin Farmer’s Union, and owner of Circadian Organics in Ferryville, held a press conference in La Crosse about a meeting he and other members of the Farmers’ Union had with Van Orden in his DC office on Sept. 10. The meeting was part of the Farmer’s Union annual ‘National Fly-In’ event that included meetings with legislators to advocate for farm policy.

“When I brought up the analysis of the proposed cuts to the food security part of the Farm Bill (SNAP) from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), he started to shout me down,” said Bruce. “Shouting that the CBO’s analysis is lies, and saying that the people in the CBO are Democrats, when in fact it is a nonpartisan office. From there, the meeting devolved to Van Orden cussing at us and saying that we won’t work with him despite the fact that he kept interrupting me.”

At that press conference Bruce called the meeting his most disappointing meeting ever.

“As a farmer, I think it is critical work with all of our elected officials to promote attention for small and mid-size family farmers,” said Bruce. “Before we met with him, we had prepared and done our research, and we expect the same from our elected representatives. The Congressman and his representatives could not have strayed further from this principle. He only wants to encourage big agricultural businesses continuing consolidation, driving small and mid-size farms out of business. The Farm Bill he voted for in the House of Representatives encourages consolidation and big farms. He wants to change the trigger for farm subsidies beyond the current $900,000, and cut funds for SNAP and conservation. I don’t see farm-friendly policies coming out of his office – he’s not someone we can talk to.”

In 2023, Van Orden cursed at teenage Senate pages who were taking photographs in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. While running for office in 2021, he yelled at a teenage library page over a Pride Month display at his local library. He has also cursed at White House staff, had heated confrontations on the House floor, and interrupted President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address earlier this year.

Cashton farmer Darin Von Ruden is Wisconsin Farmers Union President and he confirmed Bruce’s recollection of the meeting in an interview with journalist Olivia Herken with the Wisconsin Independent last week.

Von Ruden told the Wisconsin Independent the meeting started out with a civil conversation between the farmers and one of Van Orden’s staff members, but when Van Orden joined the meeting, Von Ruden said, the congressman almost immediately narrowed in on him for having criticized Van Orden for failing to support family farms.

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,” said Von Ruden, calling it a “scolding.”

“Coming out of that meeting, I felt a lot of frustration from our members not being able to tell their story when they had taken time out of their busy schedules to come and talk with our elected officials,” Von Ruden said.

Bruce told the Independent he has voted for Republicans at times but the meeting did not make him feel like he was meeting with someone that wanted to work with him.

“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.”

Herken said the Wisconsin Independent reached out to Van Orden’s office for comment but did not get a response.

Van Orden is running this fall for a second term to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District and is facing Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke.