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 the 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 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…