Wisconsin has had enough of Derrick Van Orden’s public outbursts and inappropriate behavior. From bullyingteenagers, to lashing out at the President and his administration, to being on Capitol grounds on January 6th, Van Orden has proven time and again that he’s unfit to serve in Congress.
DCCC Spokesperson Mallory Payne:
“Wisconsin voters are ready to send Derrick Van Orden and his temper tantrums packing in November.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly pleaded with members of the House Republican Caucus to behave during last week’s State of the Union address by President Biden.
But, as usual, Derrick Van Orden couldn’t keep it together.
The scandal-plagued Republican representative from western Wisconsin — who is famous for screeching at teenage librarians and Capitol Hill pages — chose to heckle Biden as the president was making one of the most undebatable points of his address to the joint session of Congress.
So it was that the Minnesota native, who moved to Wisconsin to pursue a political career, put himself in the running for recognition as the House’s most unstable Republican. To be sure, Van Orden faces stiff competition from Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, as well as Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar — who famously circulated a video of himself attacking Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, with a sword.
Van Orden has lost control in so many settings that it is now blatantly obvious that he has a problem. And that creates a troublesome circumstance for his constituents, and for Congress.
As the NBC television affiliate in La Crosse, one of the largest cities in Third District, noted after the congressman’s latest blow-up, “Van Orden is no stranger to accusations of inappropriate outbursts, having made headlines for allegedly cursing at White House staff during an October briefing on Israel, and an expletive-laden rant in which he chastised senate pages for treating the Capitol Rotunda ‘like a frat house common room.’”
That latter incident drew rebukes not just from Democrats but from Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.
Before that, Van Orden was arrested in 2021 after attempting to carry a fully loaded handgun through a security checkpoint at an Iowa airport. And then there was the time when, as a candidate for Congress, he made headlines in the La Crosse Tribune and other publications after harassing a teenage aide at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library because he was upset by a display of books on LGBTQ topics. According to Kerrigan Trautsch, who at the time was a 17-year-old page at the library, Van Orden went into a rage over a display of fiction and nonfiction books that was part of the library’s focus on Pride Month.
The encounter with the ranting and raving 51-year-old congressional candidate was “very uncomfortable (and) threatening,” said Trautsch, because, “He was full on shouting at this point and he kept aggressively shoving the books around.”
With his recent screaming at White House aides, and now President Biden, Van Orden has graduated from picking on teenagers to interrupting presidents. But it is all part of the same pattern of behavior.
Van Orden has no place in Congress. Or in the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library.
