Is John McGuire trolling his constituents?

Republican U.S. Rep. John McGuire is making a concerted effort to evade his constituents.

Not all of them, though; just those who didn’t vote for him.

The freshman representative from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District has not held a single in-person town hall since taking office Jan. 3. But he does hold private events for a select group of his constituents, like the one April 24 at the S&P Global building in downtown Charlottesville, where roughly 70 company employees were in attendance to hear the congressman speak.

At the same time, McGuire declines invitations to attend heavily publicized town halls, like the one at the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center at Charlottesville High School just days after his private gathering at S&P. McGuire was invited online, via certified mail and in person, but he ignored the requests.

So Saturday a week ago, more than 1,000 fed-up 5th District constituents — including several other elected officials — showed up to greet a life-size cardboard cutout of McGuire and an empty chair.

S&P, lies and videotape

McGuire isn’t just eluding constituents who didn’t vote for him (he lost in Charlottesville in the November general election by more than 15,000 votes, receiving only 3,815 in his favor); the congressman is making it appear, despite evidence to the contrary, that the events that he does hold are open to the public.

The meeting at S&P, a publicly traded data and analytics company headquartered in New York, was for company employees. Yet on social media, McGuire touted the event as if it were a town hall.

“What a fantastic event with a strong turnout Thursday in Charlottesville!” McGuire wrote on X next to a photo displaying S&P employees gathered inside a conference room in Charlottesville. The photo shows roughly 70 individuals seated in chairs with about half raising their hands. “I was thrilled to see so many of my constituents and grateful for the opportunity to answer their questions.”

McGuire continued, “While we may not always agree, it’s truly inspiring when we can exchange ideas with dignity and respect. Charlottesville, you were civil and showed exactly how it ought to be.”

But the photo and its caption do not add up.

None of the S&P employees in the photo asked McGuire a question during the 40-minute event, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Daily Progress. And the raised hands, indicating a desire to ask McGuire a question, only went up when McGuire asked the veterans in the room to identify themselves, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Many on social media were left confused.

“When was this announced? I saw nothing about this,” said one X user.

“I’m a constituent and heard nothing about this,” said another.

“I am confused on how people were notified. I feel a bit tricked this wasn’t made known like your telephone townhall,” another asked on Facebook.

McGuire’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Progress’ repeated attempts to answer those questions.

It’s a pattern of behavior the former Navy SEAL and “Day one Trump supporter,” as he once called himself, has adopted since taking office.

McGuire has repeatedly ignored calls from his constituents in Charlottesville to hold in-person town halls, snubbed invitations sent both to his Washington and Lynchburg offices, and limited his appearances to virtual forums where many callers have been screened in advance by McGuire’s team.

For four months, Charlottesville’s representative in the nation’s capital has been ignoring his constituents. And last Saturday, the city’s residents let their frustrations be known.

“The 5th District elected you to represent us,” said one constituent. “You work for us, not for President Trump.”

“Our constitutional balance of powers is being destroyed by your collusion with the executive branch-gone-wild,” said another.

“What is it going to take for you to stand up to this administration and say, ‘No more. No more illegal acts,’” another one asked.

Where in the world is John McGuire?

McGuire’s sprawling 5th Congressional District is a Republican stronghold in Central Virginia. It covers more than two dozen counties and cities, with Charlottesville the reliably blue northernmost point in an otherwise deep-red district that stretches to the North Carolina border.

The Trump-endorsed former Virginia state senator successfully defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Good in last year’s Republican primary by 374 votes. But since Election Day, he has come across as entirely unwilling to meet with his constituents — in Charlottesville or anywhere else.

So far, the only opportunity McGuire’s constituents have had to ask their representative a question was during a 40-minute telephone town hall, where many callers who said they submitted questions were not permitted to ask them, and the majority of those that did were clear McGuire admirers.

Opportunities to bridge the gap are plentiful.

Each month, Congress breaks for recess to allow lawmakers to travel back to their districts and meet with their constituents. During the past two-week break which ended last Monday, McGuire’s visits were to safe, comfortably red areas, such as Lynchburg and the counties of Nelson and Amherst, and during the March recess, the counties of Mecklenburg, Amelia and Campbell. All five counties and Lynchburg carried McGuire and President Donald Trump to victory this past November, some by a margin of more than 50%.

The next recess is in three weeks and extends through May. McGuire has no planned events on his official website.

Some of his Charlottesville constituents have gotten to the point they now believe the only way to speak with him directly is to catch him off guard.

A few days before Saturday’s town hall, a volunteer with Indivisible Charlottesville, the local chapter of the national progressive movement which organized the event, caught McGuire by surprise and attempted to invite him to the town hall. McGuire is seen in a video posted to Indivisible Charlottesville’s Facebook page walking toward the S&P building entrance in downtown Charlottesville.

The video shows a woman approaching McGuire and two men. After a brief introduction, she dives right in.

“You haven’t come to see us, and we’ve invited you twice now, and you haven’t even given us the courtesy,” the woman says before McGuire cuts her off.

“No one has ever invited me,” he replies.

“We have a certified letter that your office signed,” the woman says.

“Did you guys see that letter?” McGuire asks, turning to one of the men.

“We haven’t got it yet,” the man replies.

McGuire and the two men keep walking as the woman tries to catch up to them.

“I’m sorry, I got to get in here,” McGuire tells her.

“So you won’t give us a reply?” the woman asks. “You won’t come to our town hall on April 26?”

“Representative? That’s a no?” she keeps calling. “You won’t come?” the woman asks before an S&P employee whisks McGuire into the building and shuts the door behind them.

‘Hiding is not helping’

The anger and frustration has been shared by layman and official alike.

In attendance Saturday were a handful of elected officials, including state Sens. Creigh Deeds and Ghazala Hashmi; state Dels. Katrina Callsen and Amy Laufer; Albemarle County Supervisor Mike Pruitt; and Charlottesville Councilor Michael Payne.

Lined up against a wall, some patiently waited their turn to offer words for McGuire — or rather, the life-size cardboard cutout that was his stand-in.

“I’ve been surprised by how much of a coward he is,” Pruitt said. “Not just because he’s not here with us. But because he keeps saying what he thinks we want to hear and not what he actually believes.”

One of the most “egregious” things about McGuire, Pruitt said, is that he constantly proclaims that he loves his constituents, a reference to McGuire’s telephone town hall in February in which he said again and again that he loves his constituents regardless of whether they voted for him or not. (McGuire did so again during his private meeting at S&P.)

“I’m a married man,” Pruitt said, “I know a little bit about love. I don’t think he’s saying that you love someone when you make their spouse unemployed, when you make their children hungry and when you make their parents sick.”

In February, McGuire voted in favor of a budget resolution that could cut billions from Medicaid over the next 10 years.

Laufer accused McGuire of not standing up to Trump.

“We’re here today because he’s not here and he refuses to stand up to protect our democracy from a president and his cronies who are tearing our country apart piece by piece,” she said. “But we’re not going away, and we are not going to be silenced.”

Laufer also lambasted McGuire for voting for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, which requires individuals to display proof of U.S. citizenship before voting in federal elections.

And on and on it went.

But it doesn’t have to keep going on like this, said David Singerman, one of the organizers of Saturday’s gathering.

Singerman told The Daily Progress that all McGuire has to do to gain the respect of his constituents is to show up.

“But hiding is not helping,” he said.

Source: www.dailyprogress.com