DCCC: Derrick Van Orden – insurrectionist, sexual harasser and bully

In case you missed it, Derrick Van Orden’s divisive record is making headlines again — this time for his inappropriate behavior, terrorizing teenagers in the district he wants to represent.

New reports detail that Van Orden was “irate” and “threatened” teenagers in Wisconsin after seeing a library display celebrating LGBTQ Pride month. Van Orden’s “shouting” and “aggressive” behavior even caused one teenager to tell her parents she “didn’t feel safe at work anymore.”

“Derrick Van Orden is an insurrectionist, sexual harasser of female service members, and now a bully who will stoop as low as threatening the very people he’s seeking to represent. Van Orden doesn’t hold Wisconsin values and he has no business representing the Badger State,” said DCCC spokesperson Elena Kuhn. 

READ MORE BELOW: 

AP: Library worker: Candidate was irate over gay books display

• A staffer at a southwestern Wisconsin library says a Republican congressional candidate threatened her over a gay pride display.

• Kerrigan Trautsch, a page at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library, told the La Crosse Tribune that Derrick Van Orden came into the library on June 17 and complained loudly about a display of fiction and nonfiction books about homosexuality in the children’s section. The display was part of the library’s efforts to recognize Pride Month.

• Trautsch, who was 17 at the time, describes herself as an advocate for the LGBTQ community. She said Van Orden was angry, and that he said the books offended him and that taxpayers shouldn’t have to see them.

• He was especially upset about the 2018 book, “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.” The 40-page book put out by John Oliver’s weekly HBO news show, “Last Week Tonight,” tells the fictional story of how Marlon Bundo, former Vice President Mike Pence’s real-life rabbit, marries another rabbit of the same sex.

• The Tribune obtained a written complaint that Van Orden filed with the library calling the book’s claims that same-sex marriage was illegal in the United States when it was written inaccurate. He also claimed the book was propaganda and was “skewing young people to think Republicans are not inclusive.”

• “His voice was loud, he was aggressive, he had his finger jabbing into (the book) constantly,” Trautsch said. She described the situation as “very uncomfortable, threatening.”

• Van Orden repeatedly demanded to know who set up the display so he could “teach them a lesson,” she said. She had set up the display but was too afraid of him to tell him, she said.

• “He was full on shouting at this point and he kept aggressively shoving the books around,” she said.

• Van Orden ended up checking out every book from the display except one a library patron was already reading, she said. She went home and told her parents that she didn’t feel safe at work anymore.

• “I was terrified that he would be outside, that there were be a collection of people outside waiting for me, waiting for anyone else,” she said. “We were terrified.”

La Crosse Tribune: Library staff felt ‘threatened’ after GOP candidate complained about Pride Month display

• Staff at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library said they felt threatened and intimidated after Republican congressional candidate Derrick Van Orden complained about displays celebrating Pride Month.

• Van Orden, who recently moved to Prairie du Chien, visited the library June 17 and began to “aggressively” question the pride display in the library’s children’s section, a staff member said in an interview last Tuesday, adding that Van Orden eventually obtained a library card and checked out all but one book from the display.

• “It was chaos,” said Kerrigan Trautsch, 18, of Eastman, who works as a page at the library. She spoke to the Tribune on behalf of her colleagues. She is a member of the LGBTQ community and was 17 at the time of the incident.

• Van Orden is running for a second time to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, a must-watch race in the upcoming midterm election as Republicans look to take back the House. He’s currently the only registered candidate in the race after longtime Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, announced he would retire.

• […]

• Each June, the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library library sets up a series of displays and programs for Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ community. It sat among other displays, including one for Dairy Month, celebrated in June as well.

• The displays included colorful posters and a mix of both fiction and non-fiction books on diversity, inclusivity and the LGBTQ community. The children’s display was placed on a small section of a table with rainbow paper lining it, and the library hosted a pride-themed chalk art event on the sidewalk in front of its building later that month.

• But toward the middle of June, the staff began to receive some pushback from the community, a city of about 5,500 people in rural Crawford County. Emails, calls and in-person complaints about the displays had put them on high alert.

• On June 17, Kerrigan was in a back room with a coworker when she began to hear “words being exchanged” out front between a man and another colleague.

• “I started to realize that his voice was starting to raise. So I walked out there to one of my coworkers and I started to realize that this is not a good situation,” she said.

• At the time, Kerrigan did not know that the man was Van Orden or that he was a congressional candidate.

• She described Van Orden as angry, and said he used words such as “disgusting,” adding that the books offended him and that taxpayers should not have to see the selection of books. He said the information in the books — many of them fictional picture books for children — was “incorrect,” Kerrigan recalled.

• […]

• “His voice was loud, he was aggressive, he had his finger jabbing into (the book) constantly,” Kerrigan said, describing the situation as “very uncomfortable, threatening.”

• After getting a superior involved, Kerrigan stayed nearby, suggesting books for Van Orden from the adult section about the LGBTQ community and diversity.

• “I had said that if I may speak to try to help, and he kept saying: ‘Hush, you don’t have a voice. You don’t have a voice,’” Kerrigan said.

• Kerrigan said Van Orden repeatedly “demanded” to know who set up the displays in the library so he could “teach them a lesson.”

• “I was the one who put up those displays,” she said. She was afraid to say this at the time because of his demeanor. “He was full on shouting at this point and he kept aggressively shoving the books around.”

• Van Orden then got a library card and checked out every book from the children’s LGBTQ display, aside from one that a patron was already reading, Kerrigan said.

• “We can’t really tell him that he can’t check them all out. We were very fearful that they would not return, that they would be damaged when they got back,” Kerrigan said. All of the books were returned unharmed within a week, she said.

• While he had the books, the children’s display “sat empty,” she said.

• Kerrigan recently graduated from River Ridge High School. She describes herself as a fervent advocate for the LGBTQ community. She said she rarely backs down from confrontation. But she said she went home after work that day angry and crying.

• “When I got home I told my parents: ‘I don’t feel safe at work anymore,’” she said.

• “It was very upsetting to have a kid who is never scared — she always says, ‘They’re not going to scare me, they’re just being a bully, whatever.’ For her to say, ‘I don’t feel safe at work,’” said Kerrigan’s mom, Rita Trautsch, “that was very scary.”

• Kerrigan said her fear was heightened because the library’s staff is almost all women.

• “I was terrified that he would be outside, that there would be a collection of people outside waiting for me, waiting for anyone else,” she said. “We were terrified.”

People: Wisconsin Library Worker Says Republican Candidate Threatened Her Over Gay Pride Book Display

• A Republican congressional candidate in Wisconsin allegedly confronted a teenage library worker over a book display marking Pride Month in June, creating a “very uncomfortable, threatening” situation.

• Library staff said the candidate, Derrick Van Orden, demanded that the display books celebrating gay Pride Month be taken down.

• “His voice was loud, he was aggressive, he had his finger jabbing into (the book) constantly,” Kerrigan Trautsch told the La Crosse Tribune about the June incident. Trautsch was 17 at the time of the incident.

• Library director Nancy Ashmore told PEOPLE that Van Orden came to the library three times that day – the first time he complained about the Pride book display, the second time he got a library card and checked out most of the books, and the third time he returned the books.

• “He’s one of several people who complained, but because he’s a politician, he got the most attention,” Ashmore said. “He was upset when he came in the first time. When he came back later in the day, he was much more reasonable and calm.”

• Van Orden, 51, is running for Congress in Wisconsin’s 3rd district, a seat currently held by Democrat Ron Kind. Kind defeated Van Orden in 2020; Kind announced that he will not run in 2022.

• Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL. Van Orden was on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol during the riot by Trump supporters on Jan. 6,  but has denied reports that he entered the Capitol itself.

• […]

• Trautsch, who identifies as as member of the LGBTQ community, said she was terrified after the encounter with Van Orden.