What did John McGuire do this week? 4/19/25
The First 100 Days Edition.
April 17 marked the first 100 days of this Congressional session and Rep. John McGuire’s tenure representing the 5th district. 100 is an arbitrary number, but then, so are all anniversaries. And anyway it’s tradition—ask my wife how well the “anniversaries are arbitrary” argument goes over in our house—so I rounded up the accomplishments McGuire cited for his 100th and then made my own list.
What John McGuire says he accomplished in his first 100 days
Fine, though I’m not sure putting your name on a bill counts as a legislative accomplishment.
Helped “people all over the District regardless of party, race, religion, or creed.”
Representing the people you were elected to represent is not exactly a high bar.
“Worked tirelessly to secure over $127,989.43 back to #VA05.”
This could be a genuine accomplishment, but there’s too little info here to know for sure. What does it mean to secure money back to the district? Why is the number so specific?
Also, $127,989.43 works out to 16 cents per constituent. Don’t spend it all at once!
Held one town hall by phone, “reaching thousands of constituents.”
McGuire gets a bit of a bad rap on this one. Although I get why we want in-person town halls, he’s right to argue that more people can join by phone than in person, especially given the size of VA-5. No one’s driving 130 miles from Goochland to Danville for a town hall. Of course, if he really wanted to make himself accessible, he could hold multiple town halls all over the district and/or open more than one district office. So it’s a solvable problem. But doing it by phone isn’t crazy, I don’t think.
Sent 23,000 constituent letters and contacted federal agencies 60 times.
A classic case of mistaking output for outcome. Sending a letter isn’t an accomplishment. “Resolved issues for 200 constituents” would be.
Accomplishments he isn’t taking credit for
voted to cut Medicaid for 160,000 of his own constituents.
voted to reduce cash and grocery benefits for 110,000 low-income residents of the 5th district and for 27,000 veterans throughout the commonwealth.
was silent on the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate Title I funding, which helps low-income students at 109 schools in our district.
didn’t oppose the administration’s plan to eliminate Head Start, which helps 1,200 poor kids in VA-5 and 13,000 throughout Virginia.
didn’t object to President Trump’s attempt to seize control of elections, a power the Constitution reserves for Congress and the states.
endorsed President Trump’s order for the FCC to investigate CBS News for running stories that criticized him.
voted for a bill to keep trans girls from participating in girls’ sports.
introduced a bill to accelerate uranium mining throughout the country, though not in Virginia.
joined a briefing on cyber attacks where he didn’t ask why the Trump administration is making the U.S. more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
supported DOGE, which among many other things made us more vulnerable to tornadoes. (McGuire is a member of the DOGE caucus but chose not to feature any of its work in his First 100 Days roundup.)
was silent on the threat of 10,000 of his constituents losing their federal jobs.
stood by while an international student at UVa lost their visa without explanation.
didn’t reject President Trump’s notion of staying in office, in violation of the 22nd Amendment.
didn’t answer questions about whether he benefited financially from President Trump’s stock-market tips surrounding the chaos of Tariff Week.
endorsed a Dukes of Hazzard reboot. This time, the General Lee is a Cybertruck!
Indivisible’s Town Hall
The nice folks at Indivisible Charlottesville are hosting a town hall. They’ve invited Rep. McGuire, but the odds that he’ll show up seem low. It’s free to attend, but you’ll need to register so they can get a headcount.
Saturday, April 26 at 3 p.m.
MLK Performing Arts Center in Charlottesville
Correction
Last week I wrote that neither Mark Warner’s nor Tim Kaine’s offices responded to my request for comments on their votes to approve Trump’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I got that wrong—Kaine’s office did respond before my deadline. I’ve updated the post with his comment and have had a word with Apple Mail about why it ate the reply from his press secretary.
You may be interested in our exclusive today on Rep. McGuire