DULUTH, Minn. — At rallies and meetings across the Northland held in protest of President Donald Trump’s cuts to the federal government, signs held by attendees and the speakers addressing them often return to a familiar theme: Where’s U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber?
The Republican from Hermantown has shrugged at calls to hold an in-person town hall, opting to continue his practice of telephone town halls instead, and when, or if, he does respond directly to the actions, he’s been supportive of Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk’s efforts to reshape and shrink the federal government.
Approximately 900 people attended a town hall Saturday organized by Practicing Democracy — a new group led by Jen Schultz, who ran as a Democrat and lost to Stauber in the last two elections, and Adrienne Dinneen — to address concerns people in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District have on Trump’s actions.
While Stauber was invited, he did not attend. An empty seat bearing Stauber’s name sat on stage at Duluth East High School’s auditorium throughout the event.
“He doesn’t care about working people,” state Rep. Pete Johnson, DFL-Duluth, told the crowd gathered six days earlier at a rally in Duluth against U.S. Postal Service cuts. “Everything he has done has been in lockstep with the administration. He has not stood up for anybody. He should be here and be held accountable for the people being impacted, whether he likes what they have to say or not.”
Stauber’s office did not respond to the Duluth News Tribune’s request for comment but told Northern News Now last week that the congressman was attending another event in the district Saturday, the day of the town hall, and “he will also not appear at any event that is organized by left-wing extremists and primarily attended by paid agitators who are more interested in manufacturing outrage than having meaningful conversations about policy.”
There is no evidence that most — or even any — of the hundreds of event attendees were paid.
According to a Facebook post by Stauber’s campaign account, the congressman was in Baxter on Saturday, speaking to Republicans.
Instead of in-person town halls, Stauber has relied on telephone town halls, as have other Republicans nationwide and in Minnesota. He held his most recent on March 24. When a caller asked him when he would have an in-person town hall, Stauber said he’d continue to hold the telephone events. He defended the decision by saying that it is more accessible for people throughout the 8th Congressional District.
“We’ve been doing them — telephone town halls — for six and a half years, and they’re popular,” Stauber said. “It allows the people to stay in the comfort of their own home, and I’m going to continue to do telephone town halls.”
His office said the town hall attracted 17,000 listeners. During the call, Stauber answered a dozen or so questions.
For many, it’s not enough. They want to see him push back against the Trump administration and Musk’s “DOGE,” especially on cuts that would affect his district.
At a March 23 rally in support of USPS employees and against proposed cuts and privatization of the mail service, Jim Barott, of Lakewood Township, stood in the crowd holding a sign that said “STAUBER is MIA.”
Barott said cuts to the USPS could threaten mail delivery to rural communities.
“That’s the rural areas (Stauber) represents, and he doesn’t care,” Barott said.
The next day, during his telephone town hall, Stauber fielded a question about the USPS but said, “Privatization is not going to happen with the Postal Service.”
However, the Associated Press reported that both Trump and Musk have entertained the idea of USPS privatization.
Stauber then sent a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Kentucky, urging the congressman to hold hearings on the USPS’ “inability to effectively serve rural America” and said the USPS was “facing severe staffing shortages, especially in rural areas.”
But he made no mention of the Trump administration or of former U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s plan to reduce USPS’ headcount by 10,000 through an early retirement program or DeJoy signing an agreement with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” to “assist us in identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”
The congressman has not addressed some potential cuts in his district at all.
Stauber, whose wife, Jodi, used to work at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Duluth lab, did not respond to the News Tribune’s request for comment in March on whether he supports the EPA reportedly planning to eliminate the Office of Research and Development, which includes the Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division Laboratory in Duluth, or if he is concerned about the potential loss of EPA jobs in his district.
John Morrice, of Duluth, who worked at the EPA lab in Duluth for 15 years as a research biologist studying Great Lakes ecosystems before he retired 12 years ago, told the News Tribune that Stauber should place as much importance on the lab’s 136 federal employees as he does on mining jobs.
“Pete Stauber talks about mining jobs like they are these sacred things and that jobs are so important and really supersede any other concerns — it’s jobs and ‘our way of life,’” Morrice said, referencing a slogan Stauber often repeats.
He added later, “If our way of life doesn’t include protection of the Great Lakes, well then, who are we?”
In the first two months of Trump’s second term, regular protests — several per week — have been held throughout the Northland against Trump’s cuts. Some have been aimed directly at Stauber, with up to hundreds gathered outside his Hermantown office. Others have been aimed at specific cuts — USPS, EPA, funding for research, among others. They show no sign of slowing down.
Local chapters of Indivisible, a national group that said it aims to “resist the Trump agenda,” are planning protests for April 5 in Duluth, Two Harbors and Cloquet. And Practicing Democracy, which said it is nonpartisan, said in a news release that it would continue to hold town hall events throughout the 8th District.
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