How NOT To Represent Your District

Apparently Perriello flunked Civics 101. Instead of respecting their Constitutionally respected rights he is acting like a strunz & trampling on their rights as well as the Constitution that was written to protect those rights. Perriello might want to pay attention to what the 1st Amendment says about freedom of speech, as well as the right of the people peaceably to assemble & the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Editorial: Thomas Perriello's Dirty Politics

Sometimes it requires a focused, local eye to get the big picture.
In this telling scenario, the big picture has come into clear focus in the small town of Danville, Virginia, where the local Tea Party movement has become the scorn of the politics-as-usual liberal leadership—specifically freshman Representative Tom Perriello, a Democrat “representing” the 5th District of his state.
As chronicled extensively by the ALG News Bureau, the Tea Party movement is a nationwide, patriotic grassroots effort aiming to beat back the tide of liberal policies that seek to grow government and simultaneously squelch individual freedom. Nigel Coleman of Danville is one of those patriots spearheading the movement.
Eager to participate in the American right of public discourse, Mr. Coleman and other concerned Tea-Partiers attended a local town-hall forum on environmental issues hosted by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Representative Perriello. Rather than having their questions answered, Mr. Perriello ignored Mr. Coleman’s group and called upon big business owners, familiar faces, and those in “reserved seats”. Some of those questioned even admitted to having been contacted earlier and informed that they would be called upon to ask their so-called “real questions.”
Clearly upset at being ignored, the patriotic crew retrieved some signs from their cars and began to protest outside of the farcical town-hall meeting. Mr. Coleman and his group were immediacy confronted by law enforcement and ordered to leave the public meeting—to which they politely complied.
After leaving, the group met up at a nearby restaurant to discuss the situation and decide how they should proceed. As they soon noticed, an unmarked police car was spotted in the parking lot and an officer was recording and calling in Mr. Coleman’s and the others’ license plate numbers.
Shifting from merely upset to outright livid at what was intimidation tactics plain and simple, the Danville Tea Party issued a press release voicing their disgust. And they have a right to be disgusted.
Not only has Representative Perriello displayed his disdain for free speech and opposing voices, he has gone a step further and aggressively sought to punish it. It is a tried-and-true despotic practice that has no place in America.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Perriello already has quite a track record of opposing free speech and public dissent. As ALG News Bureau has previously reported, Mr. Perriello came under fire in a National Republican Congressional Committee ad criticizing the Representative for voting in favor of a Cap-and-Trade system that would make electricity rates “skyrocket.”
Angered by the ad, Mr. Perriello contacted local television stations and demanded that the ad be removed from television circulation or drastically altered. And that, of course, is what is known as censorship.
Simply put, Tom Perriello is one small—but very telling—example as to why the hard left in America cannot be trusted. All too often, they show nothing short of contempt for open and honest discourse and routinely trounce the rights of the American people in favor of advancing their Big Government agendas. Hopefully others around the nation will follow Mr. Coleman’s examples, pick up their signs and start voicing that public dissent that those on the left so voraciously despise.
Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once famously said, “All politics is local.” In the ease of one Thomas Parriello of Danville, Virginia, that might be better read, “All dirty politics is local.”

Nigel Coleman et al are not letting their rights be trampled by someone who would rather tear up the Constitution than live by it. I applaud those efforts. Perriello is acting just as arrogantly as King George & Parliament did back in the 1700s. Periello might do well to remember that Virginia was 1 of the leading states in the fight back againt that bout of tyranny. Otherwise he will end up on the same side of the historical ledger as they did.

Here is a news release I received from Mr. Coleman:

For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Contact: Nigel Coleman 434-549-2853

Danville TEA Party leaders ask Attorney General to investigate use
of state police, county sheriff's deputies to harass Perriello critics

DANVILLE, Va. – Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., may be using the state police and local law enforcement to harass and intimidate citizens who have publicly expressed opposition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trillion-dollar health care reform legislation, a local TEA Party leader charged Tuesday in a letter urging state Attorney General Bill Mims to conduct a formal investigation.
Danville TEA Party chairman Nigel Coleman told Mims that Virginia State Police officers Monday came unannounced to the home of another member of the group to question him about attending a town hall meeting Saturday in Blairs which featured Perriello and two Obama cabinet secretaries.

"All Americans should be concerned when a congressman uses the state police to intimidate citizens and suppress dissent against a government takeover of our health care.," Coleman said. "No American should have to fear that the police will show up at his door because he's dared publicly disagree with some politician's political agenda."

Saturday, Coleman and other TEA Party leaders were refused an opportunity to ask Perriello a question during the event, and then were instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property when they attempted to display signs urging the congressman to follow the Constitution and oppose Pelosi's "socialized medicine scheme." Coleman said he and the others peacefully complied, but were followed to a restaurant by an officer in an unmarked car, who then exited his vehicle, walked over to the activists' cars, and called in their license plate numbers over the phone.

Coleman said he contacted Perriello's Danville office Monday to request a meeting with the congressman to protest the police intimidation tactics used at the event and to ask why he and other TEA Party activists were told to leave.

Perriello's staff refused the request for a meeting, Coleman said, while assuring him that the office understood that he and other local TEA Party activists pose no threat to the congressman.

"First, I was disappointed at Saturday's event that Congressman Perriello refused to take hard questions from his constituents about where he stands on Nancy Pelosi's trillion-dollar socialized medicine scheme," Coleman said. "But I am outraged by the police intimidation tactics that have only escalated since."

"Now, as of Monday, Rep. Perriello refuses to even meet with us, while the police treat constituents who are simply exercising our Constitutional free speech rights as if we're terrorists," Coleman said.

"Citizens have the right to schedule a meeting with our elected officials whose salary we pay. Rep. Perriello needs to stop refusing to meet with us to answer the tough questions, and help us stop local and state police from suppressing our First Amendment free speech rights," he said.

Coleman organized two recent TEA party rallies, one on July 4th and another on July 17th at Perriello's Danville office to protest the upcoming socialized healthcare bill.

Coleman noted that at a similar TEA Party protest outside Perriello's Charlottesville office Friday, police appeared to order an estimated 60 local taxpayers to leave the parking lot. As reported Friday on the blog of The Schilling Show, a Charlottesville talk radio program:

"Approximately forty minutes into the event, Charlottesville police were called to the parking lot area. Unconfirmed reports from the scene tie at least one of the complaining phone calls directly to Congressman Tom Perriello's office staff. While the attending police officers (professionally and politely) compelled the gathered crowd to disperse, rally attendees grumbled at the prospect of their own congressman's office terminating their First Amendment free speech protest."

Attachments:
Letter from Nigel Coleman to Attorney General of Virginia, July 22, 2009.