Speech ‘guests’ score political points
Notables include a GM autoworker, a veteran and a 14-year-old advocate
WASHINGTON — For the past year, Dave Green has been catapulted into the public eye as the face of some 1,500 union workers fighting to keep their jobs at GM Lordstown in Ohio, after the company announced it would shutter the assembly plant after a half-century of production.
Reporters from across the country swarmed Mr. Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, for months as he tried, unsuccessfully, to negotiate with General Motors to keep the assembly plant open.
After GM ceased operations at the plant last March, President Donald Trump attacked Mr. Green on Twitter, saying the “Democrat” union leader “ought to get his act together and produce. ... Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment!”
On Tuesday, Mr. Green took his personal story to the cameras — and to Mr. Trump — in the hours leading up to the president’s annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.
“When you hear about how great the economy is, I hope that Americans recognize that it’s really not that great,” said Mr. Green, speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill. Mr. Trump “came to our community, made promises, betrayed the workers and hasn’t lifted a finger.”
Mr. Green was among the hundreds of guests invited by lawmakers to attend the nationally broadcast speech, where the president is expected to tout his policy agendas and outline goals for the coming year. It’s a rare moment for which lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and Washington dignitaries will gather before and after the speech in the U.S. Capitol.
With the 2020 presidential election nine months away — and with Mr. Trump on the verge of acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial — the guests this year serve an outsized role beyond taking seats in the House chamber. Lawmakers, by inviting people who have made a mark on their districts and states, hope to bring national attention to their issue or cause.
“It’s the ability for us to make a statement to a lot of people in one place,” said
Will Attig, executive director of the Union Veterans Council, a branch of the AFL-CIO that represents 1.2 million unionized veteran workers.
Mr. Attig, a U.S. Army veteran from southern Illinois, was invited by Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon. Mr. Attig said he connected with Mr. Lamb, a Marine Corps veteran, as he was building apprenticeship training programs for veterans across the country, including in the Pittsburgh region.
“We want to encourage veterans to find purpose,” Mr. Attig said, while breaking through the partisan divides. He said he was not focused on Mr. Trump’s speech as much as spreading his message. “We’re here to do work, and that’s what we want to talk about.”
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., invited M’kiyah Martin, a 14year-old gun reform advocate from South Philadelphia whose cousin was shot and killed in 2018.
“I am hopeful that M’kiyah’s attendance will remind others in Washington of the grave task we have at hand,” Mr. Casey stated, to prevent gun violence and also ensure survivors have resources.
Other guests carried a less pointed political message.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, invited Mona Pappafava-Ray, CEO of Hempfield-based General Carbide Corp., who recently won a regional entrepreneur award.
“What an amazing thing to be right there,” Ms. Pappafava-Ray said in a phone interview. She added Mr. Trump’s tax cut had helped her company expand facilities and give bumps in workers’ pay.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., brought Joe Topper, chairman of CrossAmerica Partners, a petroleum distributor based in Allentown, Lehigh County. Mr. Topper declined to be interviewed but released a statement through a spokesman saying he appreciates “everything Senator Toomey has done for the state of Pennsylvania, and I look forward to a positive message from the president.”
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, hosted an old friend from high school and college, Terry Hanratty, who played quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, did not have a guest.
The GM Lordstown plant closing sent economic shockwaves across Northeast Ohio. The plant, opened in 1966, was larger than life in Lordstown, a village of 3,000 people that was effectively built around the plant. “It feels like we’re all going to a funeral,” a school board member told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year.
But GM Lordstown also served as a political cudgel.
Mr. Trump campaigned in 2016 on reviving American manufacturing in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. During a 2017 rally in nearby Youngstown, Mr. Trump promised the crowd he would bring back jobs to the Mahoning Valley, where the steel industry collapsed decades ago. “Don’t move,” he declared. “Don’t sell your house.”
When GM announced the closure of the Lordstown plant, Mr. Trump pressured GM CEO Mary Barra to change her mind. But GM went ahead with its restructuring, saying the demand for small cars had dried up.
Mr. Green, like so many other GM Lordstown workers, decided to move to another plant. Last August, he began work at GM’s aluminum die-casting plant in Bedford, Ind., about a 90-minute drive south of Indianapolis.
“President Trump came to the Mahoning Valley and talked about: ‘Don’t sell your house’ [and] ‘all these jobs are coming back,’” Mr. Green said. “So we waited, and that didn’t happen.”
“A lot of brothers and sisters, and friends of mine, are now living in two different states, two different locations, trying to pay mortgages in two different places,” he said. “It’s very difficult.”
“I’d like him to talk about what happened in Lordstown,” Mr. Brown said, as he answered reporters’ questions alongside Mr. Green.
Mr. Trump, for his part, invited 10 guests to his speech, including Janiyah and Stephanie Davis from Philadelphia who will be calling attention to Mr. Trump’s interest in expanding charter schools.
Janiyah Davis is a fourthgrade student who “has been assigned to low-performing schools,” the White House stated in a press release. Her mother, Stephanie, is “hoping for the expansion of school choice to be able to send Janiyah to a school that best serves her needs.”