El Dorado County Democrats crowd Rep. Tom McClintock’s office to protest Trump and Musk

One hundred Democrats across El Dorado, Amador and Stanislaus counties descended on the El Dorado Hills office of Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, demanding an audience with his staff and protesting President Donald Trump’s recent actions.

Members of the newly established Indivisible El Dorado lined up outside McClintock’s second-floor office in El Dorado Hills’ Town Center just after 11 a.m. Friday morning. A private security guard briefly told the protesters that they had to leave.

“We have a right to be here!” McClintock’s constituents shouted in response.

Law enforcement officers with the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office allowed them to stay as long as they weren’t waving signs and actively protesting while in Town Center, which is private property.

Matt Reed, District Chief of Staff in McClintock’s Town Center office, welcomed constituents in groups of seven at a time, taking notes and listening to their concerns, as well as answering some questions.

One Amador County resident asked Reed whether McClintock will “support the constitution,” given Trump’s sweeping executive orders, such as the order ending birthright citizenship. Several attorneys general across the U.S. — including California AG Rob Bonta — have sued the Trump administration for violating the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects birthright citizenship.

“He’ll defend the Constitution,” Reed said of his boss, who has cemented himself as a Constitutional conservative and has, in the past, voted against censuring members of Congress whom he disagrees with, citing their First Amendment rights.

McClintock represents California’s 5th Congressional District, an enormous district encompassing parts of El Dorado County all the way down to the Central Valley; it includes major national parks such as Tahoe National Forest, Eldorado National Forest, and Yosemite National Park.

Many constituents voiced concerns over the Trump administration, bolstered by Elon Musk, firing more than 3,000 United States Forest Service workers — especially in a fire-prone region where seasonal forest workers are often trained in firefighting.

“We’re here to express our alarm at what’s going on with Elon Musk and Project 2025,” said Joel Ellinwood, with Indivisible El Dorado. “In particular what impacts our community, which is the impact of national forests and national parks.”

More than half of the land in McClintocks’ district is federally owned, Ellinwood said.

Musk, who is the world’s richest man, has been working for Trump as the head of DOGE, an unofficial agency tasked with cutting waste in the federal government.

Les Francis, a Cameron Park resident with a long career in U.S. government who served as President Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff, told Reed that he was concerned that McClintock is putting “ideology and politics over the needs of his constituents,” particularly where forests and forest management are concerned.

Lisa Parsons, who lives on 10 acres in El Dorado County and whose house was destroyed by the Caldor Fire in 2021, said she and her neighbors have huge concerns over the status of federal grants they receive to keep the surrounded area well-maintained and safe from wildfires.

“We still don’t have a longterm guarantee,” Parsons said.

Once constituents were out of McClintock’s office, they brought their signs to the corners of Latrobe Road and Town Center Boulevard.

“TRUMP LIES TO YOU,” read Rebecca Guinn’s sign.

Guinn, who lives in the “middle of nowhere” part of Placerville, voiced concerns about the extent to which she says Trump and Musk lie to the American people. She and her husband, a Republican who supported Nikki Haley’s presidential bid, are particularly worried about Musk’s influence on Trump. She cited Musk’s recent claims that millions of Americans are defrauding the Social Security Administration.

“Our system is becoming one where we can’t trust anything coming out of the Trump administration,” Guinn said. “We can’t make good decisions based on anything they say, and it’s undermining our government and it’s undermining our society.”

Those who showed up mostly wanted to ask why McClintock wasn’t more accessible to constituents.

The congressman will continue to host town halls over the phone, Reed replied.

This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 2:11 PM.