35 people in total, including 17 Democratic members of the House of Representatives, were arrested today for obstructing traffic during a sit-in protest for abortion rights in front of the Supreme Court.
Representatives AOC, Pressley, Katherine Clark (#4 in Democratic House leadership), and Tlaib were among those arrested.
I assume they will all make bail / be released on their own recognizance. Or even more likely, not charged at all. Can’t have the D.C. Capitol Police prevent Congresspeople from attending session.
~Max
Good for them. Leading by example.
I reiterate my belief that Republicans won’t like governing a recalcitrant majority once/if they succeed in grabbing minority power by manipulating our wretchedly unrepresentative electoral structures.
Ehhh, I can see why they did this, and why people like it, but I think it’s dumb. I am pro-choice and pro-protest, but the purpose of a protest is to demonstrate mass discontent to our representatives so that they can enact the changes we want.
We don’t need our actual legislators getting arrested on the streets. They’re legislators. They should be legislating! If they were in the minority without the ability to set an agenda, then maybe. But they’re not!
We have like 4 months left of a Democratic majority in the House. Every minute of it that isn’t spent whipping votes for actual legislation that Republicans have to take hard votes on (like they just did to protect same sex marriage) is wasted. Make every one of those fuckers stand up and vote to explicitly deny 10-year-old rape victims an abortion and see how their elections go.
And if you were in the majority (plurality) without the ability to set an agenda? All of the legislators arrested were Representatives in the House. The House already passed the bill, twice, but it’s dead on arrival in the Senate.
~Max
I was reading the point was being made US Capitol police were there to control and contain the peaceful protest, but on January 6th while the US Capitol was being overrun by insurrectionists, that was OK.
They’ve passed a bill that won’t pass the Senate. They should be passing individual bills establishing a floor for abortion rights that would split the House (like the same sex marriage bill did) and that might get a majority in the Senate.
How? The Republican fascists are filibustering literally everything.
It’s puts the Republicans on the public record if the bill does not pass the Senate. A very shrewd tactic come November.
Except if no vote is taken, there’s no “public record”. That’s the problem. I don’t know if it would take an amendment or if a law would suffice but it should be required that every bill passed by one house must be voted on by the other. Don’t like something, fine, vote it down, but enough of them being able to duck the hard choices.
The purpose of a protest is messaging. Full stop.
In this case, the representatives are sending a message to the voters: “We want change and Republicans do not. Vote appropriately.”
Someone has to vigorously protest the re-enslavement of women in this country. The Republican governments of the red states are nothing more than the Christian version of the Taliban. They are making decisions based on religion in a nation that touts freedom of, AND FROM, religion.
The House of Representatives is a truly democratic body because it is based on PEOPLE. More people have more representation. It’s called “majority rule”. The House of Lords - oops, I meant the Senate, is based blindly on “one state, two senators”, no matter what. So, Google “the badlands” and think, “two senators”. Then, Google New York and think, “two senators”. In effect, basically empty land has as much representation as an area teaming with people. This allows a radical minority to have much more power than it deserves to have. Since the Senate confirms Supreme Court nominees, it also allows them to subvert a 2nd branch of the government. That is where we are at right now.