DEMS SITTING THEIR GROUND
Members take to social media as C-SPAN feed shut down by recess
WASHINGTON — Fed up with Republican inaction on gun control, House Democrats, including nearly three dozen from California, shut down business as usual Wednesday with an old-fashioned, if highly unusual, sit-in that forced live television coverage of the chamber off the air and sent GOP leaders
“What is right, what is just for the people of this country? ... They have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence. What has this body done? Nothing. Not one thing.” — Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
scrambling for cover.
The scene, including chants of “No bill, no break!” was like nothing that has occurred in Congress in recent years, more reminiscent of the civil rights battles of the 1960s than today’s often predictably scripted debates.
But after the Orlando, Florida, mass shooting — and others in San Bernardino and Newtown, Connecticut — along with the Senate’s failure to advance gun ownership restrictions earlier in the week, Democrats said they’d had enough.
Shortly after the House gaveled in for a routine day of legislating, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., strode into the chamber, stood at a lectern and called on his colleagues to join him. Within moments, about two dozen lawmakers gathered around him as he spoke.
Then many sat, legs crossed, on the chamber’s blue-carpeted floor. By midafternoon, scores more had arrived to show their support, vowing to stay until they received a vote on gun-control legislation.
“I wondered, what would bring this body to take action?” thundered Lewis, who as a young man marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “What is right, what is just for the people of this country? ... They have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence. What has this body done? Nothing. Not one thing.”
Republicans, who control the House majority, declared the proceedings out of order and quickly called a recess, which automatically turned off the cameras that usually provide live coverage to C-SPAN.
But it hardly mattered. Lawmakers took to social media, tweeting and updating their status from the floor. San Diego Democratic Rep. Scott Peters posted live Periscope video that C-SPAN eventually began broadcasting.
“So why not turn on the House cameras?” Peters tweeted. “What is @PaulRyanPress afraid of?”
The Bay Area was wellrepresented at the sit-in.
Rep. Barbara Lee, DOakland, said House Republicans have continually blocked Democrats’ ability to pass gun reforms, preventing politicians from keeping Americans safe from gun violence. “We simply cannot allow this insanity,” she said in a statement later. “My constituents and people from all over our nation have been demanding action, but they are being ignored by the House’s Republican leadership.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell, DPleasanton, beseeched his Republican colleagues to listen to reason.
“All any victim’s family expects is that we do the most that we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. No one here on the floor thinks we’re going to reduce every instance of gun violence. But damn it, isn’t that why we came here — to try?” Swalwell said on the House floor. “We may not take evil out of every heart, but we are the place in the world ... where we can reduce the amount of weapons that are in evil hands.”
Two San Jose House Democrats, Mike Honda and Zoe Lofgren, also spoke on the floor. But Lofgren’s speech was briefly delayed when Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, shouted at the Democrats that radical Islamic terrorism was the real villain.
After Gohmert stepped aside, Lofgren called the sit-in an “extraordinary event.”
“We are here because we need to make our country safer,” Lofgren said. “The one thing that we all know when we come here is that our first obligation is to keep America safe, and that’s why we’re asking — actually, demanding — if you’re a terrorist, you should not be able to buy a gun. If you can’t get on an airplane, you should not be able to buy an assault weapon. That’s pretty easy.”
As the sit-in entered its sixth hour, lawmakers got more emotional. Members of the Florida delegation were brought to tears. San Bernardino Rep. Pete Aguilar’s voice broke as he spoke.
“Mr. Speaker, where the hell are you?” Rep. John Garamendi, D-Davis, yelled when it was his turn to speak. “Your chair is empty. I don’t believe your heart is empty.”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., who had spent the morning rolling out the latest flank of his “Better Way” agenda — ideas for replacing President Barack Obama’s health care law — called the protest “nothing more than a publicity stunt.”
“This is not a way to try to bring up legislation,” he said on CNN, adding that GOP lawmakers do not support the Democraticbacked legislation because it would put at risk Americans’ constitutional right to purchase guns.
By evening, after more than nine hours, House Republicans returned to the chamber and began attempting to end the sit-in by holding votes on unrelated issues. Democrats continued to push for a vote on the gun legislation, chanting, “Give us a vote!”
Protests in Congress can take different forms, such as the filibuster in the Senate and procedural votes in the House. During the 2008 summer recess, House Republicans held a similar protest against Democrats’ refusal to vote on GOP energy bills they believed would lower skyrocketing gas prices. During the 1995 federal government shutdown, Democrats refused to leave until services were restored after Republicans recessed.
House GOP officials noted that Democrats, when they controlled the House in 2008, also shut off the cameras.
“It’s worth noting that when House Democrats were in the majority, they not only shut off the cameras, they actually shut off the lights,” said a House GOP leadership aide who did not want to be identified.
Democrats face long odds of passing new gun restrictions with the House and Senate controlled by Republicans and the National Rifle Association opposed to most of the bills that have been proposed.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, led supporters and activists to the steps of the Capitol for a news conference. “People are tired of moments of silence,” Pelosi told reporters, saying a “spark” has happened with the Orlando shooting and lawmakers are determined and emboldened. “It’s not going to go away until we get reasonable legislation.”