After a raucous day that almost erupted right into a fistfight, most people Republicans retook manage of the house within the predawn hours on Thursday, adjourned the chamber after forcing thru numerousunrelated measures and said there could be no greater votes till after the July 4 holiday. The protesting Democrats stayed at the back of and vowed to hold their protest.
rankings of Democrats had flooded the house floor at 11:25 a.m. on Wednesday and neverthelessoccupied it as of Thursday morning. They sat inside the aisles, regularly chanting and singing, and brought enterprise to a halt, worrying Republican leaders allow a vote on gun-associated rules after the June 12 capturing wherein a gunman killed 49 people.
“we’re going to hold the ground of the residence of Representatives … till we can get the majority to do their jobs and give us a vote,” representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz told CBS “This Morning.”
“It’s a cowardly act that they’ve not as a minimum allowed a vote,” said Wasserman Schultz, who heads the Democratic country wide Committee.
Such dramatic techniques via legislators are rare within the U.S. Capitol and the Democrats’ protest underscored how sensitive the gun control problem has come to be after the Orlando bloodbath andother mass shootings in Connecticut, Colorado, California and some other place in recent years. Itadditionally has emerge as a heated issue in the run-as much as the Nov. eight U.S. presidential election.
Democrats had been looking for votes on legislation to make bigger history exams for gun purchases, as well as measures to diminish the sale of weapons to human beings on authorities watch lists.
representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and a key figure inside the civil rights protests of1960s, led the house take a seat-in and stated the combat for gun regulations would cross on.
“today we’ve come a distance. we’ve made a few development,” he said. “we have crossed one bridgehowever we’ve other bridges to cross. And whilst we come back in July, we’ll begin all yet again. the yank humans, they need us to behave, they want us to do some thing.”
Republicans, angry approximately losing manipulate of the chamber for most of an afternoon, denounced the take a seat-in as a exposure stunt. Chaotic scenes ensued whilst numerous Republican representatives charged the chamber ground and yelled at protesting Democrats, prompting a disagreement that almostdescended into fisticuffs.
Republican residence Speaker Paul Ryan refused Democrats’ demands for action on gun manipulate, insisting he could not carry up any bill that might get rid of gun owners‘ constitutional rights.
alternatively he pressured votes on unrelated rules. Democrats held up signs and symptoms honoring gun violence victims at some point of the votes and sang “we will overcome,” the anthem of the civil rightsmotion.
Ryan called for decorum however ought to scarcely be heard over Democrats chanting “no bill, no smash!” to call for movement on guns earlier than the vacation recess.
“The house is centered on casting off terrorists, now not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,”stated Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee robust. “And no stunts at the floor will trade that.”
ECHOING THE SENATE
The Democrats’ circulate got here after final week’s filibuster by Senate Democrats to protest inactivity onguns in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting, the worst in modern-day U.S. records.
After the Senate speak-a-thon, the Senate’s Republican majority scheduled votes on 4 gun manage measures – all of which failed on Monday. work on a compromise is below manner.
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who joined the protesting house individuals for a while, advised CNN the chamber may want to have a vote on that invoice as early as Thursday.
Congress has now not handed fundamental gun manage legislation for the reason that 1994, with gun rights defenders saying such measures infringe the constitutional proper to undergo arms.
Pleading for motion on gun control, residence Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi invoked no longer bestOrlando however other mass shootings, consisting of an assault a 12 months in the past by means of a white guy at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed 9 humans.
“simply because they have left doesn’t imply we are taking no for an answer,” she said after Republicans departed.
further to Kaine, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker took element in the protest. Allthree have been stated as potential going for walks associates for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who voiced her help on Twitter. [L1N19E1HS]
Lawmakers also took to social media to document their demonstration with video and snap shots.
outside the Capitol, dozens of supporters accumulated in solidarity at a rally organized by way of the advocacy institution Everytown for Gun protection.
