Why Rep. Katherine Clark decided to lead the House sit-in
There’s something about combining Lewis and Clark that makes a formidable team.
After the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history last week, a frustrated Rep. Katherine Clark walked out of Congress’s moment of silence, which she called an “empty gesture” that wouldn’t prevent future killings.
“I just can’t sit by and have these moments of silence and have members of the House sending their heartfelt condolences after these horrific shootings, but then never acting,” Clark told The Boston Globe last week. “I don’t see that as respectful. Inaction is a choice.”
Wednesday’s dramatic protest, in which Democrats took over the House floor and vowed to stay there until they could vote on two gun-related bills, spurred directly from that frustration. The decision to hold a sit-in, a classic tactic of the civil rights movement, came after Clark spoke with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.
“I approached him on the floor to say how much I wanted to end the silence in Congress, that I couldn’t take any more moments of silence that weren’t followed by action on behalf of grieving parents and grandparents and the American public,” Clark said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “We have to do something. And John Lewis, in his way—incredible generous person that he is—said he wanted to do something dramatic and that he was in.”
Once Lewis lent his legendary stature to the effort, Clark said, other colleagues joined on and worked over the weekend to plan the protest. The plan was hashed out with a wider group of Congress members in Clark’s office, along with Lewis and Connecticut Rep. John Larson, according to Politico.
“So it may have been a conversation that I started with Mr. Lewis, but this is really on behalf of the caucus for the American people,” she said on MSNBC.
https://twitter.com/RepKClark/status/745787248478560256
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