Last week’s sit-in by House Democrats surely was, as Speaker Paul Ryan derisively dubbed it, a “political stunt.” So is much of what goes on in Washington. This, however, was something very much out of the ordinary—something genuinely unusual and risky, with unpredictable effects.
As a result, involvement among Democrats varied across a wide range. That variation was reflected in the nine Democrats from Massachusetts—ranging from Rep. Katherine Clark, who planned the sit-in, to Rep. Stephen Lynch, who opposed it for hours before finally joining in.
The immediate cause of the action, which began a little before noon Wednesday, was inaction on gun control legislation. But it was not difficult to see a broader frustration bubbling just beneath that surface issue.
Democrats have been the minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives for five-and-a-half years—nearly three full sessions, during which antigovernment Republicans have effectively neutered attempts to legislate, or even debate, the types of lawmaking many Democrats yearn for.
“This happened because the frustration levels just boiled over,” says Rep. Jim McGovern, from Worcester. Under today’s Republican leadership, he told me, the House has become a place where “trivial issues are debated passionately, and important issues not at all.”
Of course, to a large extent, that’s just the way things go. Unlike the Senate, where the minority party, and even individual members, have at least some tools at their disposal, House procedures are heavily tilted to the majority party’s leadership getting its way. Democrats’ current rage at the chamber’s inaction is no greater than House Republicans’ fury at House action in 2009-’10—when Democrats passed a flurry of bills on health care, financial regulation, pay equity, economic stimulus, and ocean management that became law, and others, including climate change, that stalled in the Senate.
That’s why this sit-in, attempting to essentially hijack the House until the Speaker gave in to the minority party’s demands, was such a provocative and risky stunt: If successful, it would set a new precedent for how any minority party, or even a portion of either party, could enforce its will on the body on any issue, at any time.
But it’s also why, despite that dangerous impropriety, it so quickly invigorated so many House Democrats—and why some veteran members were hailing it as their proudest day in Congress. The sit-in seemed to become, in a way, their atonement for five years of quietly acquiescing as Republican leadership prevented action on not only gun violence, but all of the nation’s priorities.
It’s unclear, from members and staffers, what Democrats will do when they return from the Independence Day recess. But, McGovern says: “It will not be business as usual here.”
As noted above, the nine members of the Massachusetts delegation—all Democrats—varied in their level of involvement. Here I rank them, for good or ill, depending on your view of the sit-in.
It was, really, her project—which makes it especially impressive that nearly the entire Democratic caucus followed into battle this congresswoman from Melrose who was sworn in just 30 months ago.
Of course, they were mostly following her co-conspirator, Rep. John Lewis, the legendary civil rights leader from Georgia. Lewis, from what I have been told and others have reported, pushed Clark to take bold action—and he was probably first to mention a sit-in—but Clark organized it, and held the preparatory meeting the night before in her office.
She is being rewarded with a flood of positive national press, and the obvious admiration of her Democratic colleagues. But make no mistake, this was risky business: If it had gone badly, Clark would have taken the bulk of the blame.
In that Tuesday night meeting in Clark’s office, Kennedy was one of a half-dozen members plotting the action and drafting the letter that would be sent to Ryan’s office in the morning. This was the core group who had been privately discussing their frustration over the lack of movement on gun bills: Along with Kennedy, Clark, and Lewis, the cabal included Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, and Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois.
(Cicilline was among the core half-dozen Democrats who put the plan in motion. Cicilline, just in his third term in Congress, has become a willing volunteer for lightning-rod duty, particularly where LGBT issues are involved—as an openly gay lawmaker, his participation helped to keep attention on the fact that the Orlando attack targeted homosexuals.)
When Kennedy rose to speak during the protest, he did not cite the famous examples of gun violence striking his own family. Instead, he read a letter from the widow of Dr. Michael Davidson, who was killed last year by a gunman at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It was one of many standout emotional moments of the evening.
When he got up to speak during the sit-in, Capuano of Somerville started by confessing that he had initially had reservations about the plan. This is not surprising; he has been close to leadership when Democrats were in power, and knows how much he would have disliked it from the other side.
Nevertheless, he fully committed to the idea from the start. Capuano was one of the 19 members who signed the letter to Ryan’s office, helped with the planning, and took part in the initial occupying of the well to begin the action.
Moulton, the first-term moderate from Salem, was not part of the planning. But he has been a big part of driving the issue of gun control—using his authority as a war veteran to great effect.
Moulton was one of the first members to join Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes in walking out of the moment of silence for Orlando victims the week before (Clark left as well), to protest the inaction on gun legislation. So, although not directly involved in planning the sit-in, he was a big part of pushing the envelope to encourage that type of bold action.
And he quickly threw his support behind the sit-in, and gave an impassioned speech on the House floor.
It’s no surprise that McGovern, a frequent protestor who has twice been arrested alongside Lewis, would end up in the middle of the sit-in. And indeed he did, immediately rushing to the floor to join
In addition to spending the night there, and giving two speeches, McGovern had a special role. A leading member of the Rules Committee, he was tasked with watching for Republican procedural shenanigans.
And those shenanigans came, McGovern says. For instance, late that night, when leadership interrupted the protest for a vote on Zika virus funding, they were technically bringing a rule to the floor for consideration. That should have entailed an hour of debate, traditionally split evenly between the parties. That would have allowed Democrats a half-hour of speeches, with cameras and microphones on, about their protest. But, Republican leadership denied McGovern’s request for debate.
“It’s unprecedented,” McGovern said. “I don’t ever recall a time when anybody was denied time to speak on a rule.”
Similarly, House leadership denied McGovern’s request to debate and vote on the call for adjournment—which Republicans announced in the wee hours of Thursday morning, hastening the Independence Day recess.
“We were hoping to have a debate on whether to adjourn, or at least a vote,” McGovern said, “so we could be on record saying we want to stay and work.”
Although McGovern was unable to stop Ryan, in both cases he raised the issues of parliamentary procedure as it was happening, to draw attention to the rules being broken. “This was a lousy, authoritative process,” he said. “Speaker Ryan used the most heavy-handed procedures to shut the House down and get out of there as fast as possible.”
Keating didn’t get his face made into a Politico cartoon of the event, as Clark and McGovern did, but he was an active supporter who spent a long stretch of time in the chamber with the protest.
In addition, he gave two powerful speeches, drawing from his experience as district attorney in southeastern Massachusetts to make the law enforcement case for gun control measures.
Neal, the veteran representative from Western Massachusetts, tends to play it relatively safe in his public activities, but he came quickly to support the sit-in. He joined the protest in the House chamber, gave a speech making the case for letting the minority party have its say on gun control, and tweeted a reminder that two of the Orlando victims—Stanley Almodovar II and Kimberly “KJ” Morris—were from western Massachusetts.
It’s hard to know exactly where to place Tsongas in these rankings: she did support the sit-in early, and spent a considerable amount of time on the floor. She also gave a short speech, although it was not one of the more memorable of the night.
When he finally joined the protest and rose to speak, the self-effacing Lynch immediately conceded that he had initially thought it was a bad idea. This was not a huge surprise to many of his fellow Democrats; Lynch had, after all, been publicly discussing the Orlando tragedy as an issue of international terrorism, not gun law.
However, unlike some holdouts from among the Democrats, Lynch did eventually come around to supporting the sit-in, and gave a strong speech on the floor.
