Democrats carried a remarkable US House of Representatives floor sit-in into a second day, disrupting the business of the US Congress with demands for a gun-control vote in an unruly scene broadcast live to the world.
Republicans branded the move as a publicity stunt before summarily adjourning the chamber until after the July 4 holiday.
Even after the House adjourned at about 3:15am yesterday, and Republicans streamed to the exits, Democrats stayed on the House floor, shouting: “No bill, no break” and waving papers with the names of gun victims written in black.
Photo: AFP
US Representative Maxine Waters said she was ready to stay “until Hell freezes over.”
Gradually, the Democrats began to wind down their protest, but a core group lingered, some wrapped in blankets or resting on pillows.
With a crowd cheering them on from outside the Capitol and many more following the theatrics on social media, Democrats declared success in dramatizing the argument for action to stem gun violence.
“Just because they cut and run in the dark of night, just because they have left, doesn’t mean we are taking no for an answer,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.
“We won’t stop until the job is done,” the Californian told fellow Democrats camped out in the well of the House in the early hours of the morning, saying the party had changed “the dynamic of what happens” concerning guns.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the public should not be happy with a Republican majority that shut down the House and disregarded “the unfinished business of the American people.”
Republicans fiercely resisted the Democratic pressure, saying their colleagues had accomplished nothing other than disrupting the business of the House to score political points.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called it “a publicity stunt.”
US Representative John Lewis, who had participated in the civil rights sit-ins in the South in the 1960s, said Democrats had “crossed one bridge.”
However, he added early yesterday: “We have other bridges to cross.”
He said Democrats “made a down payment on ending gun violence” in the US.
Pelosi said Democrats “have changed the dynamic of what happens” on guns.
Pressure had been building on both sides of the Capitol in the wake of the shooting rampage at a Florida gay nightclub earlier this month that killed 49 people and injured 53 others. The assailant also died in the incident. The mass shooting followed similar tragic incidents over the past years including the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
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