The chief of the minority of the Hakeem Jeffries room, DN.Y., and Senator Cory Booker, DN.J., welcomed hundreds of supporters in the Capitol on Sunday, sitting on the steps to protest the push of the Republicans to adopt a bill of budget reconciliation that they hope will reduce 1.5 billion of dollars in federal expenses.
“This bill, we think, presents one of the greatest moral threats to our country that we have seen in terms of what it will do to provide food for hungry, care for the elderly, services for the disabled, health care, health care for patients and more,” said Booker at the start of the sit-in.
Democrats have warned for months that the Budget Plan of the House Republicans would lead to more than $ 880 billion in Medicaid cups, a federal program that provides health insurance to low -income families.
Booker and Jeffries spoke at the start of the sit-in, which started around 6 am, their religious education, saying that they would generally attend the services on Sunday morning, but rather organized the conversation on the stems of the Capitol.
“Martin Luther King said:” Budgets are moral documents “, and this is the spirit we come here this morning,” said Booker before asking the supporters to join the two men online or in person.
The New Jersey senator called on the supporters to “give your own testimony to your moral emergency that you feel, perhaps your religious traditions or your moral traditions that are currently motivating you to speak, perhaps share your story of what the threat of this bill makes you and your life.”
At the start of the day, Jeffries also stressed that they were organizing the Booker’s birthday. After wishing a happy birthday to the senator, the chief of the minority said to him: “I am sure that you do not expect last year, when I thought of this anniversary, that I would be your birthday at this place, but of course, this is the moment when we are.”
Jeffries also brought a message to the republicans of the house, saying: “Enough. It is not America. We will continue to introduce ourselves, speak and get up until we finish this national nightmare. ”
Before Monday, when the legislators of the congress return from a two -week recreation, Jeffries said that the Democrats were preparing to face “an existential struggle to defeat republican efforts to try to blur a very daring budget in the throat of the American people”.
Dozens have joined Jeffries and Booker on the steps of the Capitol, where they sat under the sun for more than nine hours speaking of their religious traditions and the next budgetary fight.
Some were basic supporters of Congress Democrats, while others were increasingly profane progressive leaders, such as Maya Wiley, president and chief executive conference on civil and human rights.
“The cuts (budgetary), when we talk about cuts, people bleed and we have to put names behind them,” Wiley told the crowd. “You know, Sarah in southern Dakota had a son who has convulsions one to five times a day, had to leave his job to try to save his son. It is Medicaid who helps pay his health care to do so. Or jasmine in Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, with two children, who took care of other people.
Several religious leaders and colleagues Democratic legislators, such as Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., Senator Angela Alsobrooks, D-MD., And Senator Chris Coons, D-Del., Also spoke during the sit-in, which was still in progress on Sunday afternoon.
Booker is no stranger to speak for hours opposed to the Republicans and the Trump administration.
Earlier this month, he was held on the Senate soil and spoke for more than 25 hours against the Trump administration, breaking the record for the longest speech in the history of the Senate.
