How Democrats mounted their gun legislation sit-in.

[pnwmom]

The Senate has the filibuster, and Chris Murphy bent filibuster rules to apply it not to block legislation, but to try to force a vote.

Nancy Pelosi asked Steve Israel (D-NY) to come up with a list of ways to force the vote in the House.

After John Larson, (D-CT), decided to find out what the rules were from the House parliamentarian, he, John Lewis (D-Georgia) and Katherine Clark (D-MA) led the effort we are seeing now.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/democrats-sitin-gun-control-224687

Connecticut Rep. John Larson skipped the rare session with his party’s presidential hopeful for a face-to-face with the House parliamentarian. Larson had an obscure question about House rules: What would happen if he and a bunch of his colleagues took to the House floor to stage a sit-in protest, effectively shutting down the House?

Larson was told that it was an “unprecedented instance that was hard to know what the response would be.” It was assumed the raucous Democratic protest would force Republicans to adjourn the House, which is exactly what happened.

As Democrats on Capitol Hill struggle to push new gun control measures in the face of overwhelming GOP opposition, Larson and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) — with the blessing of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats — wanted to do something dramatic after the massacre in Orlando.
And Wednesday’s protest was nothing if not dramatic — an escalation of tactics by a virtually powerless minority that amounted to guerrilla warfare to force action on an issue. Longtime House watchers hadn’t seen anything quite like it in many years, if at all.

SNIP

So Larson and Lewis and a handful of their colleagues decided to copy a GOP tactic from when Republicans were in the minority in 2008: Get dozens of members to go on the floor and refuse to leave. Demand action or say they won’t let the House adjourn in mid-July. Block the House from any business until Republicans give in.

[livetohike]

1. K&R

[Nitram]

2. K&R

[gordianot]

3. In the political world silence does not work.

[mountain grammy]

4. K & R

[Raster]

5. And there you have it... like most successful efforts, it was a small group that organized...

... and forged ahead. So in essence, the ORIGINATOR of the sit-in was Nancy Pelosi, a white woman. The original "facilitator" was Rep. John Larson, a white man, who formulated the idea, and actually spent time with the House Parliamentarian to formulate strategy and then brought in Reps. Clark and Lewis, a white woman and a black man, who organized their House colleagues, and acted as the floor leaders of the sit-in. EMPHASIS: it was a group effort.

Thanks to all of the leaders of the House sit-in effort for making and forcing the point about gun violence.

Now, my opinion: The recent Democratic Primaries and the candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders has helped bring Democrats to their "come to Jesus" moment, helping them realize that THEY -the Democratic members of Congress- do not have to put up with the Congressional "how it's always been done" status quo.