Michele Bachmann's House Call Nov. 5th, 2009

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good
On a beautiful fall day, thousands of people made the trek to DC from all over the country on just 6 days notice, to protest the Pelosi (and other) Health Care Bills. Theme for the day was "Kill The Bill." On my trip, via Atlanta, the Atlanta-DC leg had over 40 Delta employees using their travel privileges to come to the event. On the way and at the site there was such a spirit of friendship and comradeship that was heart warming. We all knew that we were participating in something special, although smaller, still as important as the 9-12 Saturday, as it showed our passion and ability to activate masses of people at short notice.
Energizing speeches by Michele Bachmann, Jon Voight, Mark Levin and John Raztenberger (Cliff from Cheers).
After the "Press Conference" on the Capitol steps, thousand of us moved into the Congress and Senate buildings, to meet our legislators, where possible, or to deliver notes of protest about these terrible bills. Also I was able to take a tour of the Capitol, as a relatively new citizen a special moment for me.
The Bad
late start of the event, over 20 minutes later than originally published.
A whole litany of Republicans wanting to ride the bandwagon, making speeches at us, rather than listening to us. This meant the event lasted at least three times longer than planned, and after a while was quite boring.
My Congressman (Alan Grayson) carefully avoided his office, although a couple of our people ran into him in a corridor. On trying to introduce themselves as constituents, he was very standoffish and pretty much ignored them.
A group of us waiting in his office for a pre-requested tour of the Capitol, got into a discussion with some of the staffers, who are most certainly Kool-Aid drinkers. While our discussion was passionate at no point was it threatening. yet all of a sudden Grayson's stormed out of an inner office, insisting that we should be quiet while waiting in a very rude way. When we reminded her for whom she and her boss worked (us!) she asked us to leave and threatened to call security if we did not.
Security throughout the Capitol building is very high and makes airport security look like a kindergarten. To visit the house floor visitor gallery we had to leave everything behind, you are not allowed to write, read or speak when there.
The Ugly
While we were in the Congressional office buildings a number of people were being arrested, as they were staging a sit-in at Pelosi's office and were tearing up the 1990 pages of the Pelosi-care bill. Even a 77 year old priest as manhandled out of the office, for refusing to give his full name (just Father XXXX).
I also heard a rumor that Grayson had another person arrested but cannot find any evidence of that. Perhaps our ejection had been magnified as it spread as folk-lore.
The final ugly item was, once in the visitor gallery of the house floor, to see how few legislators (about 30 out of 435) were actually present for the debate of whatever that day's business was (something to do with Homeland Security and chemical accidents). Not only do our legislators not read the bills, they do not listen to the debate either. Which probably means that 90% of the time they are just voting as the party tells them. And for that they earn a good six-figure income with majestic benefits. Nice work if you can get it!