Jobless Take Their Grievances Directly to Congress | NationofChange

Amer­ica's un­em­ployed work­ers brought their mes­sage of frus­tra­tion and de­spair di­rectly to the U.S. Capi­tol on Tues­day as they filled the con­gres­sional of­fices of dozens of law­mak­ers and re­fused to leave until they met with their elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives.
The sit-in style con­fronta­tions were the open­ing salvo of a three-day protest event dubbed "Take Back the Capi­tol," which is spon­sored by a coali­tion of pro­gres­sive or­ga­ni­za­tions.
The groups want Con­gress to pass Pres­i­dent Barack Obama's jobs bill, ex­tend the fed­eral pay­roll-tax break for work­ing Amer­i­cans and ex­tend the fed­eral emer­gency un­em­ploy­ment-in­sur­ance ben­e­fits that are slated to ex­pire Dec. 31.
While the protests over­whelm­ingly tar­geted Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers who op­pose the Obama jobs plan, the groups also vis­ited with lead­ing con­gres­sional De­moc­rats such as Rep. Heath Shuler of North Car­olina and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mi­nor­ity Whip Steny Hoyer of Mary­land.
Un­daunted by a steady morn­ing driz­zle, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers emerged from their "tent city" on the Na­tional Mall and trekked to the Capi­tol, where they made good on their promise to "swarm the halls" and track down mem­bers of Con­gress to de­mand com­mit­ments on their pet is­sues.
"If they don't pass the jobs bill, we will get rid of them," said Oliver Hen­dricks, an un­em­ployed iron­worker from Boston who was among 250 Mass­a­chu­setts res­i­dents who came to protest.
As the Mass­a­chu­setts group made its way through the Mall chant­ing, "We are the 99 per­cent," Hen­dricks said he was anx­ious to chal­lenge Mass­a­chu­setts Re­pub­li­can Sen. Scott Brown's op­po­si­tion to the pres­i­dent's jobs bill and Brown's pre­vi­ous vote against ex­tend­ing job­less ben­e­fits.
"He has voted against every bill that would help us," said Hen­dricks, who hasn't found work since he lost his job in March 2010.

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Hen­dricks, 56, said he'd lost his home of 16 years to fore­clo­sure re­cently when the bank backed out of a loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion plan with­out no­tice and then tried to auc­tion off his prop­erty. He re­mains in the home while he chal­lenges the ac­tion in court, but he must pay monthly rent to the bank until his ap­peal is re­solved.
The cri­sis is test­ing his met­tle. "I'm a Chris­t­ian and I'm liv­ing only by the grace of God," Hen­dricks said. "I'm fight­ing for every­thing right now. I'm fight­ing for my life."
In many of the of­fice meet­ings with GOP law­mak­ers, staffers were po­lite but dis­mis­sive, telling pro­test­ers that the con­gres­sional rep­re­sen­ta­tives or sen­a­tors they sought were out of the of­fice or too busy to meet with them. At that point, most pro­test­ers de­cided to oc­cupy the of­fices or camp out until the law­mak­ers showed up.
Capi­tol Po­lice ar­rested at least one pro­tester for un­law­ful entry at the of­fice of Rep. Vicky Hart­zler, R-Mo.
About 40 pro­test­ers faced "strong op­po­si­tion" from staff at Cal­i­for­nia Re­pub­li­can Rep. Dar­rell Issa's of­fice be­fore se­cu­rity es­corted them away, said pro­tester Rikki Bradley, a Cal­i­for­nia state em­ployee with the De­part­ment of Hous­ing and Com­mu­nity De­vel­op­ment.
The staff for Rep. Dan Lun­gren, R-Calif., was much more hos­pitable, Bradley said. Lun­gren emerged from his of­fice after sev­eral hours and shook hands with the re­main­ing four or five pro­test­ers who'd de­cided to wait for him.
When pressed on his vot­ing record, Lun­gren said he'd voted for nu­mer­ous bills to cre­ate jobs in Cal­i­for­nia, Bradley said.
"Then we asked, 'What about the ex­ten­sion of un­em­ploy­ment ben­e­fits?' to which he turned around and walked out. He made a left out of the of­fice and kept going," Bradley said. "We were sur­prised he even talked to us, but we felt like he just heard us. He didn't lis­ten."
When 40 peo­ple showed up at Florida Re­pub­li­can Sen. Marco Rubio's of­fice, they de­clined of­fers to meet with the sen­a­tor's se­nior staff mem­bers.
"The staff has al­ways promised us that they'll get back to us and the sen­a­tor will even­tu­ally meet with us. This has gone on for months. We want to meet with the sen­a­tor now," said Jose Suarez, a spokesman for 1Mi­ami, a coali­tion of pro­gres­sive grass-roots or­ga­ni­za­tions.
"One hun­dred fifty peo­ple got on buses, took time out of their lives, left their fam­i­lies back in Miami for 18 hours to come and do this today, so we're not going to meet with any­one but the sen­a­tor," Suarez said. At 6 p.m. Tues­day, the group was still wait­ing. Suarez said they'd re­turn Wednes­day.
John Reat, 62, from Wor­thing­ton, Ohio, was among the 40 or so who were camped out out­side the of­fice of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, just off the Capi­tol Ro­tunda. Since he lost his in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy job in De­cem­ber 2009, Reat has re­ceived un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance ben­e­fits. But they'll ex­pire next month un­less Con­gress agrees to ex­tend the fed­eral emer­gency ben­e­fits.
Be­cause his wife still works, Reat's fam­ily isn't in dire fi­nan­cial straits. But as one of the face­less "99 per­centers," Reat said it was im­por­tant to come to Wash­ing­ton to make his voice heard.
"I just got up off my couch and said, 'I've got to say some­thing,' " Reat said. "I'm part of the 99 per­cent who play by the rules. We pay taxes. We save for re­tire­ment. But the 1 per­cent is play­ing fast and loose with the mort­gages, fast and loose with the re­tire­ment plans, and fast and loose with the jobs. And this just sim­ply has to stop. It can't con­tinue this way."
The protest ac­tiv­i­ties con­tinue Wednes­day, when the group walks to K Street to protest the po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence of cor­po­rate lob­by­ists. On Thurs­day, it'll host a na­tional prayer vigil for the un­em­ployed on Capi­tol Hill.

Jobless Take Their Grievances Directly to Congress | NationofChange