Student activists in Massachusetts were so furious about the secretive passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act that they protested outside the office of their U.S. Representative demanding answers. And they got some. The headline in the local paper summed it up as “Animal protesters get results.â€
Shaun Sutner of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette noted that U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern is usually a solid progressive ally in the House, but was nowhere to be found when the “eco-terrorism†bill was rushed through the House: only six lawmakers were on the floor.
Sutner reports:
“We’re not protesting McGovern. McGovern supports us on a lot of progressive issues,†said Jennifer Burt, a Clark University senior and one of the organizers of the event. “We’re just asking him to introduce a bill to repeal this law.â€
By the activists’ account, they succeeded.
After meeting with members of Mr. McGovern’s staff inside his office about 1 p.m., the protesters were given a statement from the congressman pledging to work to overturn the measure, said Drew Wilson, a junior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute…
“The point of the bill is that it uses the rhetoric of terrorism to send a chill through the activist community,†he said.
There’s also a very fair news broadcast from NECN (New England Cable News), the largest regional news network in the country. The screen shots on this page are from the NECN broadcast on November 29th. (My personal favorite, in my own unbiased professional opinion, being the stunning and thoughtful “Green Is The New Red.â€)
Kudos to Drew, Jennifer and everyone else, and to the folks in McGovern’s office for working with them.
If others use similar tactics I wonder if we’ll see a “Member of Congress Terrorism Act,” to crack down on those extremists who have the audacity to hold lawmakers accountable.