Hot Trend for 2005: Arresting consituents who want to express an opinion

Bully Boy ejecting people from gatherings? It's so 2004!

The Denver Three may get the day in their day in court in 2006 but the "hot" new trend for 2006 wasn't the Bully Boy ejecting you from speaking engagements, it was Republicans who caught this esprit de corps of the Bully Boy and applied it to their own interactions with the public.

We first learned of the "hot" fad when Kay Bailey Hutchison started cracking down on the public.

As North Texas Indymedia reported on October 25, 2005:

"The plan was to speak to the senator, our elected official, the woman that represents us. They ought to give us an opportunity to make our case." said Reverend Peter Johnson after being turned away from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's office by a cadre of police Tuesday afternoon in Dallas.
The group, led by Civil Rights leaders Reverend L. Charles Stovall and Reverend Peter Johnson, wanted to discuss with Senator Hutchison her opinion on the two-thousandth dead U.S soldier since the war in Iraq began. They were denied access on the grounds that the building in which the senators office is located is private property closed to the public.

Three reverends! How scary that must have been! What's a Republican to do? Call the cops!

(Fundies, next time it could be you!)

"Closed to the public." That's the phrase to pay attention to.

That's you, that's us.

But take note, we aren't welcome.

Well, it wasn't KBH pushing it, some of the doubters may say, she didn't call the shots!

Her office was acting on the orders of someone.

Mary Steffenhagen wrote of her experience with the senator's office for North Texas Indymedia.

The experience of being arrested was surreal. I couldn't believe an everyday VOTER was not only being questioned outside the building with a heavy police presence, but not being allowed entry at all.

Steffenhagen's problem was that she wanted something more than a "form letter" from the office. She wanted to raise an issue about Karl Rove. When she attempted to visit the senator's office, a protest (against the war) was going on outside:

I never got a chance to meet the people protesting because I was handcuffed, taken to jail, strip searched, held for 12 hours and finally released on $500 bail at 2am. Statements from the Senator's office defending this action proclaimed that there was a history of illegal activities against the Senator and that only those with appointments were being allowed entry during a protest.
Not only is this absolutely ridiculous, but it makes no sense. First, how is a constituent to KNOW that they must have an appointment to even walk in the building on days when there is a protest if they do not know there is a going to be a protest? Second, I was never offered the opportunity to make an appointment. I was told to leave or be arrested. Considering my tax dollars pay for her office, this was totally unacceptable. Third, this is still a free country; albeit barely. A law such as Criminal Trespass cannot be used against someone for a crime they *might* commit or the alleged crimes of those before her.
I am disgusted with the way I was assumed to be a criminal at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's office. Instead of apologizing for the horrible mistake, the Hutchison PR factory kept making up excuses to justify an innocent constituent going to jail. This situation could have been remedied immediately with a call from the Senator's office, but that call never came. Instead, I had to pay a lawyer to represent me. Although it never should have gotten that far, the prosecutor dismissed the case, "in the interest of justice" on December 6, 2005.

Don't dismiss it as "only in Texas." The fad's crossed over to the north.

In Bangor, Maine, on December 15th, 19 people were arrested. Their crime? Apparently wanting to register their objections to the war with either Senator Olympia Snowe or her staff:

Nearly 50 rally participants who were felt that Senator Snowe's letter did not address their concerns went to Senator Snowe's office hoping to talk by phone with Senator Snowe in Washington, DC, or to discuss Senator Snowe's position on the war in Iraq with her staff. At approximately 3:30 pm, the building manager at One Cumberland Place requested that the rally participants leave the building. Upon being told by an officer from the Bangor Police Department that they would be arrested for "criminal trespass" if they did not leave, all but 19 people left the building. At 3:45 pm officers from the Bangor Police Department and deputies from the Penobscot County Sheriff's Department arrested 19 people for "criminal trespass" and transported them to the Penobscot County where bail was set and 18 people were released.

As C.I. noted:

She's an elected official. If she's leasing space in a building that doesn't allow the public the access they need, she needs to break the lease and find new offices.

In Bully Boy's America, the hot new fad is for senators to decide who can be heard and who can't. Bully Boy sets the tone and they mistake themselves for movie stars who can't be bothered by their pesky public.

Something is seriously wrong here. Had they been attempting an act of civil disobediance such as occupying the offices of either senator, we'd applaud them for it. But they weren't trying to do that. They were merely wanting to convey their opinions and be heard.

But apparently the only opinion that matters the Republican Party these days is the one that parrots their own. No surprise, again the Bully Boy sets the tone.

What is suprising is that people attempting to express themselves to their elected representative find themselves ordered to leave and arrested.

Help us out here, because we're confused. Why do senators have offices in various locations in their home states?

We assumed it, wrongly?, that it was to stay in touch with their constituents.

Apparently, that's not the case; therfore, home offices must be some sort of fan club headquarters where you're welcome provided your only "concern" is telling the senator what a wonderful job you think she's doing. With regards to Kay Bailey Hutchison, even that can get you arrested because they're so very formal that walk-ins are not welcome. Not to speak with Queen Kay, because she's not there, but to speak with one of her staff. Riff-raff is simply not to be tolerated in the Court of Kay.

We see Kay Bailey Hutchison on TV and in print (she's a favorite of the New York Times reporters) and always manage to smile, usually laugh, because she's either popping her eyes so wide she looks like she's just had face work or she's squinting and grimacing (must think she sees a constituent approaching) and always she's wearing a tacky outfit that someone thought would show off her "softer" side. So while we found her behavior appalling, we weren't all that surprised that she would choose to emulate her blessed Bully Boy.

When Olympia Snowe, the so-called moderate, feels she and her staff too must be spared the hoi polloi (formerly known as "the voters"), this isn't an isolated happen-stance. It's a trend.

It's a sick trend. Sicking the cops on people who just want to express their opinions to the staff, is pretty damn sick and it demonstrates the lengths to which the Republican Party will go to avoid any opinion that wasn't shaped, molded and fed by their echo chamber.

The 19 arrested in Bangor, Maine go before the judge on January 20th. Watch to see if, as was the case for Mary Steffenhagen, the charges are dismissed. If the ACLU isn't already following this case, hopefully they will be by then.