The House adjourned until July 4 around 3:15 a.m. Thursday after Republicans dealt with a bipartisan bill on the Zika virus and Democrats remained in a 1960s-style sit-in on the chamber floor to demand a vote on gun-control measures in the wake of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Republicans moved to adjourn immediately after the Zika vote as Democrats denounced the plan as “a failure to lead,” citing funding levels and women’s health provisions that fell short of what they wanted.
AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, said the House “is focused on eliminating terrorists, not [the] constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that.”
Hours earlier, the protest led to remarkable scenes in the people’s chamber, as Mr. Ryan tried to hold a vote amid shouts from Democrats mere feet away from the podium.
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, an icon of the civil rights movement, led dozens of fellow Democrats to the front of the chamber for the protest early Wednesday afternoon.
“Where is our moral leadership?” Mr. Lewis said. “Where is our soul?”
SEE ALSO: C-SPAN uses social media feeds to cover protest
In particular, Democrats wanted GOP leaders to schedule a vote on legislation that would prevent suspected terrorists on the nation’s no-fly list from buying firearms.
“We truly believe that if there were a vote, that we would win the vote,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said at an outdoor press conference on their efforts.
Democrats told onlookers to call Mr. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and urge him to hold votes on gun-control measures, though leaders showed no signs of making such a commitment.
Members who participated in the sit-in said they had no plans to leave, leaving the chamber’s schedule and logistics in limbo as evening crept in.
“The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair,” Ms. Strong said.
The protest reached its climax around 10 p.m., as lawmakers recovered for a vote to override President Obama’s veto of their decision to reject his “fiduciary rule” on retirement advisers.
Mr. Ryan personally grabbed the gavel and called the vote, while Democrats reiterated their loud demands for gun-control measures and held up signs from the well of the chamber.
Democrats have zeroed-in on guns in the wake of this month’s terrorism-related shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, arguing that Omar Mateen’s rampage could have been avoided had Congress enacted a ban on gun sales to those on government watch lists, which are supposed to detail those suspected of having ties to terrorism.
The FBI has poked holes in that theory, saying that while Mateen had been investigated a few years ago, he had been removed from the list after the agency was unable to make a case against him.
Senators announced a bipartisan plan Tuesday to deny gun sales to those on the FBI’s heightened screening lists, trying to carve a middle path between the extremes that have dominated the debate so far and led to the failures of four measures on Monday.
On Wednesday, House Democrats signaled they won’t wait for the upper chamber.
“Rise up Democrats. Rise up Americans. This cannot stand. We will occupy this floor,” said Rep. John Larson, Connecticut Democrat.
House Republicans turned off C-SPAN’s cameras because the chamber wasn’t in session during much of the protest, prompting Democrats to use social media to live-stream their activities.
Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida read the names of the Orlando victims, while Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York led chants of, “No bill? No break!”
Though rare, sit-ins have occurred in the chamber before. Democrats took the floor amid a budget standoff in 1995, and Republicans in 2008 pleaded for more domestic drilling to reduce gas prices.
A House Republican leadership aide noted that Democrats not only shut off the chamber’s cameras eight years ago, but also the lights.
Tempers flared after the sun went down.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, shouted at the protesting Democrats with posters of the Orlando victims, saying “radical Islam killed these people.”
Earlier in the day, senators traversed the Capitol to stand — or sit, as it were — with their House counterparts Wednesday, including Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in December 2012.
Mr. Murphy conducted a 15-hour filibuster last week to demand votes on gun-control measures. But the Senate retreated into partisan corners Monday and rejected competing amendments that would have denied guns to those on terrorist-watch lists or expanded mental health reporting to the background check database.
Democrats said GOP proposals didn’t go far enough, while Republicans said the Democrats’ proposals trampled on the Second Amendment, denying Americans the right to buy a gun by ending up on one of the FBI’s secret watch lists.
Some House members want to take the fight even further than the Senate had.
“I would go for the assault weapons ban, for background checks, closing the gun loophole and then go steadily down,” Rep. Alcee Hastings, Florida Democrat, said in an interview.
Wednesday’s protest followed a Capitol visit from presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whose staff was made aware of the impending protest, according to Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Lewis, who was the driving force behind the sit-in, has thrown his weight behind Mrs. Clinton after backing President Obama instead during the Democratic primary eight years ago.
Mrs. Clinton mentioned Mr. Lewis in her statement on Juneteenth, which recognizes the historical end of slavery the U.S., alongside the likes of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday for his high-profile work on civil rights in the 1960s.
On Wednesday, he led his colleagues into the battle over guns.
“My colleagues and I have had enough,” Mr. Lewis said on Twitter. “We are sitting-in on the House Floor until we get a vote to address gun violence.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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