Last week, the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and Democracy for America (DFA) took to the metro with Representative Gerry Connelly, well, a cutout of him anyway. Volunteers asked passing metro riders if they would like to take a picture with the cutout for fun, and make a call to Representative Connolly and Senator Warner in support of a public option and a health care reform bill. The event made for some great hangin-with-Connolly interviews (with some unexpected street-side musical accompaniment)...
The cutout, albeit fun to pose with, was there to send a very serious message to the Representative and other elected officials who are waffling on their support for a Public Option backed health care reform bill. It was an expression of frustration on the part of the DFA and VOP that Rep. Connolly appears to listen mostly to wealthy industry lobbyists, while ordinary citizens are forced to settle for a cutout. They feel that it is too important of an issue for a representative of the people to passivly decide upon and they want their congressmen to take an active role in ensuring its swift passage. This debate has gone on for an exceedingly long amount of time, but as the fight to pass a health care reform bill finally near the finish line, the DFA and VOP appear strong in their resolve to ensure a passage of a healthcare reform bill with a public option.
VOP uploaded a bunch of their pictures from the afternoon to their Flickr site, which we have included below...
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