More than 100 youth climate protesters entered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office Monday to advocate for the “Green New Deal” and challenge McConnell’s plan to fast-track a vote on the resolution in the Senate.
The youth climate advocates, members of the national climate group The Sunrise Movement, were seen overflowing from McConnell’s office into the stairwell in the Russell Senate Office Building on Monday morning.
Protesters inside his office held up a sign that read, “Mitch, Look Us In The Eyes.”
“I am here because people in my community don’t have jobs, are starving and turning to opiods [sic] and dying. Mitch McConnell refuses to do anything about,” said 15-year-old Kentucky high school student Lily Gardner, according to a press release from Sunrise Movement.
Within hours of the protests taking place, several members of the group could be seen being escorted out of the office in handcuffs by Capitol Police.
{mosads}”As with all Kentuckians visiting D.C., we welcomed them to the office today. It’s worth noting that two weeks before, Senator McConnell had already announced that he will be bringing the Green New Deal up for a vote in the U.S. Senate,” McConnell spokesperson Stephanie Penn told The Hill.
The protesters delivered a petition containing 100,000 signatures to McConnell’s office calling on him to co-sponsor the “Green New Deal” resolution that was introduced in both the Senate and the House in early February by freshman lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
The nonbinding resolution is a sweeping environment and energy reform plan meant to set up the United States to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
It lays out, in part, a pathway for the country to transition to 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030.
McConnell announced two weeks ago that he would soon bring a vote on the resolution to the Senate floor — a move Republicans hoped would highlight disarray within the Democratic Party over the progressive-backed climate initiative.
Initially championed by Ocasio-Cortez to be the focus of a select committee in the House, the Green New Deal has met resistance by some Democrats who questioned the significance of the measure.
While Senate Democrats in recent weeks have pushed back on McConnell’s clear effort to divide the party, the vote will highlight disagreements among Democrats over just how to approach the issue of a warming globe.
McConnell did not say when the vote would take place, but the bill has little chance of passing the Senate.
The Sunrise Movement played a part in helping Ocasio-Cortez’s office draft the Green New Deal resolution.
The youth protesters have held multiple rallies to support the initiative at the Capitol this year, including staging their first sit-in at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office in the fall with Ocasio-Cortez present.
The group held a similar protest outside McConnell’s Kentucky-based office last week.