About a dozen protesters, slamming Republicans’ agenda on health care, gathered at the front porch of a Minnesota congressman’s house Wednesday morning to voice their displeasure using chants and signs.
“We are here because our Medicaid matters, our Medicaid matters,” the protesters chanted outside the front door of the home of Rep. Jason Lewis, R-Minn.
Stephen Bradford, Lewis’ communications director, told The Daily Signal in an email that a Democrat-affiliated organization, TakeAction Minnesota, was behind the stunt.
After making some noise, a video shows, they left some written material at the door. This edited version leaves out about 10 minutes of speeches, Bradford said:
Lewis, whose wife and two children were not home at the time, took to Facebook to address the incident.
“Appalled to find out my home and private property were invaded today by protesters while I was working in my congressional district,” Lewis wrote in a Facebook post. “Suffice it to say it is more than a bit disturbing to get a call from your neighbor saying his daughters were afraid and called him to contact the police.”
Lewis, 61, a House freshman, campaigned on “undoing” Obamacare and voiced his frustration when the Senate failed to pass a “skinny repeal” of the health care law July 28.
“Last night’s Senate capitulation was a political victory for the entrenched interests—from big insurance to big media—who fought so hard to preserve Obamacare,” Lewis said in a prepared statement at the time, adding:
But as all too often is the case, it was a defeat for hard-working Americans. I was proud to support real health care reform that passed the House and tried to actually fix the failed experiment in government-run health care, including the problems that even predate the ACA [Affordable Care Act].
But Senate Democrats, and a few wayward Republicans, refused to even send a compromise to a conference committee to work with the House. This is not acceptable and the U.S. Senate must simply change its dysfunction.
In their video, the protesters promise to return to the Lewis home.
“We’ll be back, we’ll be back,” they chant.
