Ten people, many of them disabled, were arrested Thursday night after staging a two-day protest at the Denver office of Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., over the GOP healthcare bill.
The protesters arrived at Gardner’s office Tuesday morning and orchestrated a sit-in through Thursday evening. As they were arrested, the demonstrators chanted “Rather go to jail than to die without Medicaid,” as heard in a video of the protest published to Facebook.
The Denver chapter of ADAPT, a grassroots disability rights organization, organized the sit-in.
“Denver ADAPT is live at Camp Gardner. We are camped out in Senator Cory Gardner.s office in downtown Denver. We have been here continuously since 9:30 a.m. Tuesday June 27, 2017. We will remain here until Sen Gardner commits to vote no on the BCRA,” one of the activists said in the Facebook post, referencing the Better Care Reconciliation Act.
ADAPT, the national organization, also organized a “die-in” outside of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office last week to protest the Senate healthcare bill and its proposed cuts to Medicaid growth.
When the protesters arrived Tuesday morning, Gardner’s staff asked police to allow them to stay in the office.
The senator’s staff remained in the office overnight Tuesday and Wednesday to make sure police didn’t remove the protesters and took “several other significant steps to ensure they were comfortable and safe,” Casey Contres, a spokesman for Gardner, said.
But Denver police removed the protesters Thursday evening “due to several factors including concerns for their health and safety, and the impact of the protest on other tenants in the building,” Contres said.
“The top priority throughout this protest has been allowing these individuals to exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe environment,” Gardner’s office said in a statement released Thursday. “In order to allow this, staff have slept in the office for two nights and assisted and aided these individuals with several matters to ensure they were comfortable and safe. Earlier this evening, Denver police asked the individuals to leave. When they declined to leave, the police were forced to remove them due to several factors, including serious concerns for their healthy and safety.”
Gardner had met with individuals from the group before, and the senator’s healthcare policy staffer also had in-person meetings or phone calls with representatives from ADAPT on 16 different occasions since January.
The most recent meeting was June 22, Gardner’s office said.
Republicans were expected to vote on the Senate’s healthcare bill before leaving for the week-long July 4th recess, but McConnell ultimately delayed the vote after opposition from GOP senators grew.
