At least 70 Democratic members of the House have gone old-school, occupying the floor of the chambers with a sit-in to protest the Republican majority's inaction on gun control.
And you can only see it on social media.
The protest comes in the wake of the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12, which killed 49 people.
Since it began Wednesday morning with approximately 30 representatives, the action has grown — but you might never have known it. Media on the scene is not allowed to broadcast from the chamber because the House is not technically in session.
Media organizations including C-SPAN are not able to broadcast the scene because the House was not technically gaveled into session due to the protest.
SEE ALSO: Democrats end filibuster after GOP agrees to allow votes on two gun control proposals
Journalists are in the press area, but they are restricted from sending out any visual media of the event.
That's not true of the members of Congress, who have turned to social media tools to bring much-needed visuals to the story. Representative Charles Rangel used Periscope to broadcast the scene, while others tweeted and posted images to Facebook.
C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras.
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 22, 2016
Journalists expressed frustration about the inability to broadcast from the House chamber, but they risk removal and loss of their press credentials if they begin to send out visuals.
Our tax dollars pay to turn those lights on. They paid for those microphones. And yet we can’t view what’s happening on the House floor?
— Matt Viser (@mviser) June 22, 2016
To be clear, it's kinda ridiculous that there's a gallery full of reporters with camera phones and we're not allowed to broadcast this.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 22, 2016
@mattyglesias Would first be forced to leave gallery, then probably have my press badge suspended.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 22, 2016
With the cameras off, cable news coverage switched back and forth between covering the sit-in and not. But as members of congress began to tweet and Periscope their protest, others on Twitter picked up what was happening.
More politicians, activists and others began tweeting using, primarily, the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak, a reference to passing a gun control bill.
As the hashtag began to trend more heavily, cable news channels had no choice but to pick up whatever video they could. They reran blurry pictures tweeted by the accounts of members of congress and sent reporters out to grab individual interviews with members of the sit in.
Among those leading the sit-in is Georgia Democrat John Lewis, who helped pioneer the nonviolent sit-ins that helped jumpstart the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
It's an unusually dramatic action by a group of elected officials at the highest level of government in decades, and it comes two days after the Senate failed to pass any gun control measure after a series of four votes.
Colin Daileda contributed reporting.
via Social Media http://on.mash.to/28Qc592
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