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Congresswoman Arrested at Voting Rights Protest

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, got into ‘good trouble’ on Thursday when she was arrested  at a voting rights demonstration in the Capitol complex (watch above).

Beatty, wearing a “Protect Our Voting Rights” t-shirt, joined other demonstrators chanting “Free the Vote” and “End the Filibuster.”

The Capitol Police cuffed Beatty – and eight other protesters – with plastic ties before they were escorted to police vans. They were arrested for violating a D.C. law that prohibits “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.”

Politico points out the obvious comparison with the January 6th riots:

The scene of Capitol Police detaining a small number of nonviolent demonstrators, who had filed through metal detectors and cooperated with security screening, was in sharp contrast to the violence and destruction unleashed on Jan. 6, which resulted in few arrests on the scene.

“The responses to the rules of engagement are different,” Beatty told MSNBC.

Today, I stood in solidarity with Black women across the country in defense of our constitutional right to vote,” she added in a statement after her arrest. “We have come too far and fought too hard to see everything systematically dismantled and restricted by those who wish to silence our voice.”

Beatty tweeted ‘#GoodTrouble’ after her detention, a reference to the late Rep. John Lewis, a Civil Rights icon who encouraged nonviolent political disobedience.

The New York Times provides context on the fight for voting rights:

Democrats, who have narrow congressional majorities and need Republican votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, have expressed frustration for months over their inability to pass their expansive voting overhauls as Republican state legislatures rush to pass laws that restrict voting rights across the country.

President Biden this week called the fight against restrictive voting laws the “most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War,” even as he seemed to acknowledge that the legislation had little hope of passing.