Claudia Anthony "Hundreds arrested at Capitol protest on voting and campaign finance"

Hundreds of activists were arrested during a sit-in yesterday on the steps of the Capitol Building, as part of a week long protest known as Democracy Spring. The protest is aimed at the peoples' frustration of the political system which they feel is tilted toward the wealthy. Protesters are concerned, because this is the first election in over 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. On Monday, thousands of protesters marched in Washington, chanting “Money out, voters in." Members of the group sat on the building's eastern steps and were given three warnings by Capitol police to leave. It seems that earlier in the week, conservative news outlets described the protests and violent scenes, when in reality they were calm and peaceful. “We’re here because the government doesn’t represent all the people, and it should,” said Rachel Perkins, one member of the protesting group. These arrests do not seem to scare other civil disobedience groups, and there are more protests going on this week, with civil rights activist Delores Huerta and NAACP president Cornell Brooks  both expected to participate in them.

I think it's good for these people to speak out, and hopefully their protests will lead to healthy changes in the government. These sit-ins and protests remind me of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, when sit-ins were made popular by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

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