3rd GENERATION KENNEDY TO GIVE RESPONSE TO TRUMP SOTU SPEECH

…Rep. Joseph Kennedy III

 

The State-of-the-Union speech has become a place for congressional members to make political statements.

 

Every Congressional Lawmaker is allowed one guest pass for the president’s State-of-the-Union (SOTU) address, and it’s very common for those members of Congress to use their invitations to make a political statement.

 

Joseph Kennedy III, the 37 year old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, has served in Congress since 2013.  Even though he has maintained a low-profile, rank-and-file existence on Capitol Hill, he is considered a rising star in his party.  The young Joe Kennedy has been chosen to give the Democratic Party’s formal response to President Trump’s State of the Union address this week.

 

This Kennedy is the only member of the famous president’s family who is in national politics and he could easily move up to a higher office in the coming years.  That is, given his name, his pedigree and the fact that he is among the younger members in an increasingly aging House Democratic party.  The party has also asked Virginia state Delegate, Elizabeth Guzman, the first Hispanic woman elected to the Virginia House, to deliver the party’s formal response in Spanish.

Bill Nye the TV Science Guy will be the guest of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), whose nomination for being head of NASA has languished for months in the Senate.  (This is mainly because Rep. Bridenstine is totally lacking in any knowledge or background in science.)

 

The announcement of Kennedy giving the response came as at least five House Democrats say they plan to boycott Trump’s address Tuesday. Other lawmakers are planning to bring guests as diverse as Bill Nye, and even Miss America, Cara Mund, plus some young undocumented immigrants and Ricky Taylor, a Trump supporter known on Twitter as the “Deplorable Vet.”

 

Heightened tensions following Trump’s “s---hole” comments about Haiti and African nations, have caused Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) to not attend the speech.

 

“I cannot in all good conscience be in a room with what he has said about so many Americans,” Lewis said on MSNBC after news of the Trump comments broke. “I just cannot do it. I wouldn’t be honest with myself.”  Jayapal said in a video that the group will hold its own meeting Tuesday night to discuss “these racist policies that are being put out of the White House.”

 

Among the House’s many Trump critics, some plan to bring guests whose presence will underscore their arguments with the White House rather than skip the speech altogether.

 

Several House Democrats plan to bring guests affected by the immigration debate, including at least three who have invited young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers,” who received legal protection under the now-canceled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Two invited women with a family member who was deported by the Trump administration.

One of those women, Cindy Garcia, received national attention this month after her husband of 15 years, Jorge Garcia, was deported to Mexico from Detroit. He was brought to the United States as a 10-year-old and had sought legal status for years.

 

The opposite side of the debate will also be represented in the visitors’ gallery: Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) will bring Tommy Fisher, president and CEO of Fisher Industries, whose parent company is constructing a prototype for Trump’s desired US-Mexico border wall.

 

Female Democrats’ are protesting sexual harassment and assault and they will be evident in their clothing: At least two dozen are planning to wear black, as the actresses did at the recent Golden Globe Awards.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a vocal critic of the policies governing sexual harassment in congressional offices, will bring the president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, Fatima Goss Graves. The group manages a legal-defense fund for women who face sexual misconduct in the workplace.

 

Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) will bring Danielle McGuire, a historian and author who has written about the late Recy Taylor√, a black woman in Abbeville√, Ala., who was raped by six white men in 1944. Taylor’s assailants were never indicted.

 

In a tribute to Taylor, who died in December, members of the Congressional Black Caucus will also wear red pins.

 

Ever since the GOP Rep. from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, yelled “You lie” at President Obama’s SOTU speech in 2009, the speech has become a time and place for congressional members to make political statements.  That has now become a normal issue for the annual SOTU speech.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2018