WASHINGTON — (CNN) House Democrats who decided to attend Friday’s inauguration say they plan to sport pins to show their support for Obamacare.
Close to 60 Democrats announced in recent days they would boycott President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration after Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and 1960s civil rights leader, said last week he didn’t believe Trump is a “legitimate president” in the wake of the US Intelligence Community assertion that Russians meddled with US elections, and said he didn’t plan to attend the ceremony at the US Capitol.
But the two-thirds of House Democrats who are going won’t use the term “Obamacare” and instead the pins will use the phrase “#ProtectOurCare.”
The pins, which are being handed out by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office, will tout support for the Affordable Care Act, the official title of the health care law enacted in 2010, and will be distributed before House Democrats head out to the platform on the West Front of the Capitol.
Lewis wrote a letter to fellow House Democrats on Wednesday urging those who were attending to show support for the health care law. He thanked his colleagues for supporting his decision to boycott, but said for those going they should “demonstrate their commitment to the work ahead by showing their solidarity,” on preserving Obamacare, which Trump and Republicans on the Hill are already working to dismantle as the first major move of the new Congress.
Texas Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey announced his decision to attend Trump’s inauguration on Thursday to “serve as a reminder to the President-elect that as Members of the US House of Representatives, my colleagues and I constitute a co-equal branch of government.”
He also said, referring to Lewis’s push to defend the ACA, “I will be proudly wearing a symbol of solidarity for my friend and colleague, Congressman John Lewis.”
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