Heroes!

Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) has not had a town hall meeting with constituents in 456 days and counting. Despite a record number of calls and visits from constituents, Sen. Gardner has been missing in action when it comes to Colorado. Even though he was one of the 13 male senators tapped by Mitch McConnell to create this disaster of a bill, he claimed as late as last week that he hadn’t even seen the bill. Even with the knowledge the Congressional Budget Office says 22 million will lose their health care insurance and the Medicaid cuts would be devastating, Sen. Gardner says he's "still on the fence":

As for the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which on Monday found the loss of insurance for 22 million Americans would come with a $321 billion reduction to the federal deficit over roughly the next decade, Gardner said he hadn’t finished reading it but that he wanted a second opinion. “We need to see some analysis outside of CBO because I think there is some information that we’ve got to get from the (insurance) marketplace as well,” Gardner said.

Some of the Coloradans who have the most to lose, both from a health and financial standpoint, are Colorado’s disabled citizens who rely on Medicaid. In a bold protest launched Tuesday, they showed up at Sen. Gardner’s office and refused to leave, spending the night and carrying on their protest today. They hadn’t planned on an overnight visit, but the situation changed once they got to the office:

The protest quickly turned into a sit-in after participants were reportedly denied access to the senator’s office. “Police shut down the elevators, the fire department shut down the fire stairs,” Jose Torres-Vega said. “They came in about 4 o’clock this afternoon and said they were going to start arresting folks,” Morris said.

Fortunately, Sen. Gardner and his staff had the good sense to call off the arrests. Their reason for sleeping in the hallway was heartbreaking:

When asked why they would choose to spend all night in the hallway, Morris responded, “because they spend the night in a hallway in this building or they spend the rest of their life in an institution where they’re locked away.”

Last night they held hands and chanted, “We’d rather go to jail than die without Medicaid!”

Carrie Ann Lucas is one of the protesters and she’s been using Facebook Live to gain awareness of their protest. She says they are all sore from sleeping on the floor and extremely tired, in need of coffee and Cherry Pepsi to keep them going today.

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You can view her live videos here.

These people are heroes, one and all. What will it take for Sen. Cory Gardner to meet with them? This morning the Senate Majority Leader announced they were leaving early for the Fourth of July weekend. Will he come home and meet with them? Pledge to protect them?