It’s unclear how many meetings protesters will be successful in setting up. Occupy goes establishment

The Occupy movement is moving from Main Street to the halls of Congress.

Hundreds of protesters are expected to descend on Washington Tuesday for its “Occupy Congress” effort. But this time, they don’t want to just rail against the system — they plan to work within it.


Occupiers are setting up meetings with lawmakers and their staff to push for their set of legislative priorities — the kind of lobbying typical of established causes and interest groups.

?”We’re helping people from all over the country set up meetings with their representatives if they want to go that route,” Caty McClure of Occupy D.C. told POLITICO.?

It’s unclear how many meetings occupy protesters from across the country will be successful in setting up.

McClure declined to discuss which lawmakers occupiers would like to meet, or how many meetings they’ve set up.

One senior House Democratic staffer said some offices might not take meetings with Occupy members.

“We would want to approach it with caution,” the aide said, whose boss has not been contacted to set up a meeting. “I don’t know what we would do personally. It would depend on what they were asking. We never turn people away unless there’s a security reason, or if it is just going to be more of a mess than makes sense.”

The push among some members of the group to work within the establishment political system is a significant transition for the loosely affiliated entities that have prided themselves on their anarchist roots.

Occupiers — who at times have been criticized for their lack of concrete policy positions while they railed against corporate greed and economic inequality — also are beginning to get more vocal on specific legislative goals. In Washington, they have begun to take positions on issues as wide ranging as the National Defense Authorization Act and the potential threat of online piracy legislation.

The shift comes as occupy language has infiltrated the political mainstream. Most recently, GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have channeled the Occupy movement in their attacks against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney’s tenure at private equity firm Bain Capital.

Even after backing of his most aggressive comments, Gingrich this week in South Carolina continued to talk about “crony capitalism” on the campaign trail. Texas Gov. Perry also has made hitting Romney on his private equity roots a mainstay of his campaigning across the state, saying that Bain “looted” businesses.

Republicans aren’t alone in trying to channel the Occupy sentiments. Democrats — including President Barack Obama — have used the group’s fighting for the 99 percent mantra on the campaign trail.

Democratic strategists said that establishment politics tapping into the Occupy narrative just shows how strong the group’s sentiment is across the country.

“It’s clear Americans are really fed up with a rigged system against working people,” Democratic operative Stephen Rosenthal said. “They’ve done more to underscore that and dramatize it in the last few months than many of us have been doing for decades.”

Still, not everybody affiliated with different occupy movements is supportive of protesters trying to work with Congress.

“I’d be very surprised,” said Kevin Zeese of Occupy Washington, D.C., who lives in Freedom Plaza. Zeese said occupiers aren’t about lobbying Congress, they are trying to get away from money and politics. Zeese cited a March 30 event focused on a social forum of ideas as creating a real conversation about the future of the country.

“I think you are going to see the Occupy movement going deeper and stronger. The conversation we have is going to be a real conversation, not the fake conversation by politicians.”

Clarification: The original version of this story referenced a report in Roll Call from December that Occupiers were trying to meet with the Progressive Caucus. POLITICO was unable to confirm the report independently. The reference was removed.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Leigh Munsil @ 01/13/2012 03:51 PM Clarification: The original version of this story referenced a report in Roll Call from December that Occupiers were trying to meet with the Progressive Caucus. POLITICO was unable to confirm the report independently. The reference was removed.