News conference at 12:30P Tuesday outside Hart Building
Contact: Martha Waggoner | mwaggoner@breachrepairers.org
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss how Sen. Joe Manchin’s inaction and lies about scarcity are a form of political violence against 140 million poor and low-wealth people in America and his delay on voting rights is allowing a political coup to sweep through state legislatures, threatening our democracy
The PPC:NCMR will hold the news conference at 12:30 p.m. ET Tuesday outside the senator’s DC office at the Hart Building regarding a nonviolent sit-in.
Grassroots leaders from the West Virginia PPC and from across the country will be joined by the co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival — Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.
Manchin, who met virtually with the Poor People’s Campaign earlier this year, has offered to talk again with the activists, but has been unavailable at every subsequent request. Meanwhile, he has continued to stall both the Build Back Better plan and voting rights protections, despite his support for the For the People Act in 2019.
The program will be livestreamed here.
West Virginia PPC leaders will call his office on Tuesday morning and bring copies of a letter to the senator, demanding the same, to the Hart building. Over 9,400 people have signed the letter.
“We are infuriated and fed up that you continue to care more about lobbyists and corporations than you do about hard working poor and low-income people of West Virginia….We, the West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, represent the 710,000 West Virginians who are poor and low-income and the 351,000 West Virginians without a living wage,” the letter reads. “We are the 187,000 children living in poverty in West Virginia and the more than 108,000 people without health insurance. We represent the 346,000 children who will lose benefits from the Child Tax Credit if you keep trying to undermine the Build Back Better plan.”
The news conference will be held one day after the PPC:NCMR held a rally and direct action in DC, where about 70 people were arrested, including Rev. Dr. Theoharis, as they demanded passage of Build Back Better, voting rights protections and an end to the filibuster.