Democratic Columbus Congresswoman Joyce Beatty was arrested Thursday as she participated in a voting rights protest in the Hart Senate Office Building.
Beatty and civil rights leaders were calling on Senators to pass the For the People Act, which would curtail many of the restrictions passed on the state level following the 2020 presidential election.
As she walked into the Hart building, Beatty led others in a chant of “End the filibuster,” which has let minority Republicans block the bill in the Senate. The voting rights legislation passed the House in March but has stalled in the Senate after failing in a procedural vote last month.
Beatty and some other Democrats have called for an end to filibuster rules, while Republicans and Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin have said they will not support such a change.
Speaking on Capital Hill just before being arrested, Beatty evoked Civil Rights era imagery, saying “We might as well have the dogs and the hoses because we don’t have the Voting Rights Act, and that’s why we need to march in these streets, we need to march as those who were followers of Martin Luther King and John Lewis.”
Following her arrest, Beatty tweeted “#goodtrouble,” a nod to a famous John Lewis quote encouraging people to “get into good trouble, necessary trouble.”