Hundreds arrested at Capitol in first day of Democracy Spring

On the 11th of April, a solid week of civil disobedience protests began with a massive sit-in on the Capitol East Steps and in front of them. Democracy Spring is demandng that the campaign cash and bribery used by the wealthy and corporations to effectively own and operate Congress, regulatory agencies, etc be shut down entirely. Bus after bus had to be brought up to handle arrestees, and a little after 3PM police ran out of space and had to temporarily stop arresting people according to one report.

Update Day 2: hundreds of elders sit-in at the US Capitol, more arrests

At one point the report was "hundreds arrested, hundreds more waiting." Someone suggested when cops were temporarily out of space that they use the seats inside occupied by Members of Congress for events like the State of the Union for arrestees. After all. those are normally occupied by people who defy other laws like the few remaining campaign finance laws anyway. This is being called the largest civil disobedience in the entire history of the US Capitol. This, in turn, was but the first day of a string of daily sit-ins that will continue every weekday until April 18. Each day, activists will step off at Noon from Colombus Circle in front of Union Station.

Meanwhile, certain mainstream media outlets (CNN in particular) were called out by protesters who could not see any evidence that their cameramen were anywhere to be found. Coverage on those mainstream outlets that mentioned it all all was very thin.

These protests are demanding the passage of 4 pieces of legislation to put the brakes on money in politics. Another demand made by many is that Citizens United be overturned, which may be necessary to prevent any other restrictions on campaign cash bribery from being overturned. In addition, protesters are demanding the end of the recent wave of voter suppression by such means as voter ID laws. Those laws exist exclusively in GOP controlled states such as Virginia, and are based on analysis showing that people without photo ID's are less likely to vote Republican than those who have photo ID's. This is a backdoor way to keep some lower income people, students (no local ID) and people of color from being permitted to vote.

Video of the first Democracy Spring sit-in on the Capitol East Steps