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Sen. Kennedy again invites custodian to State of the Union

Proctor, a Washington native, has worked through Goodwill of Greater Washington for four years as part of the AbilityOne program, which helps employ more than 45,000 people who have disabilities. The program’s precursor was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.

To Proctor, 33, who works during the day in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, being able to attend the State of the Union as Kennedy’s guest was an honor. Before the address, Kennedy showed Proctor the Senate Republican cloakroom and the Senate floor, before introducing her to about a dozen other senators and their guests.

„I’m going to keep my ticket forever and show my kids,“ Proctor said.

Typically, lawmakers’ State of the Union guests have included celebrities, activists, first-responders from recent tragedies and private figures who highlight policy successes or failures. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), for example, invited an activist in 2019 who confronted former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) during the contentious confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.

For those in the opposition party, guests are their only way — apart from an official response — that members can rebut the president on a night when he touts his accomplishments. The president’s guests are often chosen to highlight perceived successes of the current administration.

This year, a number of lawmakers are bringing health-care providers, caretakers and people struggling with diseases to spotlight high prescription drug prices and insurance costs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose position grants her more guest invites than other members, will bring a physician and constituents living with diabetes, among others. In remarks to reporters earlier Tuesday, Pelosi said Democrats are bringing these guests, in part, to demonstrate the realities of health care in the U.S. and to battle “the misrepresentations made by the president” about health care policy they anticipated he would make in his address.

“Health care, health care, health care: the three most important issues that affect America’s working families,” Pelosi said. “That’s why tonight, we have so many guests who have taught us so much about how important the Affordable Care Act has been to them.”

Democrats won the House back in 2018 in part due to a health-care focused campaign message that promised to protect Obamacare from Republicans’ efforts to repeal the law.

Others are bringing guests connected to such issues as immigration, foreign policy and gun reform.

Trump’s guests include a Gold Star family, multiple veterans and U.S. Border Patrol’s second-in-command.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced he would bring gun reform advocate Andrea Chamblee, the widow of John McNamara — one of five killed in the June 2018 shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) invited Courtney Wild, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse whose name is also featured in victims’ rights legislation the congresswoman introduced last year. “By attending this year’s SOTU as my distinguished guest, Courtney is helping me send a clear message that women are done with being treated as second class citizens in our own country,” Speier said in her announcement.

Joining Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) will be Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed by U.S. intelligence to have been murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. In announcing Cengiz as his guest, Connolly said he was sending a message to the president to hold Saudi Arabia accountable.

Nathan Law, a Hong Kong democracy advocate and political figure currently in graduate school at Yale, will be a guest of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who said he wanted to signify support for pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, where activists have been waging a fight against suppression by the mainland Chinese government.

Heather Caygle contributed to this report.

Source: politico.com
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