Lobbying The Big Guy

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Okay, this is a new one on me. Our colleague Sophia Yan reports that public option advocates in Connecticut have come up with a new kind of lobbying:

A group of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Unitarian Universalist clergy andmembers will be praying this Sunday evening for Senator Joe Lieberman to support passage of a public option.

Senator Lieberman has said he will join a filibuster of any health care
legislation that includes a public option. “If the bill stays as it is, I
will not be a part of the 60 votes to get it off the floor to a conference
committee,” he told TIME in late October.

But some of his constituents, the Interfaith Fellowship
for Universal Health Care, think there may be another way of influencing the famously pious Senator. “Health care is a right, not a privilege,” says Rabbi Stephen Fuchs, co-chair of the Interfaith Fellowship. “It’s appalling [that] our senator not only isn¹t going to vote for it, but is threatening a filibuster,” Fuchs says.

Participants will meet at the local high school and march across the street to the Senator¹s home. “We’re expecting a great gathering,” says Pastor Abraham Hernandez and Fellowship co-chair.

This isn’t the first cry from Lieberman’s constituents. Just last week,
some stormed his Washington office, protesting his filibuster threat,
chanting “Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!” and “Everyone in and no one out, universal health care now!” (A few were arrested.)