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Capitol View®
Mark Zdechlik

Ellison presses for House vote to end shutdown without conditions

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Ellison
(MPR Photo/Mark Zdechlik)

A couple of dozen people, most of them union members, gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis Monday morning to call for an end to the government shutdown.

Fifth District DFL Congressman Keith Ellison criticized Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner for refusing to allow the House to vote on a resolution to fund the government that doesn't also include conditions.  Last week the House approved a variety of what are known as continuing resolutions, but they included calls to either defund or delay the Affordable Care Act, conditions that were unacceptable to the U.S. Senate and President Obama.

Ellison said Republicans are simply trying to deprive working-class Americans of health care under the Affordable Care Act.

"Americans are hip to the game. They know that this shutdown is wrong. They know it was premeditated," he said.

Republicans are trying to do legislatively what they were unable to do at the ballot box, Ellison said.

"The guy who said  Americans are going to get health care won the election by 5 million votes," he said, "and so instead of saying, OK, we agree with the Supreme Court, we agree with the legislative process, we agree with the American people's election, they say we're going to shut the government down, we're going to risk defaulting on America's debts and we're going to dis-employ 800,000 people are so we can deprive the working class from health care."

Furloughed government workers are planning a rally Tuesday outside a federal building near the airport where more workers are expected to be sent home because of the shutdown.