How the Woman's March organizers used the Kavanaugh hearings to further their war on Trump

WASHINGTON – Every few minutes, shouting fills the second-floor chambers of the Hart Senate Office Building.

"Save Roe, vote no!" one woman yells. Another woman, wearing a red bandanna in the style of Rosie the Riveter, joins her: "Health care is a human right!"

The rows of reporters, typing feverishly on their laptops, look up. Senators stop midsentence. Officers lined against the walls of the chamber pounce on the women, dragging them out of the large wood-paneled room. 

This isn't chaos, though. It is a highly organized effort to disrupt and delay the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s choice for the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Cancel Kavanaugh!" Phoebe Hopps, president and founder of Women's March Michigan, chanted at Wednesday's hearing before being dragged out of the chamber and arrested with other protesters. 

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She couldn't stay in her home in the northwestern Michigan town of Kewadin while the Senate spent last week considering Kavanaugh for a seat on the highest court in the nation. 

"I told my husband that I had to get to D.C. because I knew what was on the line," said Hopps. "I used my airline (frequent flier) miles. My husband asked, 'Don’t you want to save these for a nice vacation?' And I was like, 'No! I need to be in D.C. right now.' It’s worth it. ... We need woman power."

The Women’s March organizers are a steady force, a persistent group that while doesn’t always gain national exposure for its efforts, has kept up pressure on Republicans and their conservative agenda. Even if they've been unable to alter the conservative path completely, they’ve made it clear they’re not going away as they find new and different ways to voice their often loud objections.

Some of the same individuals rallied against the separation of immigration families at the border. They helped young students organize massive rallies to counter gun laws. They rose up against the president's travel ban and helped boost women nominees in political races across the nation. They held gatherings in support of women's reproductive rights and access to health care. 

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The group's roots grew up out of the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Its first event was the massive Women's March on Washington – with hundreds of sister protests around the world – the day after Trump's 2107 inauguration. 

"I think we all realized that we hadn't been paying attention to all these issues until it was too late. It took one single enormous act for all of us to wake up – President Trump in the White House," said Alex Dodds, 34. 

Dodds attended the first Women's March event in 2017 and helped form a local group in the Washington area to keep up pressure on the Trump administration. She rallied against Kavanaugh this week and said his nomination could be one of the most long-lasting and encapsulating decisions the Trump administration and Republicans would make. 

"I think we've learned there are a lot of intersections of issues, whether it be women's health to immigration to guns, and Kavanaugh will have a huge deciding factor on all of them," she said. 

It seems at every turn, the Women's March organization has taken a stand against the Trump administration's controversial policies, sometimes headlining events and other times backing up or partnering with other activist groups in an attempt to slow or place a roadblock on the president's agenda. 

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Women's March organizers paired with students in Parkland, Florida, and across the nation after the February high school shooting, which killed 17 people, and assisted in planning both the school walkout protests and the March for Our Lives rallies. 

"We played a very strong role in organizing and mobilizing youth across the country and in fact from there, in the aftermath of that launch, we put out a call and said, 'Hey, who wants to start a youth chapter?" said Rachel O'Leary Carmona, chief operating officer of Women’s March National. About 170 local Youth Empower chapters were formed after that with an aim to register voters and create transformative social change in neighborhoods across the nation. 

It's not always marches. Sometimes the group creates letter writing campaigns or takes over a lawmakers office. Other times, like during the Kavanaugh hearings, it's showing civil disobedience and getting arrested. 

"It’s a spectrum and it’s a tactic and it’s one that we have deemed necessary because of the serious encroachments on civil and human rights that the Trump administration has performed," O'Leary Carmona said. 

She added the first march started a movement that has grown over time into an intricate network, many might call its members part of the "resistance."

"There are people all across the country and in fact all across the world who are working in collaboration to move the needle on issues that we articulated in our unity principles," she said. "It’s really easy to look at the headlines and say they’re here and they’re there and there’s these big mobilizations, but our chapters are really building power and pushing work in communities all around the world." 

The group and those like it have become a thorn in the side of Republicans, including the president, who recently suggested in an interview that protesting should not be allowed at the hearing. 

After seeing the protesters who gathered for Kavanaugh's hearings, Trump told the Daily Caller, a conservative website: "In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming."

"I don’t know why they don’t take care of a situation like that," Trump said. "I think it’s embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don’t even know what side the protesters are on."

But the Women's March organization has continued to attract followers like Barbara Bearden, who was one of the many arrested throughout the Kavanaugh protests. 

Bearden yelled "NO TRUMP PUPPET!" before she was arrested by officers. She says the $35 fine and discomfort of being handcuffed were worth it to voice her opposition to Kavanaugh's appointment. 

Wearing a "Be a Hero" T-shirt outside the Hart building, Bearden said she didn't know whether the protests would change the minds of any lawmakers during the hearings, which are over for now. The committee is expected to vote on his nomination in two weeks, leaving time for a full Senate vote before the high court’s 2018 term start on Oct. 1. 

Still, Bearden refused to sit on the sidelines of history. 

"When I look back at this point, I don't want to remember watching the news and not doing everything in my power to stick up for my beliefs," Bearden said. "So no, I don't know my actions will change things, but I would rather fight tooth and bone than let these moments go by without trying."