A seat in first lady Michelle Obama’s guest box will be left vacant for the victims ‘who no longer have a voice’ and to remind politicians of their responsibility
When Barack Obama gives his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, one seat in the first lady’s box will be empty. Announcing Michelle Obama’s guest list on Sunday, the White House said the seat would represent “the victims of gun violence who no longer have a voice”.
Other guests on the list will include a once-homeless veteran, a Syrian refugee living in Michigan, Paris train attack hero Spencer Stoneand Jim Obergefell, named plaintiff in the supreme court case which last year legalised same-sex marriage.
Daniel Malloy, the governor of Connecticut who instituted gun control reformsafter the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting of 2012, will also attend.
“We leave one seat empty in the First Lady’s State of the Union Guest Box for the victims of gun violence who no longer have a voice,” a White House statement read, “because they need the rest of us to speak for them.”
President Obama’s executive actions to further gun control reform otherwise stymied by the Republican-controlled Congress were announced in a tearful speech on Monday, and duly provoked fierce opposition.
Later in the week, the president made his case at a town hall meeting in Virginia, at which he was confronted by Taya Kyle, the widow of Chris Kyle, the soldier who became the subject of the book and film American Sniper and was himself shot dead in Texas.
On Sunday, Florida senator Marco Rubio was one of a number of Republican candidates to voice their anger over Obama’s actions. He said if the president could take away the American people’s guns, “he would”.
“This kind of stuff seems to work for their politics but it’s not based in reality,” the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, responded, in an appearance after Rubio on ABC.
The empty seat would, the statement said, “remind every single one of our representatives that it’s their responsibility to do something about this”.
Also among Michelle Obama’s guests on Tuesday will be Lisa Jaster, one of the first women to graduate from the US army’s notoriously tough ranger school, and Kathleen O’Toole, Seattle’s chief of police. They will be joined by community activists, veterans and a Dreamer, a child of an undocumented migrant.
The Republican response to the State of Union address will be delivered by Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina.
[Source:- the gurdian]