Lawmakers bickered, protesters shouted and senators came to take in the moment as a House committee weighed a critical portion of a bill to enact President Trump’s domestic agenda.
As he called to order a marathon committee session to consider Medicaid cuts and other critical pieces of Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill, Representative Brett Guthrie of Kentucky surveyed a packed hearing room on Tuesday afternoon and asked for a respectful debate.
“I know we have deep feelings on these issues, and we may not all agree on everything,” said Mr. Guthrie, a Republican who is in his first term as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
It was not to be.
Minutes later, a group of protesters in the back of the Capitol Hill hearing room began shouting at lawmakers to “keep your greedy hands off our Medicaid.”
They drowned out the chairman’s calls for order, and Capitol Police officers ultimately removed five people — three in wheelchairs — as the dozens of lawmakers on the panel looked on. (The Capitol Police later said that officers had arrested 26 people for illegally protesting inside a congressional building.)
The disruptions were a raucous kickoff to a meeting that was expected to go all night and well into Wednesday — one committee member estimated it could take as long as 28 hours — as Republicans and Democrats sparred over the plan, a key part of major legislation to enact President Trump’s domestic agenda.
It unfolded as the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee met to consider a $2.5 trillion tax proposal that would extend Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts; temporarily fulfill his campaign pledges not to tax tips or overtime pay; roll back subsidies for clean energy; and create a new type of tax-advantaged investment account for children. A third panel, the House Agriculture Committee, was to meet Tuesday night to begin considering another piece of the bill that would slash nutrition assistance to help raise money for the plan.
