Occupiers disrupt redistricting hearing

From Tom Barnes in Harrisburg:

After chanting loudly for 40 minutes against being excluded from government decisions -- enough so to bring a Legislative Reapportionment Committee meeting in Harrisburg to a halt -- a crowd of about two dozen protesters left the room hollering, "Have a great day!"

After crashing the meeting late this morning, they yelled "We are the people!" and "We are here apolitically!" and "We want to testify!" even as a Capitol police officer walked in the meeting room just after noon.

Several claimed to belong to the Occupy Harrisburg group, an offshoot of the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement that began two months ago in New York City.

"This hearing is unjust and ineffectual!" the protestors hollered. "Governments don't pick us, we pick the government!"

A lawyer for the committee said in the midst of the chanting that members would try to wait the protestors out and continue with the meeting.

Disregarding the noise, Barry Kauffman, director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, began reading his prepared statement on reapportionment to the committee even though no one could hear it.